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Something I've been mulling over for a while, given the wonderful world of managing a team of landscapers most certainly does not come without stress.
What careers are out there with absolutely no stress whatsoever? I can think of 2
Monk or Cricket Commentator. Both seem fairly relaxed although I have no experience of either, so I'm happy to be proved wrong.
This thought process started of as wondering what jobs exist where your performance is not directly gauged by another's satisfaction? Watching a farmer putting up a fence on a mild summer day, with his dogs scampering around the field looked appealing at the time, but not so much come winter when the sheep/cows/goats have knocked that fence down.
I'll let y'all know how the career change goes.
Caretaker. But specifically of uninhabited islands.
Dream job.
IT nerd
Not stress free if you were working at AWS yesterday. Or Lloyd's or HMRC or Ring or Snapchat or....
IT nerd, based upon the amount of people on here all day, they all do sod all work.
Weeksy's got it! I'm sure there are nerds who get stressed, but that's probably cos they are rubbish at it 🤣 No sure if I can say the area I work in, for fear of detection, but it's piss easy. The only stress is from the idiots I work with.
IT nerd, based upon the amount of people on here all day, they all do sod all work.
Unless it all goes to shit and then, magically, it's all on you even if it is not.
I used to dream of just taking a job stacking shelves at the local supermarket to get away from the stress at my last job. Luckily I got a job at another place with a team that is not dysfunctional. Oddly, I know other people in my area that have thought about quitting and starting a cat sanctuary, or being an arborist, or...
None whatsover. Stress is about the person and the situation not the job.
There will be CEO's who absolutely love their job and would do it for free given the chance.
Equally there will be people stacking shelves or mowing lawns that are on the bleeding edge of having a mental breakdown.
It's a modern conundrum
Responsibility for others brings stress.
No responsibility often mean lack of control and being at the whim of an idiot - which brings stress.
Working for yourself brings lack of financial security and responsible for running a business legally - which brings stress.
Stacking shelves in a supermarket is the automatic response of many as an end of working life final job - but I think it might be a hellish combo of corporate bollocks and tight margins and being ordered around by a 12 year old in their first 'management' job.
Too late now but at 53 I look about people I know of similar age and I reckon those who look the least stressed are those with a trade that's in demand with time served experience who work for themselves and do as much or as little as they feel motivated to with a good enough reputation and enough confidence that they can pick and choose and the work from domestic properties or small companies will keep on coming. Plumber, Electrician or in this part of the world a tree surgeon if you fancy being outdoors.
One of the biggest drivers of stress reduction is also probably a reduction in your financial aspirations. And not shafting yourself by getting divorced or an expensive C&H habit.
Stacking shelves in a supermarket is the automatic response of many as an end of working life final job - but I think it might be a hellish combo of corporate bollocks and tight margins and being ordered around by a 12 year old in their first 'management' job.
Did it for 8 months or so around the time I was doing my A-levels. The money I got from it saw me through university but it was far from stress-free. Demanding / impatient / rude customers, permanently angry middle managers, delayed deliveries and corporate bollocks.
It wasn't "difficult", no-one's life really depended on your ability to stack the fruit juice neatly but a demanding and petty middle-manager could still be pretty stressful!
I think that a delivery driver for a supermarket must be pretty low stress.
I think that a delivery driver for a supermarket must be pretty low stress.
That would surprise me. Still have other people/systems planning your route and deliveries. Dealing with uncontrolled dogs. Sharing the road all day with idiots that seem set on endangering your life to save themselves a few seconds. Entitled customers upset that they’ve had cod roe substituted for caviar. Drop offs where there’s nowhere to park anywhere near the recipient. No thanks.
I think that a delivery driver for a supermarket must be pretty low stress.
I hope you're joking - sitting in traffic all day, dealing with the public, doubtless ridiculous targets of the number of drops you're supposed to do in the time allowed. I would imagine it's far from stress free.
Traffic Management. You know the guys that put up temporary traffic lights & then sit there in a pick-up scrolling FB waiting for them to stop working. Seems pretty low risk to me, and 'Traffic Officer'.
