Bankers, doctors and teachers: stop moaning over job satisfaction

Bankers, brokers and asset managers were complaining about their jobs this week. They told a New York-based consulting and headhunting firm that they did not like the pay, their prospects or their colleagues.

There were too many rules these days and too many "greedy senior managers only interested in protecting their own privileges", they said.

"A lot of people are unhappy and they're looking for greener pastures," said Options Group, which conducted the survey.

What struck me about the bankers' moan was that I had recently read reports about how many British teachers and doctors were also so miserable that they were leaving their professions.

In other fields people were apparently doing the same. I searched a news database for articles that included the words "leaving the profession" and discovered that all these people were thinking of quitting: Californian accountants, South African gynaecologists, UK barristers, Australian women lawyers, Australian prison officers, Irish childcare workers, Atlanta school-bus drivers and Indian autorickshaw drivers.

Teachers were said to be resigning not just in the UK but in New Zealand and the US states of Idaho, Indiana, Minnesota, Florida and Georgia.

Why are so many so unhappy at work that they are ready to give up?

Some of these articles are scare stories drummed up by unions or professional associations trying to fend off changes in pay and conditions.

Some are related to specific circumstances. The Australian female lawyers' problem, seen in other countries too, is that firms cannot find ways to match the crippling hours with women's family commitments.

The Indian rickshaw drivers, based in Kerala, were objecting to a rule requiring them to install meters to prevent them overcharging.

But most of the unhappiness was about overwork, stress and lack of respect. All the teachers had the same complaints: too much form-filling, intrusive monitoring and over-prescriptive curricula.

Has work got worse? Are all these jobs so much more stressful than they used to be?

Lawyers have always worked ridiculous hours. I remember as a student visiting a friend at home and finding her barrister father with his law books strewn over the kitchen table on a Saturday night.

"Don't ever think of doing this job," he told me. "In the beginning you have no work and you're miserable. Then the work starts flooding in and, boy, are you miserable."

Doctors have never worked manageable hours. In some respects, it was once worse. Doctors used to make home visits. In 1995 (when The Times reported that one-fifth of UK junior doctors were leaving the profession) the government promised to act when a young medic died after working an 86-hour week.

What has changed is the regulatory intrusiveness. While the collecting of students' achievements and patient survival rates may be necessary for teachers' and doctors' public accountability, it does undermine their professional autonomy. And autonomy and trust do make for happier workplaces.

What can be done? I think we need to separate the bankers, lawyers, doctors and teachers from the prison officers, childcare workers, bus and rickshaw drivers. The first group tends to have had better educational opportunities and are usually more highly paid - in the case of bankers, lawyers and, often, doctors, very much more highly.

Even when the pay is not great, as in teaching, the non-financial rewards can be high. I have done some classroom teaching and worked as a volunteer in schools and I know how tiring it is: the standing, the speaking, the need to maintain concentration if you are not to lose the class.

But being told by a student at the end of it all that she is going off to do something she had not previously thought she was capable of produces a feeling you do not get in many other jobs.

Above all, those with professional skills and qualifications are more mobile and have retraining options that people in less-exalted fields do not.

If you really are that miserable at work, change jobs rather than complaining. Those unhappy bankers could try teaching. With all those people leaving the profession there must be plenty of vacancies.

[email protected]: @Skapinker

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