A few weeks back, I sent out an innocent tweet about a new poll that showed PR pros preferred using Facebook over Twitter. Fellow PRBC-er, Jeff Esposito, read me the riot act about how he was sick of PR people taking ourselves so seriously.

Here I will quote Mr. Esposito: “I am sick of the self-promotional BS spewed lately. Last I checked our job’s function was to make co’s look good.” I tried to rack my brain about what my link had to do with this topic. After a bit of back and forth, we discovered Jeff mixed up my tweet with someone else’s and now he owes me a drink.

Yet, in the confusion, he did make a point. Do PR pros have a tendency to throw a pity party for ourselves? Recently, CNBC called Public Relations the #2 most stressful job in America (obviously, they did not fact check the salary portion). When I heard this news, I was ready to pop open a bottle of tequila and wallow about how bad I have it, how difficult my job is, and so on.

Popping my own PR bubble, does our job REALLY rank at the top of the list? Yes, with the introduction of social media, PR is more a 24/7 job than ever before. I also agree sometimes we’re at the beck and call of our clients. But when comparing public relations to other jobs, I would think a surgeon or even a police officer could be more frazzled than us.

As PR professionals, we like to wax poetic about the industry; the hardships of the profession, the challenges we face on a daily basis. It can almost become second nature to complain. So before your write the next “woe is me” post, take a few steps back and ask yourself: “Do we really have it that bad?”