Job Satisfaction

I am a regular reader of Time magazine. It's not the greatest, but I think my subscription was 1 year for something ridiculous like $15. I'm not joking. That's barely postage. At that price, I could use the pages to soak up spills around the house and it would be the equivalent of having paid shipping only for a year's supply of paper towels. This week's issue had a fluff cover story (not surprising) discussing the habits of Americans as determined by some gigantic survey. One survey, which can be found in greater detail at this link, discusses job satisfaction by occupation. Of all engineering occupations, mechanical engineers had the smallest percentage of respondents claiming to be "very happy". I enjoy my job, and my peculiar personality seems cast only in the form of a mechanical engineer. Therefore, I find this surprising. I have pondered this for at least 3 minutes, and weigh the following possibilities:

1. It is possible that a significant percentage of mechanical engineers felt that "very happy" was too watered down, and held out for "ecstatic", "giddy", or "Would show up for work even if they didn't pay me".
2. Those drawn to mechanical engineering have too much awesome inside to fully express themselves and reach their full potential working a single position at a single company
3. Many are born with The Knack, but becoming handy with the steel still takes patience and discipline, which are NOT always included with The Knack installation kit
4. Let's face it, cars, airplanes, the space shuttle, submarines, space stations, zippers, can openers, the GAU-8 Avenger, automated manufacturing, etc... have already been invented
5. Mechanical engineering is a mighty big tent, and it's easy for one to end up in the wrong corner. I am a died in the wool machine design and kinematics guy, with a little solid mechanics added for texture. I can tolerate manufacturing, while fluids, thermodynamics, and heat transfer are beneath me. To each his own (let's be honest, to each "their" own would be a lie, not many gals enter the mechanical engineering tent).
6. Engineers of all disciplines are basically deceived as to their value/worth while in college, and thus have an inflated view of how much money they should make. I made minimum wage until 1999, so I'm still enjoying the pay.
7. Civil engineers get to play with dirt & bulldozers, industrial engineers will admit if cornered that they don't really have a job, and electrical engineers are in another plane entirely (let's call it 'i' just to tickle their fancy). Therefore, I can see why they'd enjoy their jobs. They're just not my cup of tea.

Unfortunately, the Time magazine has separate data on job satisfaction and on drinking habits, but no correlation between the two. Now that would be interesting. Oh, and a final cautionary note: beneath the graphic is the following information. If they cannot spell "survey", I'm not impressed with their research:

SOURCES: Job happiness data is from the General Social Servey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago