Friday, June 3, 2016

To get ahead, learn a useful skill

By Mouser the King Cat

My personal assistant fields a certain media question regularly: Should my offspring go into broadcasting? 

Well, absolutely – if they can absorb enough science to get a degree in meteorology and look great after getting up at 3 in the morning. Otherwise pursue something practical, like long-haul trucking or operating a forklift. (I’m including women; why not be the first Miss Vermont certified to drive a forklift?) 

Anyway, CareerCast.com, one of hundreds of websites carrying job listings, has checked in with its take on the most overrated jobs of 2015. To the surprise of no one, broadcaster is high on the list. Check out the median salary: $29,790 a year. (That’s median, meaning half make more and half less. Because of the big money made by a relative few, the average would be much higher.) 

Other professions on the overrated list are attorney and architect, but a much higher paycheck usually accompanies the stress. (Student loans could be a long-term problem.) 

The most underrated job on CareerCast’s list is accountant. The median salary is $63,550 in a field expected to grow nicely in the coming years. For the most part, accountants spend low-stress days putting numbers into software, which performs all those nasty calculations that so vexed their grandfathers. Clients are genteel and moneyed. Nobody looks down on accountants the way they would a lawyer or bureaucrat. 

Personally, my #1 profession combines obscene earnings and not being tied to a desk: Independent plumber.

That’s another good idea, Miss Vermont. Today we honor Atlanta’s Jane Withers, a versatile actress (and top 10 box office draw in 1937 and 1938). She starred in dozens of commercials for Comet cleanser as “Josephine the Plumber.” Jane is still with us, now 90. Here is one of her commercials, courtesy of YouTube


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