Traffic Management. You know the guys that put up temporary traffic lights & then sit there in a pick-up scrolling FB waiting for them to stop working.
They get endless abuse from the public though. I've worked with a lot of them in my time on cycle races, how some of them put up with it I'll never know. Verbal abuse is commonplace - stuff about "how dare you shut this road, I know my rights, I pay road tax, you've got no authority, jumped up little Hitler..." and so on through to occasional physical abuse and having cars driven at you.
For quite a while I was an Accredited Marshal (British Cycling ran a scheme in conjunction with the police to train volunteer marshals how to stop traffic under the same legislation that lollipop men/women use) and I worked on a number of races - it was pretty much a given that you'd get abuse on every race. Turnover of marshals was quite high, people would do it for a year then just be so fed up of the abuse they'd pack it in.
Managing traffic for roadworks is one thing, managing it for a cycle race doubles the abuse factor.
Traffic Officer
Yeah, dealing with fatalities, ****s who think they know everything better than you, people whose journey is more important than ensuring a road is safe to be reopened, etc etc
A few people I know who wanted less stress became Postmen and they loved it. Pretty sure the number of houses in a given round can't be stress inducing as our postman is very relaxed, takes his time, pops into a neighbours house for a cup of tea (or maybe more but it is not the 1970's anymore so let's go with a cup of tea)
Friend of mine has just swapped an IT management job for being a postie. She's loving being out in the world and meeting people and dogs, but still slightly worried about whether it will pay her bills.
I forgot fireman. I got as far as getting a tour of a fire station and sit and chat with a watch on a night shift through a friend's husband. Can't remember why I didn't go for it it. Wish I had.
Whilst there is obviously a lot of stress when attending an emergency, Id describe it as good stress. Bad stress is in incessant low grade chipping away at your sole that seems too common in modern work life.
A friend of mine's son is now a navy diver. That also seems like a career with short term 'good' stress every now and then and a lot of not much stress at all.
I forgot fireman. I got as far as getting a tour of a fire station and sit and chat with a watch on a night shift through a friend's husband. Can't remember why I didn't go for it it. Wish I had.
Best mate just left the fire service after 15-20 years or so due to stress, politics, corporate bollocks and general rubbish.
None whatsover.
See?
A friend of mine's son is now a navy diver.
Years ago I worked in a pub and a regular was a helicopter pilot for oil rigs – I think he did two weeks on, two weeks off. The two weeks on apparently had quite a bit of downtime too. Wouldn't work for lots of people (ie, with families), but he loved it.
starting a cat sanctuary
Try getting a feral to the vet first thing in the morning for neutering!
Or alternatively feeding some newborns every 2h day and night, and seeing a couple of them die pitifully anyway.
Not sure it's stress free, but my lad has just sent me a video of the demolition of the office block behind their house, and I reckon pushing walls over with a fancy digger must be great for your mental health
Interesting thread. Stress is related, in my opinion, to pay, job stability and how many ****s you give. I'd imagine stacking shelves at 67 when you're doing it for beer money and being told by some lower management person what to do when you don't really care would be low stress.
For me it's other people that bring stress at work, outside of my direct team who are awesome.
Contemplated being a handyman type thing when I eventually retire, as being answerable to only myself would be appealing. Well right until I drill through a gas pipe!
Caretaking. Schools, local council buildings, libraries etc etc. Fixing things, being useful. Low pay but rewarding
I've been retired for a good few years and work thankfully is a distant memory but what about lighthouse keeper
but what about lighthouse keeper
Hasn't been a lighthouse keeper this millenium.
but what about lighthouse keeper
Hasn't been a lighthouse keeper this millenium.
Can't get more stress free than that!
I doubt it was very stress free either. Probably depended on the light house a bit to be fair but bell rock in a storm... Or even just rough winter seas when your relief haven't made it for two or three weeks.
Grim.
