I really, really like the people I work with. They are committed to helping others and take this charge seriously. I like that. I also like feeling that I'm contributing to "the good".
But you know what? All that stuff I said about it being more worthwhile to help people than it is to make money is kinda BS. I feel like I've fallen from grace, that I'm being punished. Why should I (or anyone) in the social services have to settle for less?
Our whole system of what is a "worthwhile" profession and what isn't is skewed. Seriously skewed.
When the person who fixes your computer makes more per hour than the person who takes care of your drug addicted child or your aging parent - something is wrong.
Part of it is the recession (that's over, according to some) and the other bigger part is - helping people is not as valued as, say, developing software.
For fun, let's look at the average salaries of:
Teachers - $40,000
Social workers - $38,000
Policemen - $50,000
Firefighters - $42,500
And now:
Mechanical engineer - $64,500
Software architect - $109,5000
CEO - $232,000
http://www.payscale.com/
What happened there?
Why do we value things over people?
