The thing is with most non-office professions like that, especially those involving physical instead of cognitive work, it's much easier to disconnect and relax mentally after work than with software engineering where even once you're done for the day you can end up mentally ruminating about critical bugs or issues throughout the evening, especially if you have a lot of responsibility and you know people/business is counting on you.
SW dev work can be very stressful.
But police - and most physicians, etc - don't have a WFH option. More and more tech folks working from home don't have an automatic 'mode switch' when you leave and come back. I know it's been talked about to death, but some separation between 'non-work life' and 'work life' is easier when there's a physical separation.
Hmm why wouldn't they, they seem to be made of the same DNA as you and me. They want to make good impression on their boss, colleagues etc (the politics and who gets ahead bullshit seems to be very high in their field) and are also exposed to very high stress situations - solving murder cases or patrolling the streets doesn't sound too chill to me. Most cop shows depict them as a bunch of alcoholics with failed marriages ... I don't know how accurate that is but it wouldn't surprise me.
My neighbor was a firefighter for 20 years, and from his telling, that's what triggered his alcoholism. Drink a few to relax, later drinking to forget what you've had to witness - death/destruction/tragedy on a regular basis. I would not be at all surprised if alcoholism (or similar substance abuse) was not higher in professions like police than the regular population.
> The thing is with most non-office professions like that, especially those involving physical instead of cognitive work, it's much easier to disconnect and relax mentally after work
I wouldn't say being a physician, police or firefighter is non-cognitive work. What you say might apply to some other professions, though. But the mentioned professions definitely see stuff that will haunt you and stay with you, and won't let you disconnect.
Each profession brings its own challenges but I'm skeptical tech workers experience more stress than lawyers or accountants. And when we talk about physicians, nurses or policemen there's no way in mind we experience more stress than those guys. You're thinking about a critical bug which I respect. Those guys sometimes ruminate about matters of life and death. Their jobs are extremely difficult and burn out causing. A "critical bug" for them could be that they misdiagnosed someone and severely compromised their health...I don't really envy their jobs.