The most stress free task i ever had in a job was to inspect all the lightfittings in all the ncp car parks in london. Oyster card in one hand and a phone in the other all i had th do was walk through each carpark and note any issues with the lights that had all been replaced. It was an observable survey so only had to walk past.
I could do that day. Some of the carpark where quite eye opening... The bentley storeroom, bugattis etc covered in an inch of dust. Lamborghini's with all four tyres flat etc. then a fiat panda 🤣
Any career can be stress free with the right attitude. I know teachers and surgeons who are stress free. I know administrators and gardeners who are constantly stressed.
A healthy dose of not giving to much of a stuff and having good separation between work and home is what’s needed.
what about lighthouse keeper
Aren't there cases of lighthouse keepers going mad from the boredom and isolation?
I'm in it right now, but the private equity parasites who've bought the company have detected somebody enjoying their job and actually contributing in a very small way to the betterment of society, so are doing everything in their power to snuff it out ☹️
Caretaking. Schools, local council buildings, libraries etc etc. Fixing things, being useful. Low pay but rewarding
You are kidding.
I manage a small team which does this. Budgets are seriously cut so we have about half the staff we actually need. We spend the days running around like headless chickens responding to leaks, blocked toilets, puddles of vomit, failed heating systems and massively pissed off staff and customers because things don't work and all we can do is fight fires rather than preventative maintenance You get bored of scraping shit off the toilet walls when kids decide to use their own faeces to write abuse, and currently there's a phase of sticking used sanitary towels to the inside of cubicle doors.
Then you spend nights responding to alarm calls because a moth has crawled over a sensor.
I have one member of staff on holiday this week and I'm doing 12 hour days just to keep the doors open and (most) of the lights on.
All for less money than you'd get stacking shelves in Asda
I'm recruiting if you want a job?
The last year I was working, I had transferred from the vehicle logistics part of the business, to a subcontract that was AA/BSM, the driving instructor business. Our job was installing all the dual controls, and applying the vehicle livery graphics, which is what I did. Once I got over the initial steep learning curve of handling large sheets of self-adhesive vinyl, it was brilliant, very low stress, as a car couldn’t be rushed to avoid issues like bubbles or dust under the vinyl - it’s surprising just how large a bump in the surface a barely noticeable bit of grit can cause, as it ‘tents’ very noticeably!
It was a job I got very good at, my years in print and publishing meaning I had a very good eye for alignment of the panels and making sure everything lined up.
I keep meaning to look around to see if there’s anyone locally wants someone part time, like doing all the livery on police cars, that’s virtually identical, apart from the colours.
Stress is related, in my opinion, to pay, job stability and how many ****s you give.
This - I wouldn't automatically associate it with a particular job. Down to an individual and their tendency to worry about stuff just as much as a particular job being "stressful". Being mega busy doesn't automatically equal stress etc.
A healthy dose of not giving to much of a stuff and having good separation between work and home is what’s needed.
Conversely my family and home life causes me more stress than my work - there's always some shit to deal with and it's stressful because it's people you care about.
At work I've very much got a don't give a shit attitude and have no problem telling a customer that their demands can't be met.
When my Grandad left his proper job he went back to helping out on the local farms, bit of dry stone walking, ligging hedges, hanging gates etc. All supplemented with a bit of bartering, pheasants, fish, mushrooms, holly, his legendary tomatoes and various bits and and bobs I used to "help" in the school holidays. Awesome life. Ironically enough he died of a heart attack.
IT nerd, based upon the amount of people on here all day, they all do sod all work.
Weeksy's got it! I'm sure there are nerds who get stressed, but that's probably cos they are rubbish at it 🤣 No sure if I can say the area I work in, for fear of detection, but it's piss easy. The only stress is from the idiots I work with.
Thing with IT work is that there is a very steep learning curve, once you become technically proficient in a niche it becomes very repetitive and eventually quite easy. People often hit the top of the technical career path, that can be well paid. Many people are happy to stay at this level in their career.
Combine this with
A healthy dose of not giving to much of a stuff
And the ability to switch off from the corporate gobbledegook.
