20 east

But I did, didn’t I. I told you that you simply can’t trust anyone any more. When they say “This is bad for you”, it turns out to be good and in this case, the opposite.

Now we find that something as gob-smackingly obviously good for you as vitamin pills do, in fact, increase your risk of an early death by up to 16 per cent!

What’s the definition of “early death”? Earlier than what? How do they know when you’re supposed to die?

16%. Interesting number, wonder how they worked that out? Is it another dodgy statistic?

Ace reporter, Chloe Dowley, gives some tips on which careers you should be following to enjoy life, be less stressed and that will give you more freedom, creativity & personal satisfaction. I found the list rather strange.

1. Accountant – “a balanced profit and loss sheet can offer a restful escape from the stress of complex office politics.”. Yes indeedy folks, just think of the satisfaction you’ll get from balancing those books! Accountancy is full of freedom. All this talk of month end, year end, putting together next years plan, paying the staff on time, sending enough money to the taxman, the VAT lady, chasing bad debt, paying invoices and all that, it’s just a load of hogwash! In accountancy, you are free as a bird! Your time is your own and you can do what you like, when you like. No stress either, miss a few of these deadlines and nobody is likely to notice. As for creativity, those numbers are just for guidance purposes, you can play with them how you like.
2. Preschool Teacher – “you can make up for that lost sleep when your students enjoy their post-lunchtime naps.”. That’s providing you’re not teaching somebody like my daughter who hardly ever slept during the day, also providing you’re able to fall asleep yourself at the drop of a hat mid-afternoon and lastly that you’re able to watch over the kids while you’re sleeping. Why would you be short of sleep anyway? No homework to set or mark and probably finish your working day at a reasonable time. All that shopping after work, perhaps? Would you be getting paid enough to go shopping? I’m sure this can be a creative and satisfying occupation but where’s the freedom? Tied all day long to a bunch of snotty Herberts, most of whom are just dying to do something really stupid and injure themselves or another kid. Can you imagine the lawsuits if you fail to notice little Johnny poking princess Jade’s eye out with the Transformer’s rocket launcher?
3. Nursing Assistant – “delivers the feel-good perks of a medical career without the stress of med school or week ends on-call.”. Chloe obviously has experience of Poland to be able to deliver this line. The feel-good perks presumably being the cash paid by relatives of patients in the hope of encouraging you to do your job properly? Freedom – very little I would have thought. Patients are going to need whatever they need whenever they need it and you’re ’supposed’ to react at that time. Creativity? Experimenting to see what happens when you give the wrong drugs, perhaps? Seeing how long Mrs X can go without a wash or a toilet?
4. Financial Planner – “Though spending your own money can produce high levels of anxiety, helping others manage their funds can be just the opposite.”. You see, this is why we have a credit crunch. I’m having difficulty typing while I’m laughing so much.
5. Massage Therapist / Physical Therapy Assistant - “if you incorporate some of these exercises into your own daily routine, you could have a recipe for a tension-free workday.”. I think her general thrust here is that you should give yourself massages in-between clients. Were you an Orang Utan, very strong and with very long arms, that might be possible but then you’d also look extremely cute, like this and you wouldn’t need to work for a living anyway because some German nature lover would buy you a forest and loads of food and stuff:



6. Pastry Chef – “It’s hard to get stressed when your office smells of butter, sugar, and cinnamon.”. Hmmm, but what about when the head chef is screaming at you because the cakes you made at 05:00 this morning taste like “@#$%^&*!!!!”? Anyway, I shall try smearing my desk with those ingredients today and see if it helps. Might work best if I smear them all over my computer screen.
7. Graphic Design – “Working for yourself can give you a tremendous amount of flexibility”. I think she might have been able to pull this one off. Graphic design probably does tick all the boxes, unless in a high pressure marketing environment, which probably accounts for a large percentage of jobs. Still, she’s ignored all the really good points and picked on the flexibility of being self employed and how you can balance your home and work life, which could apply to plumbery and a thousand other jobs too. All very well until there are bills to be paid, then the home life tends to take a back seat to earning money!
8. Desktop Support – “computer support specialists use their expertise to help the rest of us deal with the stress of malfunctioning technology”. I can see why she gave up after only eight careers. By this point she realised that she’d lost the plot a long time ago and decided to stop digging. Tied to a phone helping techno-morons work out how to switch on the computer. Is that your idea of a satisfying and creative career with a lot of freedom? I thought not!