After the protracted U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of us are keenly aware of how stressful it can be to serve in the military. Many enlisted men and women risk their lives every day. Military officers may not be on the front lines but their lives are often in danger and they have a job that may be even more stressful than worrying for their own well-being: they are responsible for the lives of those under their command.
美国在伊拉克和阿富汗泥足深陷之后，我们大多数人都强烈意识到了在军队服役可能会产生多大的压力。为数众多的男兵和女兵每天都在冒着生命危险。军队将领可能不需要呆在第一线，但他们的生命也往往处于危险之中，而且他们的这份工作所要面对的压力不仅仅是担心自身安危：他们还得为那些在他们指挥下的生命负责。
Beyond those risks, military jobs come with more stresses. Enlisted personnel and officers must travel frequently, they do their work exposed to public scrutiny, and they have very little say over how they spend their time. They are also separated from family for months and sometimes years at a time. Soldiers must endure heavy physical demands, from boot camp and basic training to the rigors of duty, which can include not just war but aiding in natural disasters like the Filipino typhoon. Another challenge faced by enlisted personnel: Finding work after they have finished with the service. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, unemployment for post- 9/11 veterans was at 10% in August 2013, nearly 3% above the national average.
除了这些风险，军事工作还面临着其他更多压力。入伍军人和军队将领必须经常出差，他们暴露在公众的监督之下工作，而且他们很少可以决定怎样使用自己的时间。与此同时他们离家一次就要几个月甚至是几年的时间。士兵们必须忍耐体力上的重负，从新兵训练营和基本训练到严格的兵役，其可能包括的不仅仅是战争，还有在菲律宾台风之类的自然灾害中进行救助。入伍军人所面对的另一项挑战就是在退役后寻找工作。根据退伍军人事务部在2013年8月所发布的数据表明，911事件后退伍军人失业率为10％，比全国平均水平高了接近3％。
All of those stresses put enlisted military personnel and military general in the top two slots on CareerCast.com’s list of the most stressful jobs in 2013. The ranking comes from an annual best and worst jobs list that began in 1995 under the auspices of Dow Jones. In 2009 the the ranking moved over to CareerCast.com, a career and job listing website based in Carlsbad, Calif. The best and worst jobs listing, which ranks 200 jobs according to more than 100 criteria, comes out in April. This is the fourth year CareerCast has released a list of least and most stressful jobs, derived from its best and worst lists.
所有的这些压力令入伍士兵和军官登上了CareerCast.com“2013年压力最大的工作”排行榜的前两名。这份榜单来源于由道琼斯主办，始于1995年的年度最佳和最差工作榜单。2009年开始这份榜单转由CareerCast.com评选，CareerCast.com是一家总部设在加利福尼亚州卡尔斯巴德的职业和工作排名网站，这份在去年4月发布的最佳和最差工作榜单根据超过100项标准为200种工作进行了排名。这是CareerCast第四年发布压力最大和最小工作榜单，这份榜单源自它的最佳和最差工作排行榜。
To gauge which jobs are the most stressful, CareerCast considered the 200 professions in its database and focused on 11 different job demands that it deemed likely to provoke stress, including travel, growth potential, competitiveness, physical demands, hazards, environmental conditions and risk to one’s own life or to others’.
为了衡量哪些工作的压力最大，CareerCast综合考虑了其数据库中的200个职业，并将注意力集中在11项不同的工作要求上，这些要求被认为可能会引发压力，包括出差、成长潜力、竞争情况、体力要求、危险、环境条件，还有自身或者他人的生命风险。
Along with military jobs, there are several other positions on the top ten most stressful list that involve risk to one’s own life or responsibility for others’ lives. That includes firefighter, No. 3 on the list, airline pilot, No. 4, and police officer, No. 9.
除了军事工作之外，榜单排名前十的压力最大工作中还有其他几项工作会危及自身的安危，或者需要为他人的生命安全负责。其中包括在榜单上排名第3的消防队员，在榜单上排名第4的航空公司飞行员，还有在榜单上排名第9的警察。
Other jobs on the most stressful list that may seem surprising: public relations executive and senior corporate executive. Though many people may picture PR execs wining and dining and taking lunch with friends and connections around town, in fact they face almost constant rejection from people like me. I am subject to such an onslaught of PR email—usually more than 100 a day—I don’t even reply to most of the notes I get. I’m sure that is discouraging and stressful to anyone who approaches me.
其他一些出现在压力最大工作榜单上的职业似乎颇令人惊讶：公共关系管理人员和企业高层管理人员。虽然在很多人的想象中，公共关系管理人员的工作就是吃吃喝喝，以及到处跟朋友和结识的人物共进午餐，但实际上他们几乎在大多数情况下都要面对被我这样的人拒绝的情况。我收到的公关邮件铺天盖地——通常一天要超过100封——大多数收到的邮件我甚至连回都懒得回。我敢肯定任何想要和我套近乎的公关人员都挺沮丧和压力山大的。
Corporate executives likewise have an image that belies their work lives, says Lee. “They’re responsible for the livelihood of everyone who works at their company, ” he notes. “If the company is public, they’re responsible for their shareholders.” Plus they travel constantly and work around the clock on a schedule that is not of their own making.
同样地，李（Lee）说，人们对于企业高层管理人员工作的想象也和现实不符。“他们要为在他们公司工作的所有员工的生计负责，”他指出。“如果他们执掌的是上市公司，那么他们还要为他们的股东负责。”另外，他们不断地出差，按照自己难以做主的日程表日以继夜地工作。
Then there is a profession that is close to my own, newspaper reporter, No. 8 on the list. In these times of newsroom austerity and mounting pressure to produce multi-media reports as news is breaking, while competing with lightning-fast social media and a plethora of blogs, this job deserves to be on the top ten list. Of course reporters also cover wars and assume some of the same risks as members of the military. Meantime, the market for old fashioned newspaper journalists continues to shrink, meaning that many reporters feel they must stay in unhappy, risky positions at a time when they would prefer to move on.
接着就是一种和我的工作非常接近的职业，那就是排在榜单第八位的报社记者。在这个时代，编辑部面临着巨大的经济压力，并且当新闻发生时要与传播快如闪电的社交媒体和大量博客赛跑，撰写多媒体报道的压力也日益增加，这项工作跻身榜单前十名无可非议。当然，记者还要去战地采访，面临着某些和军方人员相同的风险。与此同时，老派新闻记者的市场需求继续萎缩，这意味着许多记者感到，在他们宁愿离开的某个时刻，他们却必须呆在不愉快、充满风险的岗位上。
What is the use of these lists for the average reader? Lee says that most people who choose dangerous jobs like firefighter or police officer want to work in those fields despite the stress level. Some people have “the gene” for those jobs, as Lee puts it. But maybe a young person who reads this story will think twice about trying to become a newspaper reporter. though I think that journalists may have a gene for this high-stress profession too. Still, if you are a young person deciding on a career, check out the least stressful jobs list.
这份榜单对于普通读者而言又有什么用处呢？李说，对于大多数选择比如消防员或者警察之类的危险工作的人士而言，尽管压力非常大，但是他们还是想在那些领域工作。正如李所说的，有些人拥有这些工作的“基因”。但是一位阅读了这篇报道的年轻人也许会重新考虑一下新闻记者这个职业目标。虽然我觉得记者可能也拥有从事这种高压力工作的基因。不过，如果你是一个正在决定职业生涯的年轻人，查一下压力最小的工作排行榜吧。
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