Then you are sat at a desk all day, performing your job to a high standard and yet using a small amount of your mental bandwidth. Hardly surprising people in this position can find a bit of time to distract themselves with a bit of waffle on a forum.
Postie might have been a stress-free job many years ago, but given my experience of Royal Mail, those days are long gone - incompetence and abuse from management, defective and unroadworthy vehicles, not knowing when your day starts or finishes because they can’t be arsed to do their job.
I have my own design & print business that I run from home, plus I work part-time in a shop selling hardware and whisky. Yes, it can get busy in summer but never to the point where it gets unmanageable. The door gets closed at 5pm and we all go home. Importantly though is financial security, not having to worry about paying the bills etc.
Living on an island there are probably more than average number of folks living here a relatively stress-free life where the most stressful thing is tourists not knowing how to drive on singletrack roads. Even the police here have it pretty good - very little crime. Talking to one of the relief officers who came over as one of the regulars was on holiday, a big difference from his normal beat in Clydebank.
Furniture-maker.
25 years of slowly going bankrupt.
Once you accept that you're never going to make any real money at it and eventually retire poor, the stress will just melt away 🙂
I've always thought Christmas Tree farming must be low stress, most of the time.
Furniture-maker.
Actually I’m now going for whoever does the coding for this forum as you can obviously just throw any counter-intuitive dogshit out for formatting , posting photos, etc and consider it job-done.
Yeah, that was close. I nearly reported you for some unspecified naughtiness.
IT nerd, based upon the amount of people on here all day, they all do sod all work.
Former IT Geek here. I was able to post a lot while still doing 70+ hour weeks because sometimes you press a button and wait for a while and want to feel like you have a life away from work. I spent far too long away from home and too many nights away from my bed. The stress was there because I 'cared' about my customers.
I think that a delivery driver for a supermarket must be pretty low stress.
Now I am a part time supermarket delivery driver. The hours are easier, but there is a lot of silly 'targets' to hit. The stress is still there because I 'care', but I am learning to care less
Packaging Specialist… 99.9% of the time the wine will fit in the bottle. Occasionally the wine also fits in me.
Genuine lol at firefighter being stress free. It’s literally stressful in every way.
forget the stuff no one should see being locked up there for my future sleepless nights.
financially stressed
beaten down by management due to underfunding.
physically knackered, worrying about the latest data showing how bad contaminants are for my future health.
it most definitely is not cups of tea, gentle chats and snooker.
apologies for ranting but fed up of false narratives about the fire service being repeated whilst we’re doing our absolute level best to deliver a professional service whilst having nothing in the coffers.
As for stress free, I have always wondered what something like a community project would be like to work for.
In my industry it would be highway adoptions manager. Mostly waiting for street lights to come on to see if they work.
I fancied getting a part time job when I retire, as the fella that stands by the front door at B&Q and says hello as you go in, but they don't seem to have them anymore.
apologies for ranting but fed up of false narratives about the fire service being repeated whilst we’re doing our absolute level best to deliver a professional service whilst having nothing in the coffers.
Weird isn't - horses for courses and all that. And perspective. By pure chance (having been the first to mention firefighter in this thread) I got chatting to our holiday let guest this morning. Turns out that's his job, based in Glasgow. Remembering this thread I asked him about it. Yes, some corporate fannying around he doesn't like and underfunding, but overall says he really enjoys his job. Likes being part of a team apparently and doing something of worth. That's not the same as stress free admittedly, but enjoying a job must be part way to indicating he at least does not find it suffocatingly stressful.
Postie jobs started to become far more stressful ~5.5 years ago, not sure I'd still be there even if my health was better.
Caretaking. Schools, local council buildings, libraries etc etc. Fixing things, being useful. Low pay but rewarding
You are kidding.
I manage a small team which does this. Budgets are seriously cut so we have about half the staff we actually need. We spend the days running around like headless chickens responding to leaks, blocked toilets, puddles of vomit, failed heating systems and massively pissed off staff and customers because things don't work and all we can do is fight fires rather than preventative maintenance You get bored of scraping shit off the toilet walls when kids decide to use their own faeces to write abuse, and currently there's a phase of sticking used sanitary towels to the inside of cubicle doors.
