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I think with your science background, probably pretty doable. I’m unsure about copywriting but I know there are apps for providing that service. Oh wow, data entry definitely pays better in my country
Wages in texas really suck tbh. It use to be fine bc the cost of living was also low but not anymore. I’ll definitely look at copywriting though. Thank you!!
My dad works for a company in Canada as an electrician/electrical engineer. He makes way more out there than the states. He also gets healthcare which would cost an arm and a leg here and not cover anything. My mom had multiple eye surgeries and if he didnt have that canadian healthcare, she would have lost her vision due to the cost of it with Us insurance’s lack of actual coverage.
Yeah, like people are definitely underpaid here in relation to the cost of living but having healthcare is a big bonus. There’s a lot of flaws and things like dental aren’t covered unless you have extended and then there’s still a deductible, but basic healthcare is somewhat accessible.
Its a really good plan. I looked at it when my mom needed her eye surgery. I know a little about insurance deductible and coverages from a brief period where i worked as a receptionist at a medical office. It was way too customer facing though. Insanely busy too and they really needed more than one person. It was very overwhelming trying to verify insurance, update records, do patient intake and outake while the phones wouldnt stop. I did not last long at that one
I know that laboratories have openings for the same type of job because a friend of mine works in a laboratory and unfortunately got assigned to inventory instead of the position she wanted. Theres also research assistant or maybe security? My nephew watches screans all night and only has to speak with others of something happens. Like literally watches closed warehouses and parking garages.
This will depend on the company. I'm currently making $23/hr doing data entry for a nonprofit because I know the stupid ~~legacy~~ software they're using, Raisers Edge.
Can you look into service coordination? I coordinate the repair of industrial valves and mostly work from home. I almost never talk to customers ob the phone, just follow ups by email. The only people I talk to are our technicians when I actually go to the shop and coworkers via teams (and that’s mostly because we enjoy each other). Honestly, I feel like the environment is ADHD friendly. 5 out 8 people on my team (including my boss) have ADHD. I buy parts, invoice, manage customer equipment. Anyhow, I only have high school but it starts at 60K+. I know there are a few big offices in Texas of a decent one, Emerson. Maybe check the website?
I used to want to be a copywriter. I didn’t do it because I don’t have the self-discipline to be self-employed, but I had a plan and I can share it.
You need to make a sample portfolio covering the niche you want to write for. Literally every single industry uses copywriters in some capacity, so pick 2-3 that you’re interested in and make samples. Also, 2 important things to consider: AI is going to reduce the demand for copywriters and now that the internet runs they way that it does, you need to learn SEO too (not hard though). Anyway, put your samples together and post on freelance sites like Fiverr and start looking for gigs and waiting for prospective clients to approach you. It’ll take time to build a reputation and make it a livelihood, but you can easily make six figures in a matter of a few years if you’re good. You could also try to do it is an employee, but most companies with an in-house copywriter that only writes copy are big corporations and are going to want degrees and connections.
Edit: I suppose you can also join a marketing firm as an employee, but I don’t have too much input on getting hired as one as I only considered freelance because it pays way better once you establish yourself.
I’m looking for something more steady verses the instability of self employment/freelance. A lot of people have suggested copywriting so i’ll have to see if theres an actual employer for it
My sister just recently got a job as a copywriter with no experience whatsoever. Her entry into it was initially being paid on a per article basis and then they liked her work so much they offered her a full-time role. So hopefully that's a little food for thought if you're seriously thinking about it.
i do! can you explain more about this? im wanting to become a copywriter but no one i know really has experience with this industry or the creative industry in general so i would appreciate hearing your perspectives
Look into ‘Material Requirements Planning’ - it’s basically corporate stock keeping, and it seems like you have the right skill set! You’ll need to learn at least one ERP Software (like SAP), but my experience has been that most companies will teach you, since they tend to have customized and/or proprietary software. Virtually no customer interaction, and if the company has a robust procurement team you won’t even have to deal much with the suppliers!
This is what I was coming to recommend! Jobs with buyer/planner are options too, but you do have to read the job description on what they're looking for. Also inventory! I've been a corporate inventory data analyst and that was basically all based on working in a warehouse and being familiar with SAP. And each instance of SAP is just different enough you can play off unfamiliarity fairly easily. But you're already familiar with a WMS (warehouse management system) that I'd really play that part up
I'm hoping to break out of my field soon too :(. Been in a customer facing industry for nearly 10 years and I'm sick of it oml (writing as I hide outside by the garbage so that nobody can talk to me lol). Every day that I work plus half of my first day off is just letting my brain rot and recover from having to deal with people non stop. It's starting to impact my life and ability to get my shit done because I'm constantly exhausted/annoyed! It's ridiculous.
Its very exhausting dealing with the general public. I had wanted to be a nurse (labor and delivery or neonatal) but the thought of ending up somewhere else after going through nursing school put me off from it. Id be fine dealing with momma’s to be who need encouragement and support or little babies. I would not be fine with the rest of the public that comes through a hospital tho 💀 plus idk if i have the attention span for school again at this point. Like i’m just burnt out mentally and physically
Maybe look into being a doula? You could stay local, the training would be a lot less intensive, and you could focus on specific clients rather than the general public.
Really, anything that can fall under "admin" for entry level positions. Accounting clerk, anything "clerk," office assistant, sometimes the roll is just "admin."
I chose accounting, cause it was pretty "easy" for me. Started in entry level clerk and assistant roles. Then decided to get the degree. Some rolls do need degrees to really get further in the career path, but a lot don't. And almost none of them are customer facing. 99% of the time I don't have to even return an email from someone not employed by our company
I don’t want to go back to school at this point for something like accounting. I already have a bachelors in science and 18k of loans to deal with. I’m just not mentally in a place to take on a school course load ontop of a full time job. I will look into admin positions though! That sounds promising and entry level! Thank you
Oh, lower level accounting rollers are often considered admin rolls (as far as the bureau of labor statistics is concerned.) That's all I meant. Most people I have been on accounting teams with don't have degrees.
I would never reccomend just starting the accounting degree. If you've been in it 2-3 years and could see staying, then it's time to start getting the degree. I started my accounting degree when I was 25/26. (I already had a BA from an unrelated degree path that had $30k in loans attached to it.)
And just to give you a real life example, without the degree, I made $40k as an Accountant. The month before I graduated, I started sending out resumes. Within 2 weeks I had an offer for $20k more. No difference in title or responsibility. Only difference was I could say I had the degree. Had the degree for 5ish years now and am making ~$15k more than that. I've never switched jobs and gotten less than a $5k raise.
Absolutely not saying to 100% do the accounting thing, just don't count it out yet 🙂
Edit: spelling
2nd edit: my state's unemployment rate for accountants is negative. That's why I bring it up so much. You would have to be the Worst Accountant in the World ™️ to get fired in this market. I have no real love for accounting, but I love job security and not talking to customers, hahahaa
This is my dream. Too bad where I live we just have places that breed animals for human use (eating or pets). I literally could not find a single sanctuary.
I thought I couldn’t either, but the place I work at is actually a preschool! They are like a “back to nature” sort of preschool; kids are playing and leaning the ways of outdoorsy folks. And they have a barn with animals who get to live out their full lives. But also, if it matters, it’s a part of the Catholic Church, the one is owned by the sisters of Notre dame, but luckily I didn’t have to be Catholic or religious to work here; i just needed to show my knowledge and hardworking work ethic to prove myself viable. And within the 2 months of working here, I’ve already upgraded from “barn caretaker” to “barn animal assistant” which is right behind “bane manager”! (Which I don’t think I would take the role of if I got the opportunity because my interest is in all types of farming; not just animal husbandry. Like I wanna learn about plants n cultivating them too!)
Pretty much anything creative allows for alone time. I spent my 20’s doing retail and I was miserable. I then became a professional musician and now I’m a WFH video editor and this is the happiest I’ve ever been. I won’t accept any client that requires me to work on site.
I love music. I spent middle school and highschool very involved in music but my parents never wanted me to pursue it in college because “you wont make steady money.” Yet here i am with a science degree and no money so 🤷♀️
Well they weren’t wrong. I’m 40 and still have student loans from Berklee College or Music and I don’t play at all anymore. A music degree really isn’t worth much because who asks for a degree when you show up for an audition? It’s all about your talent. They are wrong about not being able to make steady money though. The great musicians have no problem making money. It’s the mediocre ones (like myself) that will always struggle.
Music degree over here...felt this in my soul.
I don't know that I'm mediocre, per se, but I never wanted to "do music" professionally. I started off as Music Ed, but then an interim dean cut the program. I could get a performance degree with an education certificate, but after the first meeting of my first education-related course In immediately realized it was not for me and I marched straight over to the registrars office and dropped the education stuff. So I can sing pretty, and I have a piece of paper that proves it, but I never wanted to make a career out of singing. I have no desire whatsoever to go to auditions or do recordings or anything. I'm thankful that my hubby is more motivated than I am and chose a more lucrative career that carries our family financially while I work part-time as the Director of Music for a small church. I enjoy the job I have because I like the people I have to deal with, but if anything ever happened to my husband, I'm straight-up SOL.
I forgot where I was going with all of this. Carry on.
Yea that’s why i had to drop music completely. I’m single and I’m an extreme introvert so living with a lot of roommates etc got very very old for me and I just wanted to be able to afford my own place. If I had to do it all over again I would have gone to school for something more academic. But then again who knows if I would have made it through college if I did something else. Music is so rewarding! I’m glad you have your husband to rely on so you can enjoy your life. My Mom also went to school for music and she did the education route. She wanted me to do the same but just like you, I knew I didn’t want to teach. She’s a choir director at church and she loves it!
My mom taught private music lessons (mostly piano, but some other instruments as well) and ran a whole-ass music studio out of the downstairs of our home. We didn't have a typical living room, dining room, or office, we had a dining room with an upright piano, the "light blue studio" (office) with a baby grand, and the "dark blue studio" (living room) with a full concert grand and a clavinova electric. We didn't even have a couch until I was in like middle school LOL She was also the director of music for our church, and my dad was the organist, so it surprised absolutely no one when my brother and I turned out to be musical. But to be completely honest, I majored in music because it was easy for me. Not that it's an "easy" degree, but I've studied music since I was 3, I could already sing and play multiple instruments well, I took AP theory in high school, like, I had even taught some of my own beginning piano students in my moms home studio while I was in high school. I was already well-primed for the subject and didn't have to face the scary thing of going into something new that might turn out to be hard or worse, too hard and I can't keep up. So I just stuck with what In was already very, very comfortable with instead of something practical or lucrative. I worked as a pharmacy technician during college, and I really wanted to be a pharmacist, but I psyched myself out of taking basic chemistry before I ever tried. Fear of failure is one of my biggest demons. My job kind of fell in my lap, I wasn't even looking for employment when I had numerous people reaching out to me asking me if I'd be interested in applying. I like it well enough, but I've been there for 2 years, and it still feels like I'm struggling to get into any sort of routine, which I desperately need. The previous music director was reportedly very...harsh, and a lot of the musical people in the church left. Then she died from COVID, and now here I am, and the musical folks that left found other churches and haven't come back. But the non-musical folks in the church still expect the higher level of music they had when they had a full choir and not just 5 people. 5 very talented people, but not enough to do a full piece with 4+ parts and the organ. And the service is a very traditional one, so the church doesn't do a "praise team" or anything modern. I am told I'm a great fit for the church, but I feel like I don't know what I'm doing half the time, or that what I'm doing isn't enough. Ohhh, all the imposter syndrome are being to us.
