If you yearn to make your juggle easier, have you considered switching to a career as a bank teller? Or an insurance examiner or a landscaper, perhaps?

Those occupations are among several linked in a groundbreaking study to low work-family conflict. Among others in which workers report the least interference between job and family life: auditors, architects, engineers, music directors and composers, and fine artists.

Those whose jobs make the juggle hardest, says Erich Dierdorff, an assistant professor of management in DePaul University's Kellstadt Graduate School of Business: sales and marketing managers, police detectives, firefighters, family doctors, lawyers, nurses, truck drivers, school psychologists and administrators and not surprisingly C-suite inhabitants including chief executive or financial officers.

The rankings are based on a study, published earlier this year in the Journal of Applied Psychology, on the varying tendency of 1,367 subjects in 126 different occupations to report that their jobs interfered with family life. Dr. Dierdorff and his co-author, J. Kemp Ellington of the Illinois Institute of Technology, controlled the findings for the effects of demographics, schedule flexibility, time pressure, workload and support received from co-workers and supervisors.

This enabled researchers to pin down the degree to which the job itself sends jugglers over the edge. The most troublesome job requirements, in terms of work-family conflict, researchers found, are twofold. First, the degree to which a worker must depend upon other people to get his or her job done elevates work-family conflict. A worker who is required to interact with others often tends to become more tired and drained by day's end, leaving less energy for the family, the authors say.
And second, people who shoulder a lot of responsibility for others on the job are also likely to face a harder juggle.

Conversely, those responsible only for themselves had an easier time. While I was surprised to see that taxi drivers in the study ranked low in work-family conflict, researchers cited the fact that they operate autonomously.

The findings make sense to me. As a bureau chief for this newspaper in the past, when I felt responsible for the careers of the 15 employees I oversaw, I felt heavy work-family strain. But now, as a columnist making my own independent contributions, I find work-family conflict far more manageable.

Does your job description make your juggle harder? Do you dream of easing work-family conflict by changing careers? Or have you managed to do so?

如果你很想讓自己的日子過的輕松點，有沒有想過換個工作，去當銀行出納、保險審核員或是園林設計師？

在一項有關降低工作和家庭沖突的突破性研究中，上述職業名位其中。員工認為職業與家庭生活沖突最小的一些職業有：審計員、建筑師、工程師、音樂指揮和作曲家，還有藝術家。

德保羅大學(DePaul University)Kellstadt Graduate School of Business商學院管理學助理教授迪多夫(Erich Dierdorff)說，工作與生活沖突最激烈的職業有：銷售和營銷經理、警探、消防員、家庭醫生、律師、護士、卡車司機、學校心理輔導員和行政人員，還有“長”字級的人物如首席執行長、首席財務長等等－－最后一類肯定是人們意料之中的。

以上分類是根據今年早些時候發表于《應用心理學》(Journal of Applied Psychology)的一篇研究論文，研究分析了來自126種不同職業的1,367位研究對象，研究他們工作與家庭生活沖突的不同趨勢。迪多夫和合著者、來自伊利諾伊理工學院(Illinois Institute of Technology)的埃靈頓(J. Kemp Ellington)對研究結果實施了控制，綜合考慮了人口統計學、工作靈活性、時間壓力、工作量以及從同事和上級那里獲得的支持等因素。

這使得研究者能夠明確工作本身給人帶來壓力的程度如何。研究者們發現，從工作與家庭的沖突來衡量，最煩的工作要求有兩方面。首先，員工必須依賴他人來完成自己工作的程度會加劇工作與家庭的沖突。上述兩位作者說，需要與他人合作的員工一天下來通常容易更累，也就沒什么精力照顧家庭。第二，在工作中為其他人承擔大量責任的人也可能面臨更大的麻煩。

反過來，只對自己負責的職員過得更輕松。研究發現出租車司機的工作和生活沖突較少，我對此大感意外，但研究人員卻指出他們的工作是自己控制的。

這項研究結果對我來說很有意義。以前當記者站站長的時候，我得為自己手下的15名員工的工作負責，那時我覺得工作和家庭生活存在很大沖突。但現在，作為一名獨立撰稿的專欄作家，我覺得工作與家庭的沖突比以前容易處理得多。

你的工作性質有沒有讓你的日子不好過？你有沒有想過換個職業來減輕工作與家庭間的沖突？還是你已經這樣做了？