Then you spend nights responding to alarm calls because a moth has crawled over a sensor.
I have one member of staff on holiday this week and I'm doing 12 hour days just to keep the doors open and (most) of the lights on.
All for less money than you'd get stacking shelves in Asda
I'm recruiting if you want a job?
Ouch, sounds horrific, and managing others in that scenario must make it worse. My time in caretaking has so far been relatively stress free. I manage myself, look after various buildings and assets and work at my own pace. In fact I’ve just moved to another role as my last one was too quiet and frankly boring. I’m now running around a bit but it’s enjoyably busy and the days are flying by. I must be lucky I guess.
I've always imagined being a Peak Park Ranger would be a pretty decent job.
I think there are a heck of a lot of applicants if a position becomes free though.
And I guess there's the stress of telling off MTB'ers riding across Higger Tor....
I'm calling harbour master on being pretty low stress.
Having spent the day at RSPB Minsmere yesterday I would volunteer nature park warden - outdoors all day and not your fault if the birds are shy.
I'm calling harbour master on being pretty low stress.
I suppose it must depend on the harbour, those that are busy enough to require a full time harbour master don't look low stress to me.
I've always imagined being a Peak Park Ranger would be a pretty decent job.
I dunno, it's a lot of treading very fine lines between some very opposed groups, coupled with a massive lack of funding.
I think there are a heck of a lot of applicants if a position becomes free though.
Because everyone sees the fun bits out in the sunshine and fondly imagines that they basically get to spend their working day doing the walks that they so enjoy at weekends. They don't see the bits where you're mending a broken fence in the pouring rain, arguing with a bunch of entitled walkers who've set up their barbecue and then left a lot of litter, or fixing the knackered old Landy that the Parks Authority have been promising to replace for the last 4 years.
Any job that means you're uncontactable and left to get on with it would be the least stressful.
For me, at work the most stress comes from the constant interruptions and distractions. MS Teams in particular, seeing as 99% of my colleagues are completely incapable of using it properly.
Oh, you're in the middle of presenting? Never mind, I'm calling you anyway
Or the people that call you constantly to find out how you're getting on with the piece of work you're doing for them. I'm working on it. You know I'm working on it. You know I know when the deadline is. You constantly phoning me for a status update is actually increasing the risk of missing the deadline, because I'm wasting time talking to you!
They don't see the bits where you're mending a broken fence in the pouring rain, arguing with a bunch of entitled walkers who've set up their barbecue and then left a lot of litter, or fixing the knackered old Landy that the Parks Authority have been promising to replace for the last 4 years.
Dunno, sounds pretty fun to me
i think most jobs arent stressful.
stress comes from:
Deadlines, Management, finances (when self employed)
If you can potter along at your own pace, without getting mithered, and get paid. What more can you ask for?
Caretaker a primary school seems nice. Potter about, fix some bits and bobs, restock the sandpit.
But the caretaker at our kids school seems constantly wired. One way or another someones always chewing his ear off about unimportant nonsense.
I think that a delivery driver for a supermarket must be pretty low stress.
Stuff that. 7 mins per drop apparently round here, including driving. Lugging big heavy boxes up and down driveways and dodgey garden stairs.
arguing with a bunch of entitled walkers who've set up their barbecue and then left a lot of litter
Got to be honest, this sounds like an absolute dream job for a lot of internet commenters.
Countryside rangers do carry firearms, yeah?
I used to do a great low stress job. Worked every Monday/Tuesday for G4S. Wouldn't recommend it as a full time job due to pay and long hours but good part time.
No set finish time so I just wrote off those days and had 5 days a week to do other stuff. Pay wasn't great but got to be out and about driving all over Scotland. Furthest I got was flying up to Shetland to bring back a con arrested on a warrant after he got in a fight on the ferry.