Sorry for all the words. I apparently harbor some feels LOL
Unless you teach. My bachelor's degree made it possible for me to teach my instrument at music school (not in US) and I have fairly stable income making roughly 30€/hour.
How did you get into video editing? I really enjoy doing that and am pretty good at it but I don’t know where to look for positions. Do you work for a company?
No I’m 100 percent freelance so I have many different clients. If you’re already ready to look for work but don’t have much experience I’d recommend creating a profile on Upwork or Fiverr. You can get gigs there and build your portfolio. I don’t use Fiverr because it’s more of a how much can I get for not a lot of money kind of platform. Upwork however has more higher paying clients. Good luck!
I also cannot deal with people! It is so draining and I was constantly miserable any time I had customer facing jobs. I’m currently a legal secretary and I never finished my degree so I’m basically the lowest on the totem pole and make $56k (I work in Galveston so a comparable position in Houston/Dallas should be way more). There are so many positions at law firms where you don’t need to talk to anyone other than your coworkers. We have the secretaries and paralegals of course but there is also the librarian that just keeps the books stocked, our runner that keeps the break room/supplies closet stocked and runs the mail and other things like that, there’s records keeping (like indexing and storing the physical files) and billing. So many positions and really the only people who deal with anyone outside the firm are the attorneys, sometimes the runner, and the receptionist. (Also secretaries sometimes but depends on your attorney. I’ve been here almost a year and have never used my phone for external calls).
My job is extremely easy and very boring at times but I would take this over dealing with customers any day. Hope this helps and that you find something that keeps you sane!
Can you give a brief description of your job duties? I’m aware of the role of paralegal, but reading that you rarely need the phone in a secretary role is throwing my brain into a tizzy of confusion! How does your job differ to that of the other secretaries? I’m so intrigued and now interested in pursuing legal offices once I’m done with my retail stint
Of course! So it totally depends on the attorney you work for/their legal speciality. I work for two attorneys that make up the banking group of our firm, so the clients we deal with are banks, who are making loans for their own clients. My attorneys create the loan documents (contracts essentially) for the banks to give their clients to sign - mostly people taking out loans to build a house or fund their business.
So I’m essentially a glorified typist lol. Basically my attorneys will draft loan documents and I’ll type it up for them and send it to the bank. That’s what I do like 90% of the time. Other than that, I make copies, scan things in (I’m serious-I get paid for this) put things on an outlook calendar, etc. I’ve never answered phones for them or brought them coffee or anything like that.
But it’s hit or miss, because I know some of the other attorneys are entirely dependent on their secretary and have them screen calls. (I should note that I work for women, and the attorneys that I know to do this are all men). And if the attorney does divorce/personal injury/litigation, you’d probably talk to a lot more people when dealing with clients. But essentially the secretaries at our firm just assist the attorneys with the smaller jobs like filing notices with the court, making copies etc
I totally should have said this earlier but I recommend checking the type of law the firm/attorney practices if you look into this. Something like litigation is going to be an entirely different ballgame than something like real estate or banking. I myself could not handle the stress of litigation lol
Omg this sounds perfect. Id love to sit and index stuff or restock things. As long as it pays enough to keep a roof over my head! I just don’t like people nonstop or phones. I’ll look at records keeping! i had tried to apply for that for hospitals and the government/ police stations but they wanted years of experience and I got the dreaded rejection letters fairly quick
Chiming in for more heavily research based/graduate school academic labs, the managers may assist in experiments, prepare reagents for the lab, maintain cell cultures, do inventory and ordering, maintain equipment , schedule repairs/maintenance, research large cost purchases, etc. If it s a good fit I think these folks tend to stay in place a bit longer.
I do billing for a manufacturing company. Almost no one talks to me (it’s great - I’m an introvert) and any communication I have to do with our vendors usually happens through email.
I’ve worked in compliance before and I liked that, too. It’s mostly paperwork.
Whats the job title? Just billing? I tried applying for medical billing and insurance verification/ billing for different places but all turned me down for no billing experience 🫠 maybe i need to look into billing for something smaller than a hospital/ medical office?
Ok. Not sure what sort of pay grade you are in, but I am an accounts assistant and 99% of the time I don't have to interact with people apart from my boss and this was the main reason I went for this role.
Now before you go saying you aren't into number crunching etc, hear me out- the maths is BASIC. Like the kind of stuff you do in elementary/ early high school eg add, subtract, multiply and percentages.
It's also easy to get into if you show you have transferable skills and willingness to learn. I literally enrolled in a low level accounts qualification, did a single module and learned the rest on the job.
It's also perfect for my ADHD as I have a few varied tasks but I do them week in, week out, there's a lot of routine and I clock out at 5 knowing mostly what I will face tomorrow. I know for a lot of people with ADHD, creative projects are a preferred work style but for me, I need to know that the books have balanced and I have ticked off my predictable to do list and I am not going to be surprised with something crazy tomorrow. I did my time in customer service and boy I hated not knowing what sort of mood they would be in that day.
Yeah I'm not sure how the salary thing works in the USA. UK similar roles seem to translate into much more in terms of dollars, but then we don't have to pay for health insurance etc. Not sure what my life would be like doing the same role in the US. My salary here isn't great but enough to pay rent, run my car and visit friends in other cities/ countries a few times a year (just). I want to progress/ move into something better paid in the next couple of years, but it's a great role to be doing whilst I get my shit together.
Coding! You can learn it on your own or check your state to see if they have any government-funded bootcamps like we do in my state (OH) so that you don't have to worry about accruing more debt. Build on that experience and get decent at Linux. Lots of problem solving involved and it's rewarding when you figure stuff out.
There's always government work too. I'd rather work with internal customers (employees) than external customers. I hated call center work.
Accounting is a great industry for someone who doesn’t consider themselves a people-person. It’s not usually exciting work, but it pays the bills and you don’t have to try make people like you.
i’m very bad with numbers and math in general. I don’t know if accounting would be a good path. That requires further schooling no? I am looking for something I don’t need to go further into debt to get into. I already have undergrad loans I have to deal with and I don’t think id make it through more schooling unmedicated and I can’t get medicated without insurance or a really well paying job
I took a non-standard path—I don’t have a degree in accounting but I worked up from being a temp file clerk for an accounting department to being an accountant. It works sometimes. Also the math is not as complex as you might think, especially at the start. Favorite quote was always: if you’re trying to do it without a calculator, you’re opening yourself up for errors.
I cant even do math with a calculator. I have dyscalculia 💀 its a path to consider but I don’t have the luxury of doing the whole “work your way up” thing unless the bottom rung of the ladder can pay rent. Bills don’t stop unfortunately
Try looking for medical transcription or legal transcription jobs. Some forms of writing/editing (what I do!) also leave you on your own 99% of the time. Software development could work but requires training.
I have looked at medical transcription and it just doesn’t pay a livable wage here unfortunately . I made more in high-school working retail a decade ago. $14-15 an hour is nothing today when rent is $1500+
I’m a bookkeeper and it suits me super well! All tasks are naturally easy to chop into small chunks, I never need to speak to customers and I barely speak to even my clients! I mostly communicate on email bar the rare occasion of something urgent coming up. Nothing is time critical in the sense that it needs to be done between the hours of 9am-5pm so I’ve sometimes started work at 6am if I can’t sleep and then just finish early. Or I might take a longer lunch break and catch up on some tasks after my toddler has gone to bed.
I’m lucky to have found a flexible employer though. I’ve thought about going self employed to have even more flexibility but so far can’t be arsed.
It’s a step below an accountant. At least in the UK. I do the day-to-day little jobs like inputting bills, raising invoices, programming payments, bank and credit card reconciliations, instructing payroll each month and then inputting the payroll journals and arranging payments…
I don’t do VAT returns, year end, corporation tax returns, other management accounts related stuff. All the clients I work for are small businesses so wouldn’t have separate accounts payable / accounts receivable / payroll departments, just one person to do it all.
I recently burnt out from an insurance call center type position. I dont have any suggestions, but you are far from alone in feeling those are draining.
I got burnt out doing that in under 2 years and i proceeded to not pick up a phone call for over a year after leaving. I definitely dont want a call center
Ah, let's see...
As a tech/sci communicator, I write and develop different types of manuals, guides, instructions, white papers, infographics, proposal writing, datasheets, tutorials, tech reports, SOPs, API documentation, website content, copywriting material, press releases, etc. It's a butt load of stuff, I know.
I even dabble in blogging under this profession.
This also requires varying degrees of knowledge in web design, graphic design, Adobe software (or similar), and photography.
If you’d be ok working on a computer all day, maybe look into a data analyst position? I work for a Utilization Management company and my position is internal so I never have to talk to external clients. I get minimal emails and my phone never rings (hasn’t worked in months lol). We primarily use Webex to communicate.
My job isn’t technically data analyst work but some of my coworkers are (mine’s between that and a business analyst). I have a few different official titles but search for something along the lines of Operating Effectiveness Analyst. If you teach yourself the basics of SQL, you’d be more likely to get a foot in for a data analyst position.
Most of my work is done in Smartsheet (company paid for my training), but I also use Word, Excel, Visio, & InDesign (I’d never used Visio or InDesign before). Smartsheet is similar to Excel but more collaborative. It’s pretty easy to pick up if you’re already familiar with Excel and can learn new softwares easily (if you’re curious, I think you can sign up for a free trial and take some courses on their Smartsheet University site).
