The Worst Jobs in Science

unassimilatible writes "Popular Science is running a story on the most noxious jobs in science, including, fart-sniffer, barnyard masturbator, and prison-rape researcher, and my personal favorite, the pre-med student who ate, drank, and breathed the blood, urine and vomit of yellow-fever victims. So before you complain about your tech job, check out the list. Things could always be worse."

Prison-rape researcher

I wish that some of the accounts offered by victims of prison-rape--particularly those that caused the students so much anxiety--were made public.

Maybe then we'd see less people here (and elsewhere) resorting to sick and degrading humor whenever the subject comes up.

And check out the pictogram they chose to accompany the prison-rape researcher entry in this story. It's a picture of Barney. I know they're using it as a way of depicting which of the jobs are associated with psychological torture, but, c'mon! Barney? Prison-rape? That's just soooo wrong.

Re:Prison-rape researcher

Same here. Aren't most of the people in there for drug offences, not violent crime? Violent anal rape every day for ten years is a pretty harsh punishment for getting caught with a bag of pot.

Re:3 strikes

What's wrong with that is that it costs over $70,000 a year per inmate of tax payer money to keep someone in jail who had a bag of pot of some other stupid thing.
Jail should not serve as 'punishment.' Jails should be there to keep dangerous poeple (muderers, rapists, etc.) away from us. Other criminals (drugs, shoplifters, white collar, etc.) (most people in jail are drug related, btw) should have to repay society by picking up garbage, or washing police cars or something, AND have to take care of themselves, too. Having to work for the state every weekend for a year for no pay would be a good deterrent AND help our aching budgets.

Re:Prison-rape researcher

I don't feel sorry for the murderers, rapists, and child molesters.

I know I'm gonna get flamed for this...

First of all, even when someone is convicted of one of these crimes we never know with 100% certainty that the guy really is guilty. There have been a few rape convictions that have been overturned in recent years based on DNA testing that proved the poor shmuck who spent the last 10 years in jail getting gangraped every day was innocent all along. Do you feel sorry for that particular 'rapist'?

As far as child molesters go, I think it's fairly well accepted at this point that many of these people were victims of child molestation themselves. The early abuse caused irreperable changes in their brain chemistry which made them more likely to commit deviant acts. Obviously, we need these freaks off the street since they can never be rehabilitated. But I'm not sure that sentencing them to a lifetime of being raped is really the right thing to do.

There is a reason we have the clause "unusual punishment" in our legal system. Our rehabilitation system thinks it's pretty clever by not performing the abuse themselves but turning a blind eye when prisoners do it to each other. But prison rape is something that no prisoner should have to endure, regardless of what crime they were convicted of.

GMD

Re:Prison-rape researcher

Wrongly jailing people is always a potential problem but it certainly does not detract my lack of feeling bad for the vast majority of people who are in prison.

Yes, the institutionalized rape of innocent people is a "potential problem". So is the rape of people who are not innocent but committed a crime for which not even you could justify rape as punishment. Too bad the prison rapists don't ask everyone "are you innocent?" first.

But apparently you think rape is the correct punishment for the vast majority of people in prison. So having a bag of dope is worth repeated ass rape?

I dunno, I'm no doctor but I'm willing to bet that being violently raped a few times in prison would certainly help reverse some of that irreversible brain chemistry.

Easy to bet on something you know nothing about when it isn't your ass, isn't it? I'm willing to bet that you getting gang-raped day after day for a month would change your mind about whether this is something we should be allowing to happen in our prisons, but I'm not going advocate it.

If for nothing else I am certain that it would make some of these rapists think twice about what they're doing. Yes they have these urges but after being the victim of their own crime they very well might decide to try harder to resist the urges.

Why are ignorance and certainty found together so often? As the post you replied to already pointed out -- many already are victims. Being victims is why they become perpetrators, but genius tzanger wants to do this to more people. Like bombing a civilian populace to get rid of terrorists; how well do you really think this is going to work? But if you're so keen on it, why wait until prison? Why not rape them when they show up in the juvenile home after Daddy gets sent up the river so you can "fix" them before they commit any crime? Half the time they end up in prison from there anyway. You can call it "early prevention".

I tend to agree but as I get older and see more and more bullshit babying and coddling of the convicted and worrying more about them than their victims I tend to start thinking that these people deserve some of their own medicine.

Oh, right. "Hey, they get cable TV! The only way to balance out this amazing luxury is with repeated anal rape!"

But frankly, with people like you advocating sexual torture as a deterrent, I think the worrying about the convicted is justified.

While a murderer is certainly not a rapist is certainly not an arms trafficker, prison rape is brutal enough to sway people's consciences and not normally deadly.

Because brutalizing people always make them become nicer, happier people. But you're right! I can't see how being violated and then having the authorities do nothing about it and an apathetic populace say "you deserved it" would not change one's conscience. It's just not going to change in the way you think.

Yes, I am an asshole.

No you're not. "Asshole" is the guy who takes up three spots at Java Noodles at lunch with his Ford Excursion. You, my friend, are a sick fuck.

Re:Hmm...I don't know...

...I'm sure that I wouldn't mind Osama being ass raped if he ever gets caught.

