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Comment by dubcanada | Hacker News Reader

This and similar support jobs (mental health type jobs) are probably the hardest jobs in the world. Not only for the person doing it, but the requirements for such a thing are just astronomical and not really something you can learn. You can learn aspects of it, but to excel it requires a certain type of person.

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> You can learn aspects of it, but to excel it requires a certain type of person.

This is a big problem in employment. To have successful workers the right person needs to get to the right job. Bureaucracy and politics pay are huge deterrents for this type of work. I've seen people who would love to be teachers and they'd be (somehow) okay with a low pay but not with the amount of paperwork and politics they had to deal with.

apparently one of the things people hire this guy for is just to wave goodbye when they move away. I agree not just anyone could do that in an appropriately sensitive way, but to say the requirements are astronomical seems like an overstatement.

This reminds me of professional mourning [1]. Throughout history there have been professionals that help families grieve in different ways. Hiring someone to wave goodbye when you move strikes me as a similar function. Both are offering emotional services during a time of transition, albeit in very different ways.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_mourning

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