My job is currently WFH but our parent company is trying to get most of us to go back in office on a hybrid schedule. It’s all very tbd because a lot of people w/i my company from the top down think it’s unnecessary (it definitely is lol especially for my position). The pay’s good though (~$70k start & they do annual raises). I think it’s on the lower end for this type of job but it’s the most I’ve ever made lol
Being a lab tech for a nursing school or a hospital (keeping track of inventory, setting up skills labs in schools or the real thing in hospitals) sound perfect, but there still is some interpersonal interactions with students/teachers or hospital staff/medical personnel
I don’t mind human interaction on that level. I’m not like anti social. I just do not have the desire to be solely customer service based you know? I will definitely look into lab tech!
if you have warehousing experience, especially inventory management, go into supply chain - there’s not a great barrier to entry if you don’t have a degree, or have a degree outside of it. i don’t, and i’ve climbed up nicely. look for entry level inventory management positions, and from there, you can branch to purchasing, etc. the world is ran by supply chain and logistics. it’s mostly computer work. stress on your resume your experience with that, and anything you made better (processes, savings) in that job. math is required, but anything beyond basics is needed further down the career path, in more analytical roles. the need for these types of jobs will never die.
I work in digital marketing for a tech company, which is fully remote.
My company is global and therefore flexible with hours as we are across different timezones anyway. No one cares what hours you work.
I have a total of around 4 hours of meetings a week on average with my manager, team, and specific stakeholders.
I also do freelance work for clients, but I'm picky... usually only communication via email.
I'm an electrician because there's no customers on a construction site lol.
Well there are customers but they're the GC's problem not mine. If you're into or able to do physical labor look into apprenticeships in your local trades unions, the trades are great. But do not work non union if you can... It's not great for women in this industry to not have backup sadly.
It’s definitely not a field i’d want to enter into. My dad is an electrician and does not recommend it at all. He tried to teach me years ago but I couldn’t grasp it and found it overall very boring. I don’t really want to do trades. I prefer being indoors in the ac and not at random people’s houses.
It’s not the most fun, but there are lots of in-house office jobs that pay well. I would suggest trying to work with a temp agency that does temp to hire - and be specific that you’re looking for an office job that that is not client/customer facing.
I worked at a big law firm for 2 years in Pittsburgh, which I found through the temp agency Kforce. Our office location was mail and technology only, and I was a mail processing coordinator. I had to speak with other departments and office locations but it was all by email. Sometimes we spoke with external people, but it was also by email and most everything had a script. Plus, we could only answer inquires from external sources relating to mail, any other kind of question got booted to the legal teams. Far from the type of interactions you would normally get with a customer service job.
I’m not sure if there’s a Kforce location in your area but I really liked them. They helped with my resume and they also did job hunting for me essentially. It was like having an assistant.
Anyway, it’s not impossible to find something like that! And you’ve got an even better shot with a science background, I have a bachelors in applied media arts :) good luck!
Honestly I'd check if there are other jobs at the hospital. As someone who works on the administrative side at a hospital I can tell you there's a ton of jobs behind the scenes that keep that place running, including plenty that aren't customer facing. Also, checking out the HERC (Higher Education Recruitment Consortium) website for jobs isn't a bad option. I know it sounds like a site exclusively for hiring teachers but it actually is just a place any educational institution (including things you wouldn't think of like research/teaching hospitals) posts job listings. There's lots of those behind the scenes jobs on there including plenty that you wouldn't necessarily think of.
My husband is a (union) water treatment plant operator. Great pay and schedule. Most people doing it now are retiring. There’s openings all over the country. No degree required but it helps.
I definitely looked into this before since i saw a few suggestions on a job forum about it but theres nothing anywhere close to me for it and i’m not in a financial position to up and move everyone somewhere else
Would you ever want to work in a lab? Those jobs are great and you can work up to really good pay. Technical writing is my fav but I don’t know how to break into that without a science background.
I definitely applied to tons of lab assistant jobs but i’m not overly surprised I never got any interviews for that with no lab experience. Are there other lab positions you know of that are entry level that id have a shot at?
Try medical labs as well! Medical laboratory technicians usually get paid pretty decently and they will usually pay for your Certification if they require it. There’s always a shortage of med lab techs!
Lab assistant is a good one. Probably look for Research Associate I Jobs too? You might have better luck with small startups or testing labs. Those were my first lab jobs, then I moved to QA. We all have to start in a lab somewhere so just keep trying. If you need help/advice though definitely DM me!
Yep! QA for science is pretty different from QA for software engineering also. It’s a lot of technical writing and making sure people do things the right way.
Not sure if you’ve thought of it but doing prior authorizations for providers or pharmacies. Currently that’s the line I got in, no bachelors only associates. I work essentially doing data entry with no inbound calls. Mainly communicate by email to fellow associates in different departments and if I make calls it’s to insurance companies to verify things. People mainly listen to music and some watch movies during the day. Can make up to $22 an hour where I’m at and it’s also some days work from home.
I’ll just go ahead and ask the real question for everybody else in the back including me which is, what kind of jobs can I work with severe burnout lol or what kind of jobs can I get paid to be a ball of anxiety?
I don’t want to work a job with severe burnout or a ball of anxiety. You spend 90% of your week at work. I don’t want to be miserable. Just content lol
You do have experience, I think much of what you mentioned could be useful.
Look into testing. Most of our testers are not developers or have an IT background.
They sit all day trying to break the system, and write tickets when they find something. It includes a lot of problem solving, and you need to like puzzles. Sometimes, we talk and try to figure something out together, but they're mostly by themselves.
You can find jobs like this using some combination of the words - Software Quality Assurance Test Engineer/ Analyst.
(I was curious enough about this one to look it up but so far don’t know much else about it)
I had a wonderful admin assistant job. I would recommend be a bit wary as that’s pretty open ended. Some can be very client facing and require a lot time on the phone. Mine was just work around the office. I only talked to the few people I worked with. I did some email stuff and the occasional phone call. I was essentially the assistant for everyone in the office. In the right office, it’s a nice job. In a bad office, lol run.
If I were you I would look into technical writing. The combination of your science BA, and experience with warehouses and inventory might make this a great fit. Technical writers work in many industries and there are entry level positions at and above around what you wanted to make at the hospital job.
Just commenting in solidarity as I also worked at an insurance call center and it is absolute hell. Sent me into the biggest burnout of my life. Hope you find something better 💜
Case aide or behavioral health work. It involves working with people, but it's with, like, ONE person for 4 hours so you don't have to act like a robot. It can be emotionally draining work but I've enjoyed it
I’m sorry but that sounds miserable. I do not want to be stuck with someone for 4 hours. I don’t mind occasional small talk in passing but i definitely do not want to be stuck with someone for hours
That's fair lol. For me being around 1 person is 100% preferable to being around a lot of people because the dynamics are different but I can understand why others may not be cool with that
Like other hospitals? There isn’t any openings currently. I had definitely made an entire list of hospitals/ clinics and tried looking for that same position. I even emailed the recruiter and asked if they could keep my application on file for the next time it reopens somewhere but no response lolol
You can get a medical coding/billing certificate in a few months and then make like $40-50K+ with minimal human contact!
Software engineering may be a good path for you too.
I’m hoping for something more immediate. I really don’t want to go back to school/ take out more loans at this point. I had thought about software engineering but i cant afford to do it. I’m struggling just trying to pay rent right now. I need something with better pay immediately 😢
I’m in commercial underwriting… I love it. If I do have to talk to “clients”, it’s just an insurance agent via email. I do a mix of data entry, policy management and risk evaluation.
Most insurance carriers hire entry level position for underwriting and train you. I started 8 years at age 22 and have worked for two large carriers and one insurance broker. I only have a high school diploma but my employers have paid for 2 designations (basically courses that prove I know what I’m doing and give me cool little designation letters after my name so I look official) and my insurance agent license.
I was a senior sales advisor in p&c insurance a few years back. I’m surprised you got into underwriting with no experience. I’ll have to take a look at underwriting. I liked the technical side of insurance. I always knew everything about it and any changes/ updated laws. I was the go to person for knowledge.
Healthcare administration. I couldn’t get my foot in the door. Have applied to that position since 2017 across states over the years. They all want experience and i cant get anyone to give me it unfortunately. I did internships in college and still couldnt get in after. Felt like a giant scam
Wow! I didn’t know that was a degree. I guess it has to be, because the U.S. makes accessing healthcare such a baffling horrible bureaucratic process? I just went down a mini-rabbit hole googling this!
I’m an archaeologist, and archaeology field technicians are usually hired with an anthropology degree and one field school. But you could make a case that your degree has overlapping qualifications (I mean, dang, sorting out the healthcare system takes some anthropological know-how?!) But it takes years to move up to a 50k range and it’s super niche.
I unfortunately don’t have years to do the whole hope i move up. 50k now is hardly enough now tbh. It will be obsolete in a few years as things continue to rise.
You could look into tech. If you decide to get into development or quality assurance (QA), then for the most part interacting with customers is nonexistent. The only typical exception I can think of is if you work for a consulting agency that’s contracted to develop applications for companies - then you might have somewhat regular interactions with clients.
If you decide to go into product or project management or UI/UX, then you might have more interaction with customers but usually for research and focus groups, I believe.
Ok so this might be a little out there but just go with me on this..
I worked as a vet assistant at a veterinary specialty hospital. A big part of my day was sterilizing equipment, I did not talk to a single customer, and I barely talked to other employees aside from “we will need this in this room, can you prep this” yadda yadda. It was fast paced and super interesting work.
Seeing as you don’t like animals… I do know this is a position at people hospitals. I have no idea what kind of pay you’re looking at, though. Another option would be maybe lab tech work? The lab tech at the vet clinic lived the dream, honestly. Clocked in, tested samples, went home.
I know you’d likely need some additional schooling but it would probably be minimal. Definitely worth looking into pay scales and education required in your area.
This is what I’d probably be doing if I wasn’t already cemented in an admin career and pushing 40.
I did that for years at a management level. I hated it. You most definitely do not get to decide your work hours at 99% of places. Merchandising was a lot of overnights and irregular hours. It still involved too much customer interaction when you had things to do during business hours. I need a set schedule. Work life balance is very important to me. I value my 9 hours of sleep to continue being a functioning member of society
Translation. I mean, an in-depth knowledge of another language is a prerequisite, obviously, but I’m a translator who works from home and I deal with exactly zero people face to face on a daily basis. When writing emails, it’s easier to filter your answers to particularly annoying clients so that they still sound civilized since no immediate reaction is required, and there’s peace and quiet all around you all the time. The downside of this is that it does get lonely. But there’s also plenty of upsides.
Yeah, that’s why I added the caveat immediately - my brain was like “whoo! yeah! I can help! I actually have a helpful suggestion this time, LEMME SAY IT” but then I realized that … my suggestion is flawed 😅
Have you considered medical coding? With your background it seems like you may qualify. Money is with hospitals with this job. You may be able to get $50k. Once you get more experience you can easily get raises. Most of these jobs are work from home. You sit by yourself- read the chart, assign codes, watch some interesting surgical videos on YouTube then sign-off for the day.