And why is that? Because our wonderfully accurate intelligence has pegged him as the mastermind behind 9/11? The same crack team of analysts who brought us the "Iraq is developing a huge WMD program" info? It's easy to bring up Osama because it triggers such a violent response in all of us, myself included. However, I submit to you that Osama and the 9/11 event is really just a larger version of what I was saying before: we'll never know 100% if he was responsible or not.

Anyhow, I'm not going to expend an awful lot of effort trying to defend that bastard. I'm just pointing out that making exceptions for special cases is pretty dangerous. Sure, there are some people who I'd like to see endure torture for the rest of their lives. But it's important to realize that such thoughts are not rational and while they might be amusing little fantasies for us to play in our heads, that's really where they should stay.

GMD

Re:Prison-rape researcher

Perhaps a quick glance at SPR.org will enlighten you as to what some people who are raped in prison go in for. [spr.org]

Re:Prison-rape researcher

You sir, are the relativist. Rape is wrong. Period.

Re:Prison-rape researcher

Before I read the article, I thought this was Barney from Half-Life...you know, the guard. That made sense, because he doesn't seem like a very good guard, and he probably would just overlook prison rape.

Too bad they didn't use him, it would have made more sense for me at least.

don't you love catching a dupe?

I'm surprised the previous post of this story [slashdot.org] didn't make an impression on CoyboyNeal!

Easy to see why it happened

Job #4 on the list is "Slashdot Dupe Checker"

Re:don't you love catching a dupe?

When will /. add an icon for dups? I suggest a pic of the olsen twins.

Re:Things have changed

You could never make money off of masturbating barn yard animals before.

But countless spammers seem to have discovered that you can make money telling people about sites featuring masturbating barn yard animals (more's the pity).

How about....

I think the worst job has to be the poor webmaster that has to keep track of reposts of articles on his site. Not only boring, but apparently quite a challenge....

They apparently forgot "Slashdot Reposter"

heh.

Once again, I will point out that the best thing about this article is the icons they use to denote the various levels of suckage.

Med Students

pre-med student who ate, drank, and breathed the blood, urine and vomit of yellow-fever victims

Medical students used to be willing to submit to multiple medical studies to get a "leg up" in the research world. Today, medical students usually willingly submit purely for financial reasons... these drug companies are willing to pay a lot of medicine.

In medical school I tested a certain blood pressure medicine... and it gave me a certain "standing at attention" side effect. I always wondered if that drug was a pre-market version of viagra.

Anyway, I got wood and $50 bucks out of it. :)

Davak

Re:Med Students

I've been testing an anti-glaucoma medication for 5 years, all out of pocket. Damn, I need a grant.

As a parent...

...I have to wholeheartedly agree with their icon choice for "psychological torture." There are some things you can learn to block out - Barney is not one of them.

Worst jobs in science...

Yeah, those are some of the worst jobs in science. I'm sure there are just as many bad jobs in other fields, too.

I have a friend that breeds and shows dogs. She can't neuter them, because that would kill their future value. So when she takes a male dog to a dog show where it's exposed to unspayed female dogs in heat, she has to do the same duty as the barnyard masturbator to make sure the dog doesn't go hump anything. I was somewhat amused when she told me about this, but I'm glad I don't have to do it. (Docuporn title comes to mind: "Uncensored - Backstage at the Dog Show!")

I can imagine some years ago one of the worst jobs in tech (although people didn't necessarily know it) was running cabling through old asbestos-laden buildings. Not healthy at all.

What about the peep show booth cleaner...

I live in amsterdam and I reckon this guy should have got a mention...

Of course it's not a scientific job, but it still rates a mention.

frontend to /.

and I shall make a new frontend to slashdot. one that is screened by people who actually read slashdot content -- or at least the front page summary -- and hides dupes. a url matcher could also help. perhaps it could also generate a "dupe report card" for the article posters.

(I'd need some serious bandwidth, though.)

geez, come slashdot. perhaps you could give your "article preview subscribers" a big DUPE button to click to save yourself from embarrassment time and time again.

Missing Poll Option

So before you complain about your tech job, check out the list. Things could always be worse.

I am the pre-med student who ate, drank, and breathed the blood, urine and vomit of yellow-fever victims, you insensitive clod!

Oh... wait... wrong section. :-)

masturbator job interview

Applicant: "So tell me about the job."
Lab HR: "you jerk off animals all day"
Applicant: "oh God!"
Applicant: "erm, what's the money?"
Lab HR: "$10,000 a year"

Applicant: "Ok, I'll do it...
but you'll have to give me time to raise the $10,000"

Seaworld Orca Servicer

I was at Sea World once and I was walking by the Killer Whale pool. There were some trainers feeding and apparently taking blood samples of Shamu and co.

When we saw the show they had played a video on the jumbotron about the program at Sea World and how they've bread more orca than anybody else. They mentioned that every calf was artificially inseminated.

Of course, this begs the obvious question... Where does the, er, sperm com from?

As I was just about the ask one of the trainers, she made a signal to a whale that I gues meant "hey, baby" because the huge male floated on his side and, well, showed his manhood.

The trainer pulled out a padded, 6-inch PVC pipe with handles and proceeded to service the beast. When she was done, she gave the animal a big handful of fish as a "reward". I really wonder how much training they have to go through before the males respond.