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Concierge
- Median pay: $34,200
- % who say their job is stressful: 81.9%
Concierges do for hotel guests, apartment dwellers and independent clients what they don't have time to do for themselves.
"The stress is pleasing the client and doing that in a way that makes you happy as well," said Katherine Giovanni, founder of Triangle Concierge.
The public is not always "warm and fuzzy," however, said Giovanni. Many clients are demanding. One concierge had a client so harsh she had to retreat to the bathroom every day for a good cry.
Giovanni advised her to leave the client. The economics of the job can make that tough sometimes, however. Concierges had a median income of less than $35,000 in 2012, according to PayScale, so every paying customer counts.
Methodology: Starting from a database of more than 9,000 jobs, PayScale used data from over 120,000 respondents who rated their jobs for quality of life factors. The top 15 were selected based on the national median pay for workers with at least five or seven years' experience and the percent of workers surveyed who said their jobs were "fairly stressful" or "extremely stressful." They were then ranked in order of pay, lowest to highest. Only jobs with median pay less than $50,000 were eligible., and only one job per "job family" was included. PayScale conducted the survey between August 2010 and August 2012.
- Last updated March 07 2013 08:59 AM ET
