24 February 2018

We are Not Amused. The Ridiculous Comment Every Meteorologist has Heard.

Posted by Dan Satterfield

Meteorologist Keith Carson at WCSH in Maine likes to give grief in the form of facts to flat-earthers and chemtrail believers, but he just did a report that covers a comment that every meteorologist has heard many times:

It must be nice to get paid to be wrong!

My usual response is to point out that my batting average is higher than the best Major League Baseball player and then ask them if they want to make a little wager on my forecast. A few people over the years took the bet, and here’s why they lost:

On a very related note:
I’ve been reading and hearing comments aimed at professionals recently that generally fall along the line of “You should get a real job! ” By ‘real job’, they seem to mean a job that requires physical labor and doesn’t require years of education/training. Moreover, many of the comments seem to imply that their low-skill job is one that real Americans have. In other words, a ‘patriotic’ job.

I submit that doing a job that takes years of study/training, is just as patriotic and perhaps more so, since any nations success is based on the development of new technologies in all fields. Every nation on Earth has people who can pound nails and dig ditches, but to claim that these jobs are more patriotic or “real” than jobs requiring years of study is wrong. In fact, a case could be made that the reverse is true. A functioning economy requires jobs in a variety of fields and my advice to students is to make a career doing something you love. The more training required, the better it will pay, but don’t think for a minute that any type of job makes you a better American.

It doesn’t.