Well I thought I'd throw my stats into this post...
I do IT (Supply Chain planning systems for a Fortune 500):
1. Commuting - 10 minutes to the train station, and then 30 minutes on the train trying not loose dinner from last night (I don't get breakfast until I'm at work) due to the stench of the homeless guy in front of me. $54 / month.
2. Low Pay - Well. I'm not paid low, but in terms of what I do (not trying to flex my ego, but I'm THE IT guy for the systems, and if my systems aren't running neither are the company's plants.) Of course the moron next to me gets paid about twice what I do and couldn't find his ass with a flashlight and a map. Then again, is it bad when I'm having to look in the couch for change for groceries?
3. Overnights away from home - I don't have this except for the occasional business trip that the company grudgingly sends me on.
4. Long duty days - I don't ever stop working. I've taken calls in the middle of Christmas dinner. Hell, I went to Chicago for the weekend and was still taking calls. It's a good thing that fatigue doesn't effect job performance...wait...
5. No privacy. Well nobody outside of my company is watching me, but as I said above there is no time that I am not working. Just ask my wife...if the phone rings....doesn't matter what we're..ummm doing...I've gotta answer and deal with the moron on the other end.
6. Security Nazis -- Don't have this...unless you count the security guy who keeps locking the door to my office when I go to the can on the weekends. Weekends? It does? I was still working on a project in the dark on Thursday until my laptop went dead around 11pm.
7. No planning ability -- Even if my schedule changed month to month I'd be doing better because right now my schedule changes in real time based on what other people want....not what I want.
In the end everyone's job has upsides and downsides. Pilots have to deal with s**t and IT guys have to deal with different s**t. That's why it's called work.
The trick is to find something that you like doing so much that the downsides are mostly out numbered by the upsides. So people are luck enough to have those jobs and others aren't. That life. And it sucks a$$ sometimes, but that's it.
Later.
Naunga