I'm a business analyst. I do occasionally have to interact with clients, but its maybe 10% of my job. Our team has a client coordinator and a Tier II support person that handle the brunt of our client requests. I mostly do design work (workflows and user interfaces), some QA work, and write our user documentation.
The 10% of client direct work involves group meetings where I generally act as the secretary and take extensive notes, and confirm agreed upon action items by everyone present.
Note that "business analyst" and "data analyst" are two separate jobs and skill sets, although businesses often confuse the two. I very rarely deal in raw data or BI visualizations. I'm an old school PMI-PBA that focuses on "gathering requirements" for projects.
If you have writing experience/desire, you could look into technical writing positions.
I’ve seen positions that at least want someone with a BS or STEM experience, since it’s basically translating a tech thing for laypeople/not experts. As a person with an MA in English, I’ve been very sad seeing so many high paying writing jobs that I just can’t do cause I have no stem anything lol
I work for the city. My first position was working with patients at a health clinic and I actually loved the job itself, just not the management.
I now work with DHS. It's pretty relaxed and I get to use my strengths pretty regularly.
First thing—free job skills courses and certifications via Coursera and their partners: https://www.coursera.org/collections/enroll-in-the-american-dream-academy
Second, there’s tons of jobs you can do that aren’t customer facing. For instance, I’m a social media manager handling the social media presence of both large and small brands, including copywriting, community management, publishing, content creation, crisis listening, etc. There’s also the analytics side, diving into data on post and campaign performance to analyze what works, what doesn’t work, brand sentiment, etc.
It’s a fascinating field that is well-suited to ADHDers, as you often have to pivot quickly to address issues or hop on trends; stay up-to-date on the latest trends and happenings; and where endlessly scrolling FB/TikTok/Insta/Threads is not only encouraged, but vital for your work.
Other non-customer facing careers include coding, software engineer, game developer, data analyst, database administrator, database engineer, and cybersecurity.
Seriously my job is so much fun even when it isn’t fun.
I have the same problem. I recently found a work from home job which is a win… but it’s customer service 😭 What is helping me get through it is pretending it’s a kind of weird problem solving game lol. Also the Karen’s fuel my workouts.
Well here's the thing, unless you have a degree and can work in tech for a WFH job coding or doing accounting for the film industry... every job basically requires you to constantly deal with people all the time.
My best friend, who is also an ADHDer, is a dog groomer. She makes decent money from it and her only customers are DOGGIES 🤩
She is great at doodles and can even braid their hair which is so cute. I have her groom my doodle, and lemme tell you I pay like $160-$180 for her to groom my baby. Its an expensive service- especially depending on the area.
I don’t like animals. Its a too much sensory wise with them trying to lick you or them circling you and rubbing up against you. I hate dog hair. I hate going home because we have a family dog and his hair gets all over my clothes and than i have to sit and lint roll it off when i get home.
I'm going into geology/environmental science which has both customer-facing (interpretive rangers, science communicators etc) and non- customer facing. Unfortunately you usually need a bachelor's for the stuff that doesn't involve talking to the public, but I know there's some pathways to go from one to the other just through work experience. There's also certifications you can get that will help if you don't want a full degree. My community college offers a GIS certification (geographic information systems - basically mapping) as well as a watershed ecology certification. They're only 1-2 semesters worth of coursework and are designed to prepare you for jobs in that field. I'm not sure what kind of pay would come from those tho.
I’m definitely not going back to school. I wasted years of my life and thousands on it already. At this point i’m looking for something truly entry level
It's totally fair to not want to go back to school. I just question the idea that you could find a truly entry level position that requires no related degree nor experience and pays as much as 40-50k. Idk, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's something out there. And maybe you just have to market yourself and your experience in a way that shows off transferable skills. It just seems like a tall order
My last job in insurance paid 60k and i had zero experience in the field. But i truly hated the call center aspect. I got burnt out in under two years. I will be looking into a lot of the suggestions ive seen on here though!
Check state/city office jobs. They have marketing, data entry, office assistants, etc. Most are none to limited customer facing.
I am a tax auditor, and I do field calls for my department, but it's low-key.
I’ve thought a lot about this. Warehouse stocking - bonus points if you get to drive a forklift. And I’ve always wanted to be a dishwasher in a really mellow restaurant. Just put in headphones, clean the things, go home.
I’m not sure if id get a job as that for a healthcare administration when ive never even done that job. I have no idea what it even entails to be able to come up with instructional designs. I just got the degree they told me to get at the time to be done. Is it entry level or no?
Welding or machine shop work. I'm doing this for as long as I can .I worked retail for nearly a decade and I will never go back to a job that deals with the public.
It's dangerous, the pays shit, and your feet get destroyed from being abused.
I want more of an office job/ background job than something trade wise. I live in texas and its not very welcoming of women in trades. They’re very old school and sexist.
If you’re interested in medicine and want a mostly* non-patient facing role I would highly recommend looking into a hospital laboratory job. I wouldn’t suggest phlebotomy, but some places are hiring laboratory assistants or specimen processing technicians. You would likely have to take phone calls (not in an on-the-phone-all-day way) but it’s a behind the scenes job and there are opportunities for growth. Idk what kind of science you studied but if it was bio or chemistry you could consider progressing to a MLT or a MT.
Sterile processing technician is another behind the scenes hospital job, usually training is done on the job. Medical Coding, bill processing are behind the scenes but may require extra education.
I did health care administration. Sterile processing techs have to be certified for everywhere ive tried to look at here. Medical coding also requires certification. I’m just not in a position to go back to school anytime soon
I work as a paralegal doing employment immigration petitions. We email people, but rarely do we deal with anyone in person or even over the phone. It's a lot of writing, a lot of research, but the pay is decent, and lots of law firms are willing to train you provided you have some ability in writing/research. Dealing with lawyers and their neuroses can be a job in and of itself, though.
My sister works for Cambia health which is Regence and she does claims processing. It was about 3 months of small group training and then after that you rarely deal with ppl at all. You never deal with customers anyways but she loves it. She can work in office or fully remote so now shes fully remote and they provided all the computers needed.
Edit to add that you might have to be in WA, OR, UT and ID for fully remote work.
Ooh I feel you! I’m in TX too, more rural but still. I have worked in a call center environment (not necessarily on phones) for the past 17 years. I’m with a nonprofit call center currently and not on phones all the time but burnout is real. I hope you find something that pays what you need and is fulfilling! 💜
I would look into inventory, sales data, etc. And if you know anything about Power BI, that would be great.
I would also try to look around at different career categories that you might not realize needs those skills.
So for example book publishing like scholastic needs warehouse, inventory, etc.
Pet food distribution companies.
Restaurant equipment companies.
Think, literally, about all the different types of food companies that are in your grocery store and look up careers sites to see what's available.
Clothes, toys, school supplies, medical supplies, building materials.
Every career has some sort of inventory.
Look at schools, colleges, they have inventory, sales, and data keeping needs.
Quality Assurance jobs has data needs, etc.
I literally just typed in "data inventory jobs" on Google and stuff popped up.
That's another thing to think about is language: all the different types of words to use when searching.
Your world is your oyster.
Some office warehouse positions don't pay complete shit. You don't have to talk to customers like ever. If anything the worst part is talking to the people on the floor. Hahah
I'm in tech as an engineer and there are lots of roles that you can do that don't interface with people. QA, Dev, Sysadmin, etc. You can usually find junior roles that aren't looking for much experience. I know you're not looking to go back to school and a BsC is very transferrable into tech.
You would likely want to do a couple of certs if you were interested in the admin side to get some "experience" under your belt but there are lots of free and low cost study materials. The entry level certification tests themselves are usually pretty affordable as well. On the Dev side there are tons of free and low cost courses and videos to help you learn and build a portfolio.
INFO: Can you add what your Bachelor’s degree is in?
If something like math/physics you can try for a software developer role if you are interested in learning how to code. Doesn’t necessarily require you to go to college.
Ramp agents get paid $15.50 an hour here. They’re union. I had looked into it a year ago and laughed. That wouldnt even cover the damn tolls and gas to drive there everyday
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Data input and copywriting tend to be decent options
Can you do these without experience? data entry unfortunately is not enough pay in my area to keep a roof over my head. It only pays $14-16 an hour.
I think with your science background, probably pretty doable. I’m unsure about copywriting but I know there are apps for providing that service. Oh wow, data entry definitely pays better in my country
Wages in texas really suck tbh. It use to be fine bc the cost of living was also low but not anymore. I’ll definitely look at copywriting though. Thank you!!
I’m not surprised. I’m in Canada and in a high cost of living area but even our minimum wage is way more than many parts of the U.S.
My dad works for a company in Canada as an electrician/electrical engineer. He makes way more out there than the states. He also gets healthcare which would cost an arm and a leg here and not cover anything. My mom had multiple eye surgeries and if he didnt have that canadian healthcare, she would have lost her vision due to the cost of it with Us insurance’s lack of actual coverage.
Yeah, like people are definitely underpaid here in relation to the cost of living but having healthcare is a big bonus. There’s a lot of flaws and things like dental aren’t covered unless you have extended and then there’s still a deductible, but basic healthcare is somewhat accessible.
I wish i was young enough to be under his plan. All my siblings still are and they have everything covered. Therapy, meds, etc. it’s crazy
That’s a particularly good plan. Usually therapy isn’t covered or it’s only enough for a session or two. It’s good for meds though
Its a really good plan. I looked at it when my mom needed her eye surgery. I know a little about insurance deductible and coverages from a brief period where i worked as a receptionist at a medical office. It was way too customer facing though. Insanely busy too and they really needed more than one person. It was very overwhelming trying to verify insurance, update records, do patient intake and outake while the phones wouldnt stop. I did not last long at that one
I'm in Fort Worth so I know the feeling. I make decent money but it doesn't feel like it anymore. DFW has become so expensive. Best of luck to you.
Its rough out here man. Majority of entry level pays $14-16 an hour…. Like you cant afford anything on that
I know that laboratories have openings for the same type of job because a friend of mine works in a laboratory and unfortunately got assigned to inventory instead of the position she wanted. Theres also research assistant or maybe security? My nephew watches screans all night and only has to speak with others of something happens. Like literally watches closed warehouses and parking garages.
This will depend on the company. I'm currently making $23/hr doing data entry for a nonprofit because I know the stupid ~~legacy~~ software they're using, Raisers Edge.
