Yep, it's a pissing contest, all right! Fact is, there is often NO stress to some jobs, but there is PRESSURE, and many people confuse the two. Working under the pressure to meet a deadline, to meet a quota, to stay within a budget, to hire more staff before a certain date, or to get tax returns in on time - all pressure, but there really isn't any STRESS.
Now, try to do the same things but against the incompetence of others - people who miss THEIR deadlines so you miss yours, a quota that now won't be met because someone fell ill, the budget overruns because one person somewhere down the line 'forgot' to figure in a vital element for this year... that's when stress starts to begin.
I can see that teachers have pressure in their jobs, just as many other employees do. I know that some teachers have nice schools in lovely places, and have good, clean, middle-class pupils who want to do well, and want to get to Uni, and do have goals. Against that, there are ghastly kids and awful schools. However, neither of the two opposites is unlike any other form of organisation, whether it's schools, hospitals, laboratories, doctor's surgeries, factories, multinational corporations, etc. Some situations are much better than others, and if one is stressed - rather than just pressured - constantly in one section, and if changing it for the better doesn't or won't work, then leaving it (by resigning or transferring) will relieve the problem.
I'd suggest that if enough 'stressed' teachers formed a pressure group and struck frequently, demanding effective controls in their rotten schools, the result wouldn't be thousands of awful children left untaught, but a government which would be forced to reconsider some of its more flabby and ridiculous 'guidelines' and a system that would have to buck up, and properly support its staff.
