This job really sucks.
For the third consecutive year, CareerCast.com said this week that newspaper reporter is the worst job there is. Logger was second worst. For Dave Barry and our friends at CKPG-TV, broadcaster was third worst. Doug Jones, Carol Gass and our pals in local radio had it no better - disc jockey was fourth worst. Selling advertising ranked eighth worst.
Joining us in the top 10 worst jobs were firefighters and military personnel, two other professions of little social value filled with people who cry themselves to sleep every night because their work lives have no meaning.
These jobs rock.
Four of the top 10 best jobs, according to CareerCast.com, are math jobs.
Data scientist was number one, statistician was number two, mathematician was number six and actuary (someone who crunches numbers to calculate degrees of risk - most of them work for insurance companies and banks) was number 10.
Crunching numbers all day sounds like so much fun. It's incredibly rewarding to produce valid and reliable analysis by making sure all of the variables have been quantified within the nested design to avoid sampling errors.
It's so boring working in The Citizen newsroom.
Interviewing Kim Phuc, Denise Chong, William Shatner, Ann Wilson of Heart, present and future NHL players and a host of other dull individuals with depressing stories of overcoming adversity and achieving great success is a tough gig but somebody's gotta do it. Instead of joyfully constructing complex statistical models, we got stuck covering exploding sawmills and the inquiries into these tragedies, election nights, the trial of a serial killer, NHL training camp and the Canada Winter Games, to name a few.
At least we get to talk to politicians and communications officers to brighten our days.
We hate poetic justice.
Opinion on our Facebook page about the Pride crosswalk city council approved Monday night has been divided.
When one woman praised the decision, she was greeted with an offensive personal attack posted by Brett Alderman. We deleted the comment as soon as it came to our attention on Tuesday.
We tried not to be to happy when informing the local woman that justice had already been served on Alderman and she need not worry about him. The former Prince George man had been kicked out of the country in 2012. That's what happens when someone who is not a Canadian citizen is convicted of a crime for which the sentence was greater than six months or for which the maximum penalty is at least 10 years in jail.
Unfortunately, Facebook didn't stop Alderman from spewing hate from the U.K.
We hate helping people.
On Thursday afternoon, I joined reporter Samantha Wright Allen after work to visit Carrie McAstocker.
Wright Allen's story on the front page of the print edition of Thursday's edition about McAstocker, a local quadriplegic woman unable to move to Kamloops, brought out the best of local residents and Citizen readers. The Ministry of Social Development had informed McAstocker that it would not pay the $2,500 she needed to move closer to her family.
The money poured in Thursday, along with the offers to help her pack and move. One resident arrived at our office with a personal cheque made out to McAstocker for $2,500.
"Money is certainly not the most important thing in life, but it helps smooth out the edges," the donor wrote in a letter to McAstocker.
"I wish you the very best on your new living arrangements in Kamloops and hope that being closer to family will help ease your pain and make for happier conditions."
McAstocker was so happy The Citizen had told her story and so humbled by the generosity of the community. It was a pleasure to meet her and a pleasure to help.
We feel terrible about ourselves.
Our industry peers in the Canadian Community Newspapers Association and Newspapers Canada recognized us Friday with 14 awards, including five first-place honours for excellence in journalism, marketing and special publications. In other words, we've received more national recognition for doing the best worst job we can and we take no satisfaction at being so awesome.
We can be found at the corner of the bar, shedding bitter tears into our beer for not paying attention in calculus and algebra class.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
