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Twitter tells us in which state people hate their jobs the most

Technically Incorrect: An analysis of an entire year's tweets shows that there's a geographical split between those who say they like their work and those who say they don't.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.


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It's lovely, but might be full of people unhappy with their jobs. HDExplorer/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

Some people love their jobs.

I generally refer to these people as "the minority."

The majority are those who can take their jobs some days and want to leave their jobs more days than not. This is merely the stuff of life.

Is it possible, though, that in certain areas of the US people are happier with their jobs than in others? Job site Monster.com -- holding hands in harmony with Brandwatch Analytics -- decided to look at a whole year's worth of job-specific tweets (March 2014 to March 2015) to see if there was a pattern.

Their ultimate report (PDF) has a certain glory to it. You see, eight of the ten happiest-with-their-jobs states were here in civilization.

You might refer to it as the weird west. But the evidence suggests it's the happier part of the US. The top happy states 4 were Hawaii, Utah, Oregon and California. The first non-western state staggered in at No. 6. This was that chilly place of inveterate niceness, Minnesota.

Maine and Arkansas were the only other non-western states to get into the Top 10.

To be entirely accurate, these were the states where people tweeted at a higher ratio of loving their job versus hating their job.

Now which, do you imagine is the state in which more people tweet about hating their job, as opposed to loving it?

You can imagine it is somewhere in the east. In the east, they're a little more dour, a little less satisfied. They play sports with the unbridled joy of a court stenographer.

Yet it isn't, say Maryland that is the most dissatisfied. It's Florida.

You might think that Floridians would be happy with the weather and enjoy living in a state that has its own outlandish definition of absurdity.

It seems, though, that they're not happy with the kinds of jobs there are there.

Following them on the Axis of Hate were West Virginia, Delaware, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Louisiana and Maryland.

Look, not one western state. What might this tell you about the way quality of life affects the soul?

I would, though, like to add one kink. It's easy to look at this study and believe it offers an absolute truth. Absolutely no study truly does.

What this study actually shows is that people in Florida are the most likely to tweet about how much they hate their jobs. Perhaps they just don't care. Perhaps they don't realize that Twitter can be seen by everyone, including Monster.com.

Perhaps, too, when they go to their next job interview, they'll be asked: "Now about your tweet with the #Ihatemyjob hashtag...."