The World’s Most Dangerous Desk Job
January 15, 2011
Some jobs are inherently dangerous, with every day on the job equal to a life on the line. Military personnel, firemen, police officers, enlisting or enrolling in one of these career paths takes risk into account, thus requires prerequisite training to ensure appropriate survival skills. Other job titles have come to be synonymous with danger, either thanks to hit television shows like The Deadliest Catch, chronicling the adventures aboard fishing vessels Bering Sea, or simple common sense. No man or woman who earns a living as a power-line worker expects to perform his or her day-to-day duties without extreme caution.You may be surprised to learn, however, that the most dangerous job in the world (at least among jobs at which statistics are kept), is in fact an office job. But not just any office, rather the Oval Office. Even with dedicated teams of security professionals at their disposal, known as the Secret Service, to the average citizen, the President of the United States remains the world’s most hazardous occupation.There have been 44 Presidents to serve as leader of our country. Of those 44, 8 men have died in office (greater than 18), the first of whom being William Henry Harrison, who succumbed to pneumonia and pleurisy only 31 days into his first term. The President is placed in harm’s way not only by natural causes (in most cases, the President is a man of advanced age), but also because of the ideology he represents, as you can only satisfy a small percentage of global opinion simultaneously. Extremist individuals have assassinated 4 Presidents in United States history, including Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901) and John F. Kennedy (1963), among several other attempts on the President’s life.Fortunately, due to advancements in modern medicine and more thorough, technologically sophisticated security measures, every President elected to office since 1963 has survived his final term in office and gone on to experience life after the Presidency, still a daunting task to lead the nation, but much less of a threatening life-choice.
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