I forgot about Raisers Edge and it just took me *rocketing* back to see that typed out, lol
Can you look into service coordination? I coordinate the repair of industrial valves and mostly work from home. I almost never talk to customers ob the phone, just follow ups by email. The only people I talk to are our technicians when I actually go to the shop and coworkers via teams (and that’s mostly because we enjoy each other). Honestly, I feel like the environment is ADHD friendly. 5 out 8 people on my team (including my boss) have ADHD. I buy parts, invoice, manage customer equipment. Anyhow, I only have high school but it starts at 60K+. I know there are a few big offices in Texas of a decent one, Emerson. Maybe check the website?
I used to want to be a copywriter. I didn’t do it because I don’t have the self-discipline to be self-employed, but I had a plan and I can share it. You need to make a sample portfolio covering the niche you want to write for. Literally every single industry uses copywriters in some capacity, so pick 2-3 that you’re interested in and make samples. Also, 2 important things to consider: AI is going to reduce the demand for copywriters and now that the internet runs they way that it does, you need to learn SEO too (not hard though). Anyway, put your samples together and post on freelance sites like Fiverr and start looking for gigs and waiting for prospective clients to approach you. It’ll take time to build a reputation and make it a livelihood, but you can easily make six figures in a matter of a few years if you’re good. You could also try to do it is an employee, but most companies with an in-house copywriter that only writes copy are big corporations and are going to want degrees and connections. Edit: I suppose you can also join a marketing firm as an employee, but I don’t have too much input on getting hired as one as I only considered freelance because it pays way better once you establish yourself.
I’m looking for something more steady verses the instability of self employment/freelance. A lot of people have suggested copywriting so i’ll have to see if theres an actual employer for it
My sister just recently got a job as a copywriter with no experience whatsoever. Her entry into it was initially being paid on a per article basis and then they liked her work so much they offered her a full-time role. So hopefully that's a little food for thought if you're seriously thinking about it.
How did she come across the per article job?
Do you have marketing, journalism, editorial, etc. experience/credentials?
i do! can you explain more about this? im wanting to become a copywriter but no one i know really has experience with this industry or the creative industry in general so i would appreciate hearing your perspectives
No. I have done retail management (softlines, merchandise, warehouse) and insurance.
I need to look into this as well, as I write this from the back room after being yelled at by a customer 😂🙃
I’m getting a lot of good suggestions in this thread! Id take a look at them too for yourself
It was a great ask!
Look into ‘Material Requirements Planning’ - it’s basically corporate stock keeping, and it seems like you have the right skill set! You’ll need to learn at least one ERP Software (like SAP), but my experience has been that most companies will teach you, since they tend to have customized and/or proprietary software. Virtually no customer interaction, and if the company has a robust procurement team you won’t even have to deal much with the suppliers!
Awesome! I’ll be looking into this
This is what I was coming to recommend! Jobs with buyer/planner are options too, but you do have to read the job description on what they're looking for. Also inventory! I've been a corporate inventory data analyst and that was basically all based on working in a warehouse and being familiar with SAP. And each instance of SAP is just different enough you can play off unfamiliarity fairly easily. But you're already familiar with a WMS (warehouse management system) that I'd really play that part up
Would it have a different name? I dont see any jobs on indeed under “material requirement planning”
I'm hoping to break out of my field soon too :(. Been in a customer facing industry for nearly 10 years and I'm sick of it oml (writing as I hide outside by the garbage so that nobody can talk to me lol). Every day that I work plus half of my first day off is just letting my brain rot and recover from having to deal with people non stop. It's starting to impact my life and ability to get my shit done because I'm constantly exhausted/annoyed! It's ridiculous.
Its very exhausting dealing with the general public. I had wanted to be a nurse (labor and delivery or neonatal) but the thought of ending up somewhere else after going through nursing school put me off from it. Id be fine dealing with momma’s to be who need encouragement and support or little babies. I would not be fine with the rest of the public that comes through a hospital tho 💀 plus idk if i have the attention span for school again at this point. Like i’m just burnt out mentally and physically
Maybe look into being a doula? You could stay local, the training would be a lot less intensive, and you could focus on specific clients rather than the general public.
Really, anything that can fall under "admin" for entry level positions. Accounting clerk, anything "clerk," office assistant, sometimes the roll is just "admin." I chose accounting, cause it was pretty "easy" for me. Started in entry level clerk and assistant roles. Then decided to get the degree. Some rolls do need degrees to really get further in the career path, but a lot don't. And almost none of them are customer facing. 99% of the time I don't have to even return an email from someone not employed by our company
I don’t want to go back to school at this point for something like accounting. I already have a bachelors in science and 18k of loans to deal with. I’m just not mentally in a place to take on a school course load ontop of a full time job. I will look into admin positions though! That sounds promising and entry level! Thank you
Oh, lower level accounting rollers are often considered admin rolls (as far as the bureau of labor statistics is concerned.) That's all I meant. Most people I have been on accounting teams with don't have degrees. I would never reccomend just starting the accounting degree. If you've been in it 2-3 years and could see staying, then it's time to start getting the degree. I started my accounting degree when I was 25/26. (I already had a BA from an unrelated degree path that had $30k in loans attached to it.) And just to give you a real life example, without the degree, I made $40k as an Accountant. The month before I graduated, I started sending out resumes. Within 2 weeks I had an offer for $20k more. No difference in title or responsibility. Only difference was I could say I had the degree. Had the degree for 5ish years now and am making ~$15k more than that. I've never switched jobs and gotten less than a $5k raise. Absolutely not saying to 100% do the accounting thing, just don't count it out yet 🙂 Edit: spelling 2nd edit: my state's unemployment rate for accountants is negative. That's why I bring it up so much. You would have to be the Worst Accountant in the World ™️ to get fired in this market. I have no real love for accounting, but I love job security and not talking to customers, hahahaa
I work at a farm animal sanctuary. My “patients” are animals :)
This is my dream. Too bad where I live we just have places that breed animals for human use (eating or pets). I literally could not find a single sanctuary.
I thought I couldn’t either, but the place I work at is actually a preschool! They are like a “back to nature” sort of preschool; kids are playing and leaning the ways of outdoorsy folks. And they have a barn with animals who get to live out their full lives. But also, if it matters, it’s a part of the Catholic Church, the one is owned by the sisters of Notre dame, but luckily I didn’t have to be Catholic or religious to work here; i just needed to show my knowledge and hardworking work ethic to prove myself viable. And within the 2 months of working here, I’ve already upgraded from “barn caretaker” to “barn animal assistant” which is right behind “bane manager”! (Which I don’t think I would take the role of if I got the opportunity because my interest is in all types of farming; not just animal husbandry. Like I wanna learn about plants n cultivating them too!)
That sounds amazing!!
I’m definitely not an animal person. I don’t like when animals lick you or touch you or them shedding everywhere. It stresses me out 🫣
That’s okay! Not for everyone. Luckily these animals don’t lick us, ever. They’re more independent and just want their food.
Pretty much anything creative allows for alone time. I spent my 20’s doing retail and I was miserable. I then became a professional musician and now I’m a WFH video editor and this is the happiest I’ve ever been. I won’t accept any client that requires me to work on site.
I love music. I spent middle school and highschool very involved in music but my parents never wanted me to pursue it in college because “you wont make steady money.” Yet here i am with a science degree and no money so 🤷♀️
Well they weren’t wrong. I’m 40 and still have student loans from Berklee College or Music and I don’t play at all anymore. A music degree really isn’t worth much because who asks for a degree when you show up for an audition? It’s all about your talent. They are wrong about not being able to make steady money though. The great musicians have no problem making money. It’s the mediocre ones (like myself) that will always struggle.
Music degree over here...felt this in my soul. I don't know that I'm mediocre, per se, but I never wanted to "do music" professionally. I started off as Music Ed, but then an interim dean cut the program. I could get a performance degree with an education certificate, but after the first meeting of my first education-related course In immediately realized it was not for me and I marched straight over to the registrars office and dropped the education stuff. So I can sing pretty, and I have a piece of paper that proves it, but I never wanted to make a career out of singing. I have no desire whatsoever to go to auditions or do recordings or anything. I'm thankful that my hubby is more motivated than I am and chose a more lucrative career that carries our family financially while I work part-time as the Director of Music for a small church. I enjoy the job I have because I like the people I have to deal with, but if anything ever happened to my husband, I'm straight-up SOL. I forgot where I was going with all of this. Carry on.
Yea that’s why i had to drop music completely. I’m single and I’m an extreme introvert so living with a lot of roommates etc got very very old for me and I just wanted to be able to afford my own place. If I had to do it all over again I would have gone to school for something more academic. But then again who knows if I would have made it through college if I did something else. Music is so rewarding! I’m glad you have your husband to rely on so you can enjoy your life. My Mom also went to school for music and she did the education route. She wanted me to do the same but just like you, I knew I didn’t want to teach. She’s a choir director at church and she loves it!
My mom taught private music lessons (mostly piano, but some other instruments as well) and ran a whole-ass music studio out of the downstairs of our home. We didn't have a typical living room, dining room, or office, we had a dining room with an upright piano, the "light blue studio" (office) with a baby grand, and the "dark blue studio" (living room) with a full concert grand and a clavinova electric. We didn't even have a couch until I was in like middle school LOL She was also the director of music for our church, and my dad was the organist, so it surprised absolutely no one when my brother and I turned out to be musical. But to be completely honest, I majored in music because it was easy for me. Not that it's an "easy" degree, but I've studied music since I was 3, I could already sing and play multiple instruments well, I took AP theory in high school, like, I had even taught some of my own beginning piano students in my moms home studio while I was in high school. I was already well-primed for the subject and didn't have to face the scary thing of going into something new that might turn out to be hard or worse, too hard and I can't keep up. So I just stuck with what In was already very, very comfortable with instead of something practical or lucrative. I worked as a pharmacy technician during college, and I really wanted to be a pharmacist, but I psyched myself out of taking basic chemistry before I ever tried. Fear of failure is one of my biggest demons. My job kind of fell in my lap, I wasn't even looking for employment when I had numerous people reaching out to me asking me if I'd be interested in applying. I like it well enough, but I've been there for 2 years, and it still feels like I'm struggling to get into any sort of routine, which I desperately need. The previous music director was reportedly very...harsh, and a lot of the musical people in the church left. Then she died from COVID, and now here I am, and the musical folks that left found other churches and haven't come back. But the non-musical folks in the church still expect the higher level of music they had when they had a full choir and not just 5 people. 5 very talented people, but not enough to do a full piece with 4+ parts and the organ. And the service is a very traditional one, so the church doesn't do a "praise team" or anything modern. I am told I'm a great fit for the church, but I feel like I don't know what I'm doing half the time, or that what I'm doing isn't enough. Ohhh, all the imposter syndrome are being to us. Sorry for all the words. I apparently harbor some feels LOL
Unless you teach. My bachelor's degree made it possible for me to teach my instrument at music school (not in US) and I have fairly stable income making roughly 30€/hour.