Job was going to various Scottish jails and taking cons out for anything they needed to leave the jail for. Medical appointments was the main one. Also home visits for lifers nearing the end of sentence. Funerals. Compassionate visits for terminally ill relatives.
Medical stuff can be interesting when you are not the patient. I sat at the end of an 8ft chain watching a con get his eye lense replaced. As it was done under local anaethetic the cuffs had to stay on. A facial surgeon telling a con he wasn't getting an operation to fix a broken cheekbone but it didn't matter because it wasn't noticable due to the huge old scar on his other cheek.
We became experts on how long appts would take. Worst job was Glasgow Royal fracture clinic. Seemed to be 30 people given one time. A wait of anything up to 90 minutes before getting seen. Also we were in the public waiting room. Most hospitals we got stuck in a side room to wait which allows more free conversation.
Most places were very efficient. Stobhill or Yorkhill outpatient clinics were pretty much taken in at exactly the appointment time.
There was almost never any issue with the cons. They were going somewhere they wanted to go. If for any reason they declined to go to medical appts that was that. We turned round and drove to the nearest Greggs for a coffee and roll until we got our next job.
With rare exceptions they were cuffed the whole time. So not a threat and there was always two of us to one of them.
The thing was unlike the police arresting people who are often in a hostile crowd and either drunk, drugged, or high on adrenaline these guys were in the system. Sober and not drugged. On their own so no audience to play to. Only half a dozen or so gave me any hassle in a decade.
Like any job, mostly routine. We did once turn up at Barlinnie with no advance warning that the con we were taking out was a 6ft5 Islamist who had been in the national news for a murder. We got a third crew member for him. No issues as it turned out. He said almost nothing but obviously saw we were being cautious and remarked that he had no problem with us as we were only doing our job.
It may not sound low stress but a colleague who was a former bus driver said he got more hassle off the public in his bus than from murderers while working for G4S.
Secondary school teacher. Piece of piss, and loooong holidays.
Interesting thread. Stress is related, in my opinion, to pay, job stability and how many ****s you give.
100% this. Unfortunately, I care, and I couldn't do a job that I don't care about. Being on the tools was a lot less stressful but since becoming office based and having to deal with all of the negative sides of the industry; grumpy clients, broken tools, weather, staff, logistics, the job becomes a grind.
If I was financially settled, I'd be all over volunteering with National Trust, Parks, any outdoor facility where I'm tasked with looking after the area.
Other options that have crossed my mind are bed tester or food critic. I'm not sure the family would sign up for lighthouse keeper but I'd give it a try.
Similar to irc
I had a part time job as a tutor in Gartree Prison in the mid 90s
I was a young naive PhD student in the Zoology department at Leicester University.
The university had a long standing contract to provide adult education to the prison - I was roped in to teach a Tropical Biology course.
Looking back, the security was incredibly lax, I think the only advice I was given was to not give out any chocolate.
Being a high security prison, many of the students were lifers who were in for the most serious of crimes, but they were all pleasant and just looked forward to the 2 hours per week of distraction I was providing.
I distinctly remember having to catch myself when talking about the precautions folk should take if they ever booked a holiday to xyz location.
Happy days
Secondary school teacher. Piece of piss, and loooong holidays.
Having spent the day at RSPB Minsmere yesterday I would volunteer nature park warden - outdoors all day and not your fault if the birds are shy.
You didn't notice that one of the main reasons to go to any nature reserve with a cafe is to take your kids there to shout, and run around with no control in the soft play area and bug hunt. I'd suggest that being outdoors all day looking at nature is a tiny part of the job, and the bulk of it will be dealing with parents, staffing the cafe (with volunteers who didn't volunteer to be complained at about overpriced muffins), administering first aid for children who have never been outside before, arguing with dog walkers about why they aren't allowed to bring their dogs into a nature reserve, and maybe dealing with lack of funding, lack of resources and lack of staff.
Professional philosopher?
Secondary school teacher. Piece of piss, and loooong holidays.
If you get well established in the right school, get all your materials in place and don't get drawn in to the shit or try to reinvent the wheel then it's not so bad.
