Job Satisfaction

I've seen my colleagues plunge into rioting mobs, drive into the hills as they exploded with fire and -- on days when the earth shook -- leave their anxious families to rush to crumpled buildings. You think a little bankruptcy scares this crew? You think Chapter 11 has us down? You think we fear the future? Well, yes. Yes. And hell yes. In the ragtag old Los Angeles Times newsroom, emotions run as threadbare as the quarter-century-old carpet.

As a mid-career professional with a doctorate in chemistry, Maurice Stephenson appeared made to order for the Los Angeles Unified School District, especially because he was eager to teach at a high-poverty campus in a system woefully short of qualified science teachers. But the honeymoon ended abruptly after less than two years. Fed up with student insolence and administrative impotence, he stalked out of Manual Arts High School on March 12 and never went back.

Rich Gonzalez has everything he needs to fulfill his dream of becoming a major league umpire. He has the skills, the character, the intelligence, the passion. "It's what I want to do with my life," he says. What he may never get, however, is the opportunity. That's because the big league umpire roster has only slightly more turnover than the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, between 2004 and last season the Supreme Court actually got more new justices (two) than baseball did new umpires (one).

"There are now too many musicians in San Francisco, more than enough to fill all the 'jobs.' What we need is work, not musicians. Stay away from San Francisco. You will find it cheaper in the end." Notice signed "By order, Board of Directors, Local #6, San Francisco" and posted in the American Musician in 1898. * ANYONE who supposes that American musicians have a tough time finding jobs compared with their forebears obviously hasn't looked into the matter.

With seven children to care for and a caseload that quadrupled this past year, U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson says he can no longer afford his prestigious lifetime appointment. The 44-year-old, named to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California less than four years ago, is the latest defection in an accelerating nationwide trend toward leaving the federal bench long before retirement age to earn more money in private practice. Vacancies in the federal judiciary are mounting, and too few of the best legal minds are stepping forward to replace them, judicial analysts say. They attribute what they see as a troubling phenomenon to Congress' failure for nearly two decades to pass a significant pay increase for federal judges or to expand their numbers to handle a soaring caseload.

Google Inc. was the top-ranked employer for the second straight year, beating Internet home lender Quicken Loans Inc. and grocery chain Wegmans Food Markets Inc., according to a Fortune magazine poll of employees at 446 companies. The estimated 15,900 employees of the Internet-search company based in Mountain View, Calif., are drawn to the "flexibility, financial security, of course, and the opportunity to get things done," Fortune said.

Companies should treat their low-wage workers better -- for the companies' own good. That was the conclusion of a corporate-funded study released Thursday that described the precarious existence of many hourly-wage earners. The study highlighted 15 programs -- ranging from subsidized child care at Bank of America to emergency loans available at Levi Strauss & Co. -- that improved workers' lot while bettering their employers' bottom lines.

The Securities and Exchange Commission three weeks ago posted a job opening designed to help prevent employee burnout: an organizational psychologist. The post, which pays $101,000 to $147,978 annually, aims to "improve employee attitudes and satisfaction related to employee retention, job satisfaction, burnout, conflict and stress," according to a listing on the SEC's website. The closing date for applications had been Thursday but was extended until July 9.

Some days, the fat man just wants the fat lady to sing. He wishes the holiday season would end already. His back aches, his red suit feels like a spacesuit, his cheeks have gone numb from smiling for 12 hours -- and still the kids keep coming and coming, like ants at a picnic.