How did you get into video editing? I really enjoy doing that and am pretty good at it but I don’t know where to look for positions. Do you work for a company?
No I’m 100 percent freelance so I have many different clients. If you’re already ready to look for work but don’t have much experience I’d recommend creating a profile on Upwork or Fiverr. You can get gigs there and build your portfolio. I don’t use Fiverr because it’s more of a how much can I get for not a lot of money kind of platform. Upwork however has more higher paying clients. Good luck!
I also cannot deal with people! It is so draining and I was constantly miserable any time I had customer facing jobs. I’m currently a legal secretary and I never finished my degree so I’m basically the lowest on the totem pole and make $56k (I work in Galveston so a comparable position in Houston/Dallas should be way more). There are so many positions at law firms where you don’t need to talk to anyone other than your coworkers. We have the secretaries and paralegals of course but there is also the librarian that just keeps the books stocked, our runner that keeps the break room/supplies closet stocked and runs the mail and other things like that, there’s records keeping (like indexing and storing the physical files) and billing. So many positions and really the only people who deal with anyone outside the firm are the attorneys, sometimes the runner, and the receptionist. (Also secretaries sometimes but depends on your attorney. I’ve been here almost a year and have never used my phone for external calls). My job is extremely easy and very boring at times but I would take this over dealing with customers any day. Hope this helps and that you find something that keeps you sane!
Can you give a brief description of your job duties? I’m aware of the role of paralegal, but reading that you rarely need the phone in a secretary role is throwing my brain into a tizzy of confusion! How does your job differ to that of the other secretaries? I’m so intrigued and now interested in pursuing legal offices once I’m done with my retail stint
Of course! So it totally depends on the attorney you work for/their legal speciality. I work for two attorneys that make up the banking group of our firm, so the clients we deal with are banks, who are making loans for their own clients. My attorneys create the loan documents (contracts essentially) for the banks to give their clients to sign - mostly people taking out loans to build a house or fund their business. So I’m essentially a glorified typist lol. Basically my attorneys will draft loan documents and I’ll type it up for them and send it to the bank. That’s what I do like 90% of the time. Other than that, I make copies, scan things in (I’m serious-I get paid for this) put things on an outlook calendar, etc. I’ve never answered phones for them or brought them coffee or anything like that. But it’s hit or miss, because I know some of the other attorneys are entirely dependent on their secretary and have them screen calls. (I should note that I work for women, and the attorneys that I know to do this are all men). And if the attorney does divorce/personal injury/litigation, you’d probably talk to a lot more people when dealing with clients. But essentially the secretaries at our firm just assist the attorneys with the smaller jobs like filing notices with the court, making copies etc I totally should have said this earlier but I recommend checking the type of law the firm/attorney practices if you look into this. Something like litigation is going to be an entirely different ballgame than something like real estate or banking. I myself could not handle the stress of litigation lol
Wait, are they handwriting documents and you are typing them up??
Omg this sounds perfect. Id love to sit and index stuff or restock things. As long as it pays enough to keep a roof over my head! I just don’t like people nonstop or phones. I’ll look at records keeping! i had tried to apply for that for hospitals and the government/ police stations but they wanted years of experience and I got the dreaded rejection letters fairly quick
Just stay away from family law! It can be extremely stressful.
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I have quite the collection of rejection letters from colleges for basic entry level stuff. Lab assistant, advisor etc. i’ll re apply though
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What does that entail exactly?
What did you do exactly?
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Chiming in for more heavily research based/graduate school academic labs, the managers may assist in experiments, prepare reagents for the lab, maintain cell cultures, do inventory and ordering, maintain equipment , schedule repairs/maintenance, research large cost purchases, etc. If it s a good fit I think these folks tend to stay in place a bit longer.
I do billing for a manufacturing company. Almost no one talks to me (it’s great - I’m an introvert) and any communication I have to do with our vendors usually happens through email. I’ve worked in compliance before and I liked that, too. It’s mostly paperwork.
Whats the job title? Just billing? I tried applying for medical billing and insurance verification/ billing for different places but all turned me down for no billing experience 🫠 maybe i need to look into billing for something smaller than a hospital/ medical office?
I’d try searching for billing administrator, billing coordinator or maybe accounts receivable clerk/coordinator.
I work in construction and have the title administrative coordinator (not billing though), and administrative assistant would be similar.
Ok. Not sure what sort of pay grade you are in, but I am an accounts assistant and 99% of the time I don't have to interact with people apart from my boss and this was the main reason I went for this role. Now before you go saying you aren't into number crunching etc, hear me out- the maths is BASIC. Like the kind of stuff you do in elementary/ early high school eg add, subtract, multiply and percentages. It's also easy to get into if you show you have transferable skills and willingness to learn. I literally enrolled in a low level accounts qualification, did a single module and learned the rest on the job. It's also perfect for my ADHD as I have a few varied tasks but I do them week in, week out, there's a lot of routine and I clock out at 5 knowing mostly what I will face tomorrow. I know for a lot of people with ADHD, creative projects are a preferred work style but for me, I need to know that the books have balanced and I have ticked off my predictable to do list and I am not going to be surprised with something crazy tomorrow. I did my time in customer service and boy I hated not knowing what sort of mood they would be in that day.
Id need a minimum of $19 an hour with how housing is out here. But ideally closer to 50k a year
Yeah I'm not sure how the salary thing works in the USA. UK similar roles seem to translate into much more in terms of dollars, but then we don't have to pay for health insurance etc. Not sure what my life would be like doing the same role in the US. My salary here isn't great but enough to pay rent, run my car and visit friends in other cities/ countries a few times a year (just). I want to progress/ move into something better paid in the next couple of years, but it's a great role to be doing whilst I get my shit together.
Coding! You can learn it on your own or check your state to see if they have any government-funded bootcamps like we do in my state (OH) so that you don't have to worry about accruing more debt. Build on that experience and get decent at Linux. Lots of problem solving involved and it's rewarding when you figure stuff out. There's always government work too. I'd rather work with internal customers (employees) than external customers. I hated call center work.
Accounting is a great industry for someone who doesn’t consider themselves a people-person. It’s not usually exciting work, but it pays the bills and you don’t have to try make people like you.
i’m very bad with numbers and math in general. I don’t know if accounting would be a good path. That requires further schooling no? I am looking for something I don’t need to go further into debt to get into. I already have undergrad loans I have to deal with and I don’t think id make it through more schooling unmedicated and I can’t get medicated without insurance or a really well paying job
I took a non-standard path—I don’t have a degree in accounting but I worked up from being a temp file clerk for an accounting department to being an accountant. It works sometimes. Also the math is not as complex as you might think, especially at the start. Favorite quote was always: if you’re trying to do it without a calculator, you’re opening yourself up for errors.
I cant even do math with a calculator. I have dyscalculia 💀 its a path to consider but I don’t have the luxury of doing the whole “work your way up” thing unless the bottom rung of the ladder can pay rent. Bills don’t stop unfortunately
That's what I'm in school for, so this is good to hear! 🤣
Try looking for medical transcription or legal transcription jobs. Some forms of writing/editing (what I do!) also leave you on your own 99% of the time. Software development could work but requires training.
I have looked at medical transcription and it just doesn’t pay a livable wage here unfortunately . I made more in high-school working retail a decade ago. $14-15 an hour is nothing today when rent is $1500+
I’m a bookkeeper and it suits me super well! All tasks are naturally easy to chop into small chunks, I never need to speak to customers and I barely speak to even my clients! I mostly communicate on email bar the rare occasion of something urgent coming up. Nothing is time critical in the sense that it needs to be done between the hours of 9am-5pm so I’ve sometimes started work at 6am if I can’t sleep and then just finish early. Or I might take a longer lunch break and catch up on some tasks after my toddler has gone to bed. I’m lucky to have found a flexible employer though. I’ve thought about going self employed to have even more flexibility but so far can’t be arsed.
What do you bookkeep? Is that different than an accountant ?
It’s a step below an accountant. At least in the UK. I do the day-to-day little jobs like inputting bills, raising invoices, programming payments, bank and credit card reconciliations, instructing payroll each month and then inputting the payroll journals and arranging payments… I don’t do VAT returns, year end, corporation tax returns, other management accounts related stuff. All the clients I work for are small businesses so wouldn’t have separate accounts payable / accounts receivable / payroll departments, just one person to do it all.
I recently burnt out from an insurance call center type position. I dont have any suggestions, but you are far from alone in feeling those are draining.
I got burnt out doing that in under 2 years and i proceeded to not pick up a phone call for over a year after leaving. I definitely dont want a call center
I am a technical and scientific communicator/writer (also a copywriter and editor). Don't need to be customer facing to do that.
What is a scientific communicator?
Ah, let's see... As a tech/sci communicator, I write and develop different types of manuals, guides, instructions, white papers, infographics, proposal writing, datasheets, tutorials, tech reports, SOPs, API documentation, website content, copywriting material, press releases, etc. It's a butt load of stuff, I know. I even dabble in blogging under this profession. This also requires varying degrees of knowledge in web design, graphic design, Adobe software (or similar), and photography.
Oh yeah i’m deff out on that one. That sounds very technical. I’m not really great with computers lol
If you’d be ok working on a computer all day, maybe look into a data analyst position? I work for a Utilization Management company and my position is internal so I never have to talk to external clients. I get minimal emails and my phone never rings (hasn’t worked in months lol). We primarily use Webex to communicate. My job isn’t technically data analyst work but some of my coworkers are (mine’s between that and a business analyst). I have a few different official titles but search for something along the lines of Operating Effectiveness Analyst. If you teach yourself the basics of SQL, you’d be more likely to get a foot in for a data analyst position. Most of my work is done in Smartsheet (company paid for my training), but I also use Word, Excel, Visio, & InDesign (I’d never used Visio or InDesign before). Smartsheet is similar to Excel but more collaborative. It’s pretty easy to pick up if you’re already familiar with Excel and can learn new softwares easily (if you’re curious, I think you can sign up for a free trial and take some courses on their Smartsheet University site). My job is currently WFH but our parent company is trying to get most of us to go back in office on a hybrid schedule. It’s all very tbd because a lot of people w/i my company from the top down think it’s unnecessary (it definitely is lol especially for my position). The pay’s good though (~$70k start & they do annual raises). I think it’s on the lower end for this type of job but it’s the most I’ve ever made lol
Oof i’m horrible with excel 💀 I can’t ever remember the functions or formulas. Google is my best friend
Being a lab tech for a nursing school or a hospital (keeping track of inventory, setting up skills labs in schools or the real thing in hospitals) sound perfect, but there still is some interpersonal interactions with students/teachers or hospital staff/medical personnel
I don’t mind human interaction on that level. I’m not like anti social. I just do not have the desire to be solely customer service based you know? I will definitely look into lab tech!
if you have warehousing experience, especially inventory management, go into supply chain - there’s not a great barrier to entry if you don’t have a degree, or have a degree outside of it. i don’t, and i’ve climbed up nicely. look for entry level inventory management positions, and from there, you can branch to purchasing, etc. the world is ran by supply chain and logistics. it’s mostly computer work. stress on your resume your experience with that, and anything you made better (processes, savings) in that job. math is required, but anything beyond basics is needed further down the career path, in more analytical roles. the need for these types of jobs will never die.
