5 high-stress jobs
Some people - be they brain surgeons, floor traders or air traffic controllers thrive on challenge and deadlines.
By Sandy Fugate
May 16, 2007
David "Bo" Bahoric is yelling into his cell phone from the boisterous floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The trading floor, he shouts, "is the last bastion in the financial frontier. We (floor traders) are the last cowboys out here."
Bahoric, former floor trader and now operations manager of tradethenews.com, is the first to admit that floor traders are "ail type A personalities." And he means it as a compliment.
But floor trading isn't the only job out there for high-octane individuals. Those who thrive on stress- or pressure-filled jobs have plenty of options. The key, said Timothy Dugger, president of Career Transition Strategies, located in the Pyramids, is to find an ideal fit between the type and amount of stress a worker can handle and the type of pressure a potential job might hold.
If a high-stress, high-pressure job is what you're looking for, he said, pretty much anything that involves deadlines or responsibility for other people's lives will do the trick.
1 Air Traffic Controller
Although this job often is used as a poster child for high-stress careers, Indianapolis air traffic controller Kevin Brown said many air traffic controllers are introverts who like to work behind the scenes. The job does require quick, confident decision-making, he said. But when it comes to stress, "It's all relative.... I grew up on a small family farm and, to me, stress is waiting on it to rain to see if you're going to be able to grow the crops. I wouldn't want that kind of stress."
Training: College degree, or private or military training.
Pay range: Usually $75,000 to $126,000
2 Advertising project manager
As project manager at Roman BrandGroup advertising agency, Susan Dunn's job is to keep every aspect of a project on track. Usually, she's juggling 20 to 30 projects at a time, which means keeping artists, writers, printers and multi-media staff on deadline and, oh yeah, keeping the customer happy, too.
"You have to have passion for your job if you're working with these kinds of deadlines," she said. "But I thrive on it. People tell me I'm nuts."
Training: Usually a bachelor's degree in marketing or advertising.
Pay range: Generally, $60,000 to $87,000
3 Brain surgeon
Nothing quite says "stress" like a neurological surgeon at work. As Dugger, of Career Transitions Strategies, puts it, "Anyone who feels a responsibility for someone's personal well-being, whether it is mental or physical, carries a burden of stress with them.... The consequences for making an 'oops' are pretty significant when you're rattling around in someone's brain."
Training: Bachelor's degree, followed by four years in medical school and seven years or more in residency.
Pay range: $220,000 to $462,OOO
4 Floor trader
Yep, it really is as crazed as it looks on television. Brokers who rush about the stock and commodity trading floors in New York and Chicago yell, scream, shove, wave and yell some more - whatever it takes to buy or sell at the price they want.
"It's organized chaos. It really is," Bahoric, the former trader, says. "Everybody is all over the place, but believe me, everybody knows what they're doing."
Training: College degree helpful, but not required.
Pay range: This is where it gets tricky. Salary.com says most floor brokers in Chicago
make $106,000 to $163,000. But it's possible to make more, or to lose everything.
5 Reporter/editor
He began working for The Associated Press because it was the best opportunity at the time, but Dan Blake, now business editor of The Courier-Journal in Louisville, said he learned to love the work and the deadlines.
"It's not so much because I thrive on the stress.... I guess there's a certain sense of accomplishment that, if people are losing their heads around you, and you're keeping yours, you're keeping on top of things," he said.
Training: Usually a bachelor's degree.
Pay range: Varies widely. For reporters, $22,900 to about $68,000.