How many teachers actually manage all that is a whole other question.
If I was financially settled, I'd be all over volunteering with National Trust, Parks, any outdoor facility where I'm tasked with looking after the area.
Yep - so long as I had more than enough money in the bank to deal with life, something where I could potter around doing some light gardening work, keeping the place clean and tidy and not having to deal with the public would be ideal.
Really of course, what this means is I've won a substantial sum on the lottery, bought a house with a nice garden and can just potter around that. There's a guy on Youtube who makes these amazing dugout shelters and other bivvy type temporary accommodation, that'd while away some time too.
A vicar in a country parish.
It wouldn't be for everyone, but caretaker on Maatsuyker Island (and lighthouse) would be interesting. A mate's exes parents used to do it (I don't think it's them in this article and I believe it's been modernised a bit since then too)
Coping with extremes; caretaking on Maatsuyker Island - ABC News
navy diver. That also seems like a career with short term 'good' stress every now and then and a lot of not much stress at all.
🤣🤣🤣 Might as well add Sat Diver to that; piss easy, stress free jobs them...
The obvious answer is to be born into fabulous wealth. But if you can’t manage that I reckon dog walker looks like a low stress rewarding gig.
There’s a Mother/Daughter near us that do it, I see them regularly marching about, each with a special ‘Rig’ on allowing them to have 7 or 8 dogs tethered to them, a fist full of shitbags clutched in their hand. Definitely “dog people” but they do just exude happiness in their work whatever the weather. Wouldn’t work for me but it’s a booming business (pandemic pooches still need walkies) and it’s very much a “do what you love” type of job.
Oh and we have a friend who is extremely happy with her decision to become a driving instructor…
Studies show that work stress tend to be workers/jobs that have no control over inputs (telephone queue, other people's problems) with little autonomy ( can't make changes or decisions, no control of size of queue), low stress is [obviously] the opposite of that.
Yes control is a big one, and the HSE actually lists 6 main factors for work stress...
There are six main areas that can lead to work-related stress if they are not managed properly. These are: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change.
For example, workers may say that they:
-
are not able to cope with the demands of their jobs
-
are unable to control the way they do their work
-
don't receive enough information and support
-
are having trouble with relationships at work, or are being bullied
-
don't fully understand their role and responsibilities
-
are not engaged when a business is undergoing change
I'd be all over volunteering with National Trust, Parks,
Back when I was a student I thought this sort of thing would look good on my CV. It was a long time ago, but I seem to remember that it was quite difficult to actually volunteer, and the woman I spent the day with, driving around Gower and not really doing anything, didn't want me there at all and was quite hostile until she invited me to a party that night. Still stands out as being a very weird day. I don't remember her name but I do remember then name of her dog!
But if you can’t manage that I reckon dog walker looks like a low stress rewarding gig.
A friend did that for a while and hated it - although she was working for a dog walking company rather than on her own and the manager was apparently quite disorganised. She constantly found her shifts being changed, requests of "can you just...?", being asked to walk dogs she'd never met and dealing with owners who were arsey that their dog hadn't been washed and cleaned after the walk. Quite a few owners used the service cos they couldn't deal with walking the dog themselves because it was badly trained / reactive / pulled on lead a lot so she often found that she was constantly having to control the dog - it wasn't low stress at all!
That said, there's a guy local to me who does it as a proper business (just him) and he seems to love it. Always see him out and about in all weathers, he's booked up for weeks in advance cos he's so well known locally.
I reckon dog walker looks like a low stress rewarding gig.
A friend did that for a while and hated it - although she was working for a dog walking company rather than on her own and the manager was apparently quite disorganised.
At risk of becoming an anti-dog thread, we've a few commercial dog walkers around here who walk on official MTB trails*. I've often wondered what the owners would think if they knew where their beloved pets were taken.
*I got bitten by one dog, and the walker said she used the MTB trail because it was quieter than the other tracks and the dogs didn't bother other people so much. Until they bit them, obviously.