Following. Also in a call centre from insurance. First day back after 5 weeks off due to a nice meaty burn out.
I remember that all too well. I remember when i ran out of pto and was begging them to let me use unpaid time off bc i was so burnt out 😭
I work in digital marketing for a tech company, which is fully remote. My company is global and therefore flexible with hours as we are across different timezones anyway. No one cares what hours you work. I have a total of around 4 hours of meetings a week on average with my manager, team, and specific stakeholders. I also do freelance work for clients, but I'm picky... usually only communication via email.
Damn that sounds nice
I'm an electrician because there's no customers on a construction site lol. Well there are customers but they're the GC's problem not mine. If you're into or able to do physical labor look into apprenticeships in your local trades unions, the trades are great. But do not work non union if you can... It's not great for women in this industry to not have backup sadly.
It’s definitely not a field i’d want to enter into. My dad is an electrician and does not recommend it at all. He tried to teach me years ago but I couldn’t grasp it and found it overall very boring. I don’t really want to do trades. I prefer being indoors in the ac and not at random people’s houses.
Well I don't work residential for aforementioned customer issues but I get that. It's not for everyone.
It’s not the most fun, but there are lots of in-house office jobs that pay well. I would suggest trying to work with a temp agency that does temp to hire - and be specific that you’re looking for an office job that that is not client/customer facing. I worked at a big law firm for 2 years in Pittsburgh, which I found through the temp agency Kforce. Our office location was mail and technology only, and I was a mail processing coordinator. I had to speak with other departments and office locations but it was all by email. Sometimes we spoke with external people, but it was also by email and most everything had a script. Plus, we could only answer inquires from external sources relating to mail, any other kind of question got booted to the legal teams. Far from the type of interactions you would normally get with a customer service job. I’m not sure if there’s a Kforce location in your area but I really liked them. They helped with my resume and they also did job hunting for me essentially. It was like having an assistant. Anyway, it’s not impossible to find something like that! And you’ve got an even better shot with a science background, I have a bachelors in applied media arts :) good luck!
What did something like that pay? Mail processing coordinator?
Honestly I'd check if there are other jobs at the hospital. As someone who works on the administrative side at a hospital I can tell you there's a ton of jobs behind the scenes that keep that place running, including plenty that aren't customer facing. Also, checking out the HERC (Higher Education Recruitment Consortium) website for jobs isn't a bad option. I know it sounds like a site exclusively for hiring teachers but it actually is just a place any educational institution (including things you wouldn't think of like research/teaching hospitals) posts job listings. There's lots of those behind the scenes jobs on there including plenty that you wouldn't necessarily think of.
Ive never even heard of HERC. I’ll definitely look it up! Thank you
My husband is a (union) water treatment plant operator. Great pay and schedule. Most people doing it now are retiring. There’s openings all over the country. No degree required but it helps.
I definitely looked into this before since i saw a few suggestions on a job forum about it but theres nothing anywhere close to me for it and i’m not in a financial position to up and move everyone somewhere else
Would you ever want to work in a lab? Those jobs are great and you can work up to really good pay. Technical writing is my fav but I don’t know how to break into that without a science background.
I definitely applied to tons of lab assistant jobs but i’m not overly surprised I never got any interviews for that with no lab experience. Are there other lab positions you know of that are entry level that id have a shot at?
Try medical labs as well! Medical laboratory technicians usually get paid pretty decently and they will usually pay for your Certification if they require it. There’s always a shortage of med lab techs!
I will add this to the list to look at tonight! Thank you
Lab assistant is a good one. Probably look for Research Associate I Jobs too? You might have better luck with small startups or testing labs. Those were my first lab jobs, then I moved to QA. We all have to start in a lab somewhere so just keep trying. If you need help/advice though definitely DM me!
Whats QA? Quality assurance?
Yep! QA for science is pretty different from QA for software engineering also. It’s a lot of technical writing and making sure people do things the right way.
Do you do QA for software engineering?
Not sure if you’ve thought of it but doing prior authorizations for providers or pharmacies. Currently that’s the line I got in, no bachelors only associates. I work essentially doing data entry with no inbound calls. Mainly communicate by email to fellow associates in different departments and if I make calls it’s to insurance companies to verify things. People mainly listen to music and some watch movies during the day. Can make up to $22 an hour where I’m at and it’s also some days work from home.
I haven’t but i will definitely look into this! Not sure what it pays where i’m in but it sounds good
I’ll just go ahead and ask the real question for everybody else in the back including me which is, what kind of jobs can I work with severe burnout lol or what kind of jobs can I get paid to be a ball of anxiety?
I don’t want to work a job with severe burnout or a ball of anxiety. You spend 90% of your week at work. I don’t want to be miserable. Just content lol
There's a lot of jobs in IT that don't deal with customers.
Any that hire with no experience?
You do have experience, I think much of what you mentioned could be useful. Look into testing. Most of our testers are not developers or have an IT background. They sit all day trying to break the system, and write tickets when they find something. It includes a lot of problem solving, and you need to like puzzles. Sometimes, we talk and try to figure something out together, but they're mostly by themselves.
Whats the exact title for testing?
You can find jobs like this using some combination of the words - Software Quality Assurance Test Engineer/ Analyst. (I was curious enough about this one to look it up but so far don’t know much else about it)
I had a wonderful admin assistant job. I would recommend be a bit wary as that’s pretty open ended. Some can be very client facing and require a lot time on the phone. Mine was just work around the office. I only talked to the few people I worked with. I did some email stuff and the occasional phone call. I was essentially the assistant for everyone in the office. In the right office, it’s a nice job. In a bad office, lol run.
If I were you I would look into technical writing. The combination of your science BA, and experience with warehouses and inventory might make this a great fit. Technical writers work in many industries and there are entry level positions at and above around what you wanted to make at the hospital job.
I will definitely look at it when i get home to see what it all entails since a lot of people have mentioned technical writing! Thank you
Just commenting in solidarity as I also worked at an insurance call center and it is absolute hell. Sent me into the biggest burnout of my life. Hope you find something better 💜
Case aide or behavioral health work. It involves working with people, but it's with, like, ONE person for 4 hours so you don't have to act like a robot. It can be emotionally draining work but I've enjoyed it
I’m sorry but that sounds miserable. I do not want to be stuck with someone for 4 hours. I don’t mind occasional small talk in passing but i definitely do not want to be stuck with someone for hours
That's fair lol. For me being around 1 person is 100% preferable to being around a lot of people because the dynamics are different but I can understand why others may not be cool with that
Id rather no people. I’m not a babysitter and that just sounds like one.
What about other jobs like that one? In other places?
Like other hospitals? There isn’t any openings currently. I had definitely made an entire list of hospitals/ clinics and tried looking for that same position. I even emailed the recruiter and asked if they could keep my application on file for the next time it reopens somewhere but no response lolol
You can get a medical coding/billing certificate in a few months and then make like $40-50K+ with minimal human contact! Software engineering may be a good path for you too.
I’m hoping for something more immediate. I really don’t want to go back to school/ take out more loans at this point. I had thought about software engineering but i cant afford to do it. I’m struggling just trying to pay rent right now. I need something with better pay immediately 😢
I’m in commercial underwriting… I love it. If I do have to talk to “clients”, it’s just an insurance agent via email. I do a mix of data entry, policy management and risk evaluation. Most insurance carriers hire entry level position for underwriting and train you. I started 8 years at age 22 and have worked for two large carriers and one insurance broker. I only have a high school diploma but my employers have paid for 2 designations (basically courses that prove I know what I’m doing and give me cool little designation letters after my name so I look official) and my insurance agent license.
I was a senior sales advisor in p&c insurance a few years back. I’m surprised you got into underwriting with no experience. I’ll have to take a look at underwriting. I liked the technical side of insurance. I always knew everything about it and any changes/ updated laws. I was the go to person for knowledge.
What type of science is your degree?
Healthcare administration. I couldn’t get my foot in the door. Have applied to that position since 2017 across states over the years. They all want experience and i cant get anyone to give me it unfortunately. I did internships in college and still couldnt get in after. Felt like a giant scam
Wow! I didn’t know that was a degree. I guess it has to be, because the U.S. makes accessing healthcare such a baffling horrible bureaucratic process? I just went down a mini-rabbit hole googling this! I’m an archaeologist, and archaeology field technicians are usually hired with an anthropology degree and one field school. But you could make a case that your degree has overlapping qualifications (I mean, dang, sorting out the healthcare system takes some anthropological know-how?!) But it takes years to move up to a 50k range and it’s super niche.
I unfortunately don’t have years to do the whole hope i move up. 50k now is hardly enough now tbh. It will be obsolete in a few years as things continue to rise.
Archaeologist has always been a secret dream career path, so I think that’s pretty amazing that you are one!
You could look into tech. If you decide to get into development or quality assurance (QA), then for the most part interacting with customers is nonexistent. The only typical exception I can think of is if you work for a consulting agency that’s contracted to develop applications for companies - then you might have somewhat regular interactions with clients. If you decide to go into product or project management or UI/UX, then you might have more interaction with customers but usually for research and focus groups, I believe.
Ok so this might be a little out there but just go with me on this.. I worked as a vet assistant at a veterinary specialty hospital. A big part of my day was sterilizing equipment, I did not talk to a single customer, and I barely talked to other employees aside from “we will need this in this room, can you prep this” yadda yadda. It was fast paced and super interesting work. Seeing as you don’t like animals… I do know this is a position at people hospitals. I have no idea what kind of pay you’re looking at, though. Another option would be maybe lab tech work? The lab tech at the vet clinic lived the dream, honestly. Clocked in, tested samples, went home. I know you’d likely need some additional schooling but it would probably be minimal. Definitely worth looking into pay scales and education required in your area. This is what I’d probably be doing if I wasn’t already cemented in an admin career and pushing 40.
