The Worst Jobs in America
# Grave Digger
"Grave digger, when you dig my grave, will you make it shallow so I can feel the rain?" If you listen to Dave
Mathews' song of the same name, you realize just how depressing the job of the man who digs holes in the
ground daily for the deceased must truly be.
If you have ever dug a whole of any significant depth, you know that after you remove the initial soft Earth,
the deeper layers are more rock than soil, a fact that any digger of ditches is all too familiar with.
There are many factors that make this job all around miserable; a monotonous task (digging), repeated
incessantly with seemingly little fulfillment unless you really enjoy digging. The men that choose this life surely
have more blisters that have bulged, popped, and healed over the years than we can imagine and calluses like
rocks, but it is the mental aspect of the job that has to be most grating.
Whether or not the grave digger observes the funeral, they are aware that every hole they dig is destined for
a soul that has already passed on. I have never met a grave digger and am not going to play Dr. Freud, but I
would imagine constant theme of mortality in one's job could have a profound effect on one's daily outlook.
Considering a digger can make as little as $16,000 annually depending on their amount of work and place of
employment, it is not exactly a job that high school and college graduates are clamoring for.
Like a mortuary employee, it takes an especially tough and strong minded person to work as a grave digger,
and this type of work is not for the rosy-minded.
# Divorce Lawyer
This is not a judgement of the work they do, just our opinion about the potential pitfalls of the job. If you've
read up on the essential Law and Order episodes there's no doubt you have seen a classic bitter divorce
turned homicide turned great primetime television. And, without exception, the divorce lawyers are absolute
bulldogs who seemed to turn the separation into sport.
Nearly every divorcee sees their life altered in some form because of the experience, and it is almost always in
a negative capacity. For one's job to require immersion in one nasty divorce proceeding after another must
have a grating effect at some point.
Just watch Kramer v. Kramer to get the worst case scenario that too often ensues in courtrooms, and to
choose that mayhem as a daily undertaking indicates that you might have some Tony Soprano in your spirit. In
all seriousness, its a nasty business and even though it pays nicely, you need a strong stomach, thick skin, and
a little mean streak to do this job.
# Dairy Farmer
When it comes to the combination of low pay, disgusting personal and workplace conditions, and the
frequency of unpleasant tasks no one has it worse than dairy farmers. With an average annual income of just
over $33,000, your common dairy farmer does not have much hope of building up his 401k, even with the
relative affordability that farm life can offer.
Your job as a dairy farmer is to ensure that your cattle are healthy, tended to, and able to produce milk to be
sold. Seeing how your job is as a caretaker of another living being, the farmer must embrace the long hours
that come with rising early to feed the cows and let them graze. This is a year-round process, and caring for
the cattle on the daily basis becomes as routine as waking up, showering, and brushing their own teeth.
Because cattle live in muck and mud, a dairy farmer's work conditions are sloppy and smelly, and they come
home from work smelly and covered in mud. The farmer has enough to worry about paying their bills on such
a low salary, but constant battles over ruining a clean house can also cause havoc in a farmer's personal life.
# Lumberjack
If the job has a show documenting it on the Discovery Channel, it is probably extremely undesirable to the
average guy or girl. This is the case for lumberjacks, a job that makes very little money and brings with it
potentially fatal risks. The trees can weigh thousands of pounds on their own, and the addition of weather
hazards, sharply bladed equipment, and human error make logging one of the most dangerous occupations in
the entire country.
As recently as 2008, the fatality rate was 108 per 100,000 workers, a staggering rate when you compare it to
other industries in America. The risk of dying is one thing, but consciously thinking about the risk of death
while on the job can make everyday an emotional roller coaster.
With every strong gust of wind, impending rain cloud, or holler from a coworker, a timber cutter must have
the fear of serious harm in the forefront of his mind. There are so many conditions that make being a
lumberjack a job exclusively for the brave; working on land that is often steeply angled and long distances
from medical care being chief among them.
The average annual salary of $33,114 makes this one of the most mind blowing career paths for those who do
not choose it. Whether a timber cutter by necessity or choice, the adrenaline and outdoors nature of the job
can attract certain type of adventurous personalities and be the path to a fulfilling life.
# Embalmer
Let's take a trip into the morbid side of employment, because even serial killers need a day job. Many people
go to medical school and decide they do not have the nerve tolerance for the high-stress nature of conducting
potentially life threatening surgeries and decide that working with the already deceased is a safer career
choice.
The problem with this is that dead bodies are a lot more putrid, creepy, and tough to look at than living ones,
but this is the trade-off an embalmer makes when he chooses to use his medical expertise for preparing the
dead for their funeral or other purposes. Because the dead require less urgent care and we as a society put
much more importance on preserving a life than a corpse, embalmers do not have the luxury of a lucrative
paycheck like doctors.
Their average salary of $19,000-$51,000 a year means that the job of embalmer does not carry with it a huge
financial incentive, a fact that sheds those who choose to do this job in a creepier light. Embalming involves
the preservation of human body parts in certain agents and fluids that maintain them until the body is to be
presented at a showing. The embalming process eliminates some of the ghastly smells we associate with dead
bodies, but the aroma in an embalming room would be described as less than pleasant.
The bottom line is that it takes a unique type of person to essentially play many peoples' version of Fear
Factor everyday without the cash prize waiting at the end.
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