Worst Jobs in Science

September 25, 2003 12:48 PM

The worst jobs in Science. Brought to you by Popular Science. Everything from Flatus Odor Judge to Metric System Advocate.
posted by Ufez Jones (18 comments total)

Before even looking, I just knew barnyard masturbator would be on the list. And there it was. Very funny link Ufez, thanks...
posted by vito90 at 1:03 PM on September 25, 2003

I disagree with # 10 on the list. I have a two year postdoc which is fantastic. Pays decently, doesn't demand much, leaves a lot of time for reading and writing.
posted by Seth_Messinger at 1:04 PM on September 25, 2003

t-shirts, cool!!
posted by archimago at 1:20 PM on September 25, 2003

Excellent find.

Yay, Ufez!
posted by brittney at 1:25 PM on September 25, 2003

Great link.
posted by ZachsMind at 1:35 PM on September 25, 2003

Some of these are funny, but # 16, U.S. Stem Cell Researcher, is just sad. This should be one of the most exciting and rewarding fields in science, but in the U.S. we've effectively sabotaged it.
posted by homunculus at 1:56 PM on September 25, 2003

The Prison Rape Researcher (#8) is quite sad as well. But the icon for "inspires hatred" almost makes up for it.
posted by Ufez Jones at 2:12 PM on September 25, 2003

I find the "Endangered Species Ecologist" incredibly sad, having done some work in that field. Sob-story time. There are three Yellow-Bellied Gliders left in South Australia. Two males and a female. Isolated in a tiny patch of native vegetation surrounded on all sides by inpenetrable pine plantation. And the males have gone a bit queer. The population really has no chance in hell of replenishing - even if they did breed, there's no forest left for the juveniles to migrate to. It's just a matter of time before they die, and Petaurus australis can be declared extinct in South Australia. It depresses me everytime I think about it.
posted by Jimbob at 4:59 PM on September 25, 2003

"...but in the U.S. we've effectively sabotaged it."

Not "we," but Shrub and the Religious Right have sabotaged it, trying to keep Man from playing God. Then of course we go around and take people's lives with guns, playing God. However, taking lives is a completely different form of playing God than saving lives. Of couse, Shrub's on the side of right cuz he's using all that might. Right?
posted by ZachsMind at 5:18 PM on September 25, 2003

Hmmm. They didn't include the scenario of three years as Technician Grade III bottle-washer taking tedious-to-the-point-of-nervous-breakdown magnetic measurements on rock samples while being madly in unrequited love with the PhD student who was unavailable through having some kind of pretentious platonic amour with the supervisor. That was why I quit academic science.
posted by raygirvan at 5:21 PM on September 25, 2003

I doubt it was platonic.
posted by Jimbob at 5:27 PM on September 25, 2003

On stem cells, this is interesting and promising to anyone with heart problems: Report indicates stem cells need aid.

On extinction, this is troubling: No protection for many threatened species.
posted by homunculus at 5:28 PM on September 25, 2003

Not "we," but Shrub and the Religious Right have sabotaged it

Yep, you're exactly right.

This article is a year old, but I think it holds just as true today: Stem Cell Research Not Yet Booming.
posted by homunculus at 5:33 PM on September 25, 2003

>11. METRIC SYSTEM ADVOCATE

"So we have John Wilkes to blame for the United States not being a metric nation."...

Some conflicting information:

the U.S. and Myanmar
the U.S., Liberia and Myanmar.
the U.S, Borneo and Brunei
posted by philfromhavelock at 8:04 PM on September 25, 2003

let me just say that i WISH we used the metric system (hell, i use it for the government work, but i guess we're all too dumb and old to change)

ok, now back to your thread in progress...
posted by NGnerd at 9:21 PM on September 25, 2003

Great link!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 2:31 AM on September 26, 2003

Speaking of the metric system, my mom and I drove up to Minnesota from Atlanta this summer. Along the way, I noticed that outside of Nashville, they had signs with both mile AND kilometer markers.
posted by jmd82 at 1:07 PM on September 26, 2003

jimbob

Opinion was divided. Whatever ... it was a shit job. My only consolation is that the research based on it is garbage, or at least inaccurate. Sit at a ruddy great magnet, doing work you don't like for people you don't like, taking measurements whose general pattern is [x, y, -x, -y, x] with random scatter measurement error, you soon realise that you only need to measure x and y and invent the other three readings.
posted by raygirvan at 6:51 PM on September 26, 2003