Public Relations Ranked in the Top Ten Most Stressful Jobs in America, but We Disagree

While scanning the headlines over the weekend I came across America’s Most Stressful Jobs 2010, a poll taken by careercast.com and posted on CNBC, and discovered that public relations is the eighth most stressful career in America along with being a firefighter, highway patrol officer, commercial pilot, among others. You have got to be kidding us, right?As a professional in this industry I can agree that public relations can be stressful and definitely not for the faint of heart if you don’t like fierce deadlines, writing under pressure and newsroom style work mode. To those of us at the Loughlin/Michaels Group, it is the rewarding and ever-changing landscape that allows us PR pros to be creative and help foster the growth of our clients regardless any stress.So I took a quick poll around the office and no one feels their job deserves to be included in the top most stressful careers despite the survey.At the Loughlin/Michaels Group we like to operate smart, saavy and tenaciously….and that is often under stressful situations.As one of our senior leaders states “Sure, we could all be toll takers on the Golden Gate Bridge. That’s a low stress job and an incredibly boring one. Smart, creative and dynamic people are attracted to public relations precisely because our jobs are demanding. We want to be challenged. We want to be tested. We want to develop new idea and as my father used to say: ‘Nothing worth doing is easy.’ So you can keep your ‘low stress’ jobs. I prefer to be challenged.”