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?

如果你很想让自己的日子过的轻松点，有没有想过换个工作，去当银行出纳、保险审核员或是园林设计师？

在一项有关降低工作和家庭冲突的突破性研究中，上述职业名位其中。员工认为职业与家庭生活冲突最小的一些职业有：审计员、建筑师、工程师、音乐指挥和作曲家，还有艺术家。

德保罗大学(DePaul University)Kellstadt Graduate School of Business商学院管理学助理教授迪多夫(Erich Dierdorff)说，工作与生活冲突最激烈的职业有：销售和营销经理、警探、消防员、家庭医生、律师、护士、卡车司机、学校心理辅导员和行政人员，还有“长”字级的人物如首席执行长、首席财务长等等－－最后一类肯定是人们意料之中的。

以上分类是根据今年早些时候发表于《应用心理学》(Journal of Applied Psychology)的一篇研究论文，研究分析了来自126种不同职业的1,367位研究对象，研究他们工作与家庭生活冲突的不同趋势。迪多夫和合著者、来自伊利诺伊理工学院(Illinois Institute of Technology)的埃灵顿(J. Kemp Ellington)对研究结果实施了控制，综合考虑了人口统计学、工作灵活性、时间压力、工作量以及从同事和上级那里获得的支持等因素。

这使得研究者能够明确工作本身给人带来压力的程度如何。研究者们发现，从工作与家庭的冲突来衡量，最烦的工作要求有两方面。首先，员工必须依赖他人来完成自己工作的程度会加剧工作与家庭的冲突。上述两位作者说，需要与他人合作的员工一天下来通常容易更累，也就没什么精力照顾家庭。第二，在工作中为其他人承担大量责任的人也可能面临更大的麻烦。

反过来，只对自己负责的职员过得更轻松。研究发现出租车司机的工作和生活冲突较少，我对此大感意外，但研究人员却指出他们的工作是自己控制的。

这项研究结果对我来说很有意义。以前当记者站站长的时候，我得为自己手下的15名员工的工作负责，那时我觉得工作和家庭生活存在很大冲突。但现在，作为一名独立撰稿的专栏作家，我觉得工作与家庭的冲突比以前容易处理得多。

你的工作性质有没有让你的日子不好过？你有没有想过换个职业来减轻工作与家庭间的冲突？还是你已经这样做了？