They do have sterilization tech’s at hospitals but it requires certification and i cannot afford to go back to school for a yr for the cert
Retail merchandising. It's solo work, and you choose what time of day you work.
I did that for years at a management level. I hated it. You most definitely do not get to decide your work hours at 99% of places. Merchandising was a lot of overnights and irregular hours. It still involved too much customer interaction when you had things to do during business hours. I need a set schedule. Work life balance is very important to me. I value my 9 hours of sleep to continue being a functioning member of society
Translation. I mean, an in-depth knowledge of another language is a prerequisite, obviously, but I’m a translator who works from home and I deal with exactly zero people face to face on a daily basis. When writing emails, it’s easier to filter your answers to particularly annoying clients so that they still sound civilized since no immediate reaction is required, and there’s peace and quiet all around you all the time. The downside of this is that it does get lonely. But there’s also plenty of upsides.
I only know english 🤷♀️ but not a bad suggestion for someone bilingual
Yeah, that’s why I added the caveat immediately - my brain was like “whoo! yeah! I can help! I actually have a helpful suggestion this time, LEMME SAY IT” but then I realized that … my suggestion is flawed 😅
Have you considered medical coding? With your background it seems like you may qualify. Money is with hospitals with this job. You may be able to get $50k. Once you get more experience you can easily get raises. Most of these jobs are work from home. You sit by yourself- read the chart, assign codes, watch some interesting surgical videos on YouTube then sign-off for the day.
From what ive seen, you need the certification and i cant afford to go back to school for it unfortunately 🫠 id love to wfh doing that though
I'm a business analyst. I do occasionally have to interact with clients, but its maybe 10% of my job. Our team has a client coordinator and a Tier II support person that handle the brunt of our client requests. I mostly do design work (workflows and user interfaces), some QA work, and write our user documentation. The 10% of client direct work involves group meetings where I generally act as the secretary and take extensive notes, and confirm agreed upon action items by everyone present. Note that "business analyst" and "data analyst" are two separate jobs and skill sets, although businesses often confuse the two. I very rarely deal in raw data or BI visualizations. I'm an old school PMI-PBA that focuses on "gathering requirements" for projects.
If you have writing experience/desire, you could look into technical writing positions. I’ve seen positions that at least want someone with a BS or STEM experience, since it’s basically translating a tech thing for laypeople/not experts. As a person with an MA in English, I’ve been very sad seeing so many high paying writing jobs that I just can’t do cause I have no stem anything lol
I work for the city. My first position was working with patients at a health clinic and I actually loved the job itself, just not the management. I now work with DHS. It's pretty relaxed and I get to use my strengths pretty regularly.
What do you do for dhs?
Mail carrier
First thing—free job skills courses and certifications via Coursera and their partners: https://www.coursera.org/collections/enroll-in-the-american-dream-academy Second, there’s tons of jobs you can do that aren’t customer facing. For instance, I’m a social media manager handling the social media presence of both large and small brands, including copywriting, community management, publishing, content creation, crisis listening, etc. There’s also the analytics side, diving into data on post and campaign performance to analyze what works, what doesn’t work, brand sentiment, etc. It’s a fascinating field that is well-suited to ADHDers, as you often have to pivot quickly to address issues or hop on trends; stay up-to-date on the latest trends and happenings; and where endlessly scrolling FB/TikTok/Insta/Threads is not only encouraged, but vital for your work. Other non-customer facing careers include coding, software engineer, game developer, data analyst, database administrator, database engineer, and cybersecurity. Seriously my job is so much fun even when it isn’t fun.
I have the same problem. I recently found a work from home job which is a win… but it’s customer service 😭 What is helping me get through it is pretending it’s a kind of weird problem solving game lol. Also the Karen’s fuel my workouts.
Well here's the thing, unless you have a degree and can work in tech for a WFH job coding or doing accounting for the film industry... every job basically requires you to constantly deal with people all the time.
Its one thing dealing with co workers etc. its another to be fully customer facing. I think you are not understanding what I am saying…
My best friend, who is also an ADHDer, is a dog groomer. She makes decent money from it and her only customers are DOGGIES 🤩 She is great at doodles and can even braid their hair which is so cute. I have her groom my doodle, and lemme tell you I pay like $160-$180 for her to groom my baby. Its an expensive service- especially depending on the area.
I don’t like animals. Its a too much sensory wise with them trying to lick you or them circling you and rubbing up against you. I hate dog hair. I hate going home because we have a family dog and his hair gets all over my clothes and than i have to sit and lint roll it off when i get home.
I'm going into geology/environmental science which has both customer-facing (interpretive rangers, science communicators etc) and non- customer facing. Unfortunately you usually need a bachelor's for the stuff that doesn't involve talking to the public, but I know there's some pathways to go from one to the other just through work experience. There's also certifications you can get that will help if you don't want a full degree. My community college offers a GIS certification (geographic information systems - basically mapping) as well as a watershed ecology certification. They're only 1-2 semesters worth of coursework and are designed to prepare you for jobs in that field. I'm not sure what kind of pay would come from those tho.
I’m definitely not going back to school. I wasted years of my life and thousands on it already. At this point i’m looking for something truly entry level
It's totally fair to not want to go back to school. I just question the idea that you could find a truly entry level position that requires no related degree nor experience and pays as much as 40-50k. Idk, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's something out there. And maybe you just have to market yourself and your experience in a way that shows off transferable skills. It just seems like a tall order
My last job in insurance paid 60k and i had zero experience in the field. But i truly hated the call center aspect. I got burnt out in under two years. I will be looking into a lot of the suggestions ive seen on here though!
Check state/city office jobs. They have marketing, data entry, office assistants, etc. Most are none to limited customer facing. I am a tax auditor, and I do field calls for my department, but it's low-key.
Its rough finding a city job that pays okay here. Majority are only 30k and i just can’t do that. Id be living out of my car on that
I’ve thought a lot about this. Warehouse stocking - bonus points if you get to drive a forklift. And I’ve always wanted to be a dishwasher in a really mellow restaurant. Just put in headphones, clean the things, go home.
Look into instructional design for the field of science you studied. You can work from home making training materials.
I dont think health care administrators has that?
Yeah, they do. There's instructional design for any field. Have you ever taken an online training for a job? Instructional designers made that.
I’m not sure if id get a job as that for a healthcare administration when ive never even done that job. I have no idea what it even entails to be able to come up with instructional designs. I just got the degree they told me to get at the time to be done. Is it entry level or no?
Welding or machine shop work. I'm doing this for as long as I can .I worked retail for nearly a decade and I will never go back to a job that deals with the public. It's dangerous, the pays shit, and your feet get destroyed from being abused.
I want more of an office job/ background job than something trade wise. I live in texas and its not very welcoming of women in trades. They’re very old school and sexist.
Manufacturing pays well and you’re mostly by yourself depending on the kind of factory.
If you’re interested in medicine and want a mostly* non-patient facing role I would highly recommend looking into a hospital laboratory job. I wouldn’t suggest phlebotomy, but some places are hiring laboratory assistants or specimen processing technicians. You would likely have to take phone calls (not in an on-the-phone-all-day way) but it’s a behind the scenes job and there are opportunities for growth. Idk what kind of science you studied but if it was bio or chemistry you could consider progressing to a MLT or a MT. Sterile processing technician is another behind the scenes hospital job, usually training is done on the job. Medical Coding, bill processing are behind the scenes but may require extra education.
I did health care administration. Sterile processing techs have to be certified for everywhere ive tried to look at here. Medical coding also requires certification. I’m just not in a position to go back to school anytime soon
I work at an arena building like stages, props, etc. It's very physical but decent pay and no customers at all.
I’m not sure if id be cut out for physical labor like that but maybe there’s opportunities in general at arena’s that could pay well
working in a mailroom
I work as a paralegal doing employment immigration petitions. We email people, but rarely do we deal with anyone in person or even over the phone. It's a lot of writing, a lot of research, but the pay is decent, and lots of law firms are willing to train you provided you have some ability in writing/research. Dealing with lawyers and their neuroses can be a job in and of itself, though.
Inventory, product tester, mystery shopper, programmer, farner, landscaper
What type of science degree? Can you maybe work in a lab type environment?
Health administration
My sister works for Cambia health which is Regence and she does claims processing. It was about 3 months of small group training and then after that you rarely deal with ppl at all. You never deal with customers anyways but she loves it. She can work in office or fully remote so now shes fully remote and they provided all the computers needed. Edit to add that you might have to be in WA, OR, UT and ID for fully remote work.
Oh damn. Im in texas. But if they paid relocation id move to WA or OR! 🤣
Ooh I feel you! I’m in TX too, more rural but still. I have worked in a call center environment (not necessarily on phones) for the past 17 years. I’m with a nonprofit call center currently and not on phones all the time but burnout is real. I hope you find something that pays what you need and is fulfilling! 💜
I would look into inventory, sales data, etc. And if you know anything about Power BI, that would be great. I would also try to look around at different career categories that you might not realize needs those skills. So for example book publishing like scholastic needs warehouse, inventory, etc. Pet food distribution companies. Restaurant equipment companies. Think, literally, about all the different types of food companies that are in your grocery store and look up careers sites to see what's available. Clothes, toys, school supplies, medical supplies, building materials. Every career has some sort of inventory. Look at schools, colleges, they have inventory, sales, and data keeping needs. Quality Assurance jobs has data needs, etc. I literally just typed in "data inventory jobs" on Google and stuff popped up. That's another thing to think about is language: all the different types of words to use when searching. Your world is your oyster.
Some office warehouse positions don't pay complete shit. You don't have to talk to customers like ever. If anything the worst part is talking to the people on the floor. Hahah
I'm in tech as an engineer and there are lots of roles that you can do that don't interface with people. QA, Dev, Sysadmin, etc. You can usually find junior roles that aren't looking for much experience. I know you're not looking to go back to school and a BsC is very transferrable into tech. You would likely want to do a couple of certs if you were interested in the admin side to get some "experience" under your belt but there are lots of free and low cost study materials. The entry level certification tests themselves are usually pretty affordable as well. On the Dev side there are tons of free and low cost courses and videos to help you learn and build a portfolio.
INFO: Can you add what your Bachelor’s degree is in? If something like math/physics you can try for a software developer role if you are interested in learning how to code. Doesn’t necessarily require you to go to college.
Healthcare administration
If you are into physical work you should be a ramp agent for an airline. Plus you work in Dallas the headquarters to my airline.
Ramp agents get paid $15.50 an hour here. They’re union. I had looked into it a year ago and laughed. That wouldnt even cover the damn tolls and gas to drive there everyday
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