“There’s no easy job” … but help me find one

[Anonymous]

OP
Thanks for all the responses. Food for thought.

I'm mentally committed to staying at my current school for at least the rest of the school year, maybe one more. In the meantime, I have reached out to a local organization to offer my services as a volunteer. I hope to get a sense of what an MSW might help me find. I appreciate at the folks advising me to look at another school or get certified, but I think I am just mentally/psychological/spiritually burned out with teaching. Like I said, I understand there's no such thing as an easy job, but I'm looking for a different one that might be the right fit for me. Maybe I will try some freelance / volunteer work in some sort of writing or editing role to see how that feels.

I think I'm still open to social work / counseling, library work, but maybe not nursing. I realize that both those fields often involve very challenging populations and work environments, but I'm drawn to what I am drawn to, I guess. I do not really want to work in retail or admin. I have done both and don't want to go back to that work when I no longer need to financially. I don't think working from home or in a back office is for me, either. I have social anxiety and am very introverted so I don't enjoy being around others all the time, but I think I need to be around other people and be out in the world. It pushes me, challenges me, helps me grow, helps me feel more productive. I don't like it, but I think I need it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Admin is not an easy job. Sorry it's not. It usually requires lots of facetime and a good admin ends up being procedure police without any real power/respect.

I have an easy job. I work a good 4 hours a day and the rest is intermittent. Have busy periods a few times a year where I may put in a full 40 hours or even work overtime. I started at mid 40s and have gotten up to 70s recently in less than < 5 years. Pay is low but so is responsibility. leave is okay, health insurance is fantastic.
Retirement is x contribution at the end of the year based on salary.

Pay raises are consistent. I get to WAH FT and travel every 2-3 years for a few days, which is a nice break. I work with chill people who treat me like an adult and understand that I have a life outside of work. Some days are interesting, some are dull. Not a job for an extrovert as 99.9 of my communication is via email or website.

I thought about teaching or going back to school but I'll make more than my teacher friends ina few years who have masters degrees. Our HHI income will be 200k in a few years and that's good enough for me.

Where do you find this kind of work? This sounds perfect for me, I'd take something easy and remote for 50k a year but can't seem to find anything. Anything listed for remote has 1000 applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you like to be around people? Working on teams? Do you need your work to be interesting?

If not, I recommend “back office” work for a federal contractor. It’s in house and mostly remote. Subcontracts, compliance, purchasing, contract closeout, accounts payable, records retention. There are a ton of jobs, I supervise several, that are fully remote, 40hrs a week if you work slow, that pay $65-90k. The catch is you work from home and talk to people 1-3x a week. It’s self paced, but detail oriented work. For some people, they would lose their minds with boredom and loneliness. For the right person, it’s a perfect job with minimal stress.

Where would one apply for these? USAJOBS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you like to be around people? Working on teams? Do you need your work to be interesting?

If not, I recommend “back office” work for a federal contractor. It’s in house and mostly remote. Subcontracts, compliance, purchasing, contract closeout, accounts payable, records retention. There are a ton of jobs, I supervise several, that are fully remote, 40hrs a week if you work slow, that pay $65-90k. The catch is you work from home and talk to people 1-3x a week. It’s self paced, but detail oriented work. For some people, they would lose their minds with boredom and loneliness. For the right person, it’s a perfect job with minimal stress.

Where would one apply for these? USAJOBS?

no, usajobs is only for actual federal positions. federal contractors you'd look at the large federal contractors sites (booz allen, gdit, accenture, etc), and linkedin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The easiest job is something you like. If you like English, maybe become a copyeditor or journalist or writer for blogs? An editor of books?

I’ve thought about these but how to break into this work? I see lots of random freelance websites and the field just seems very over saturated.

So true. Try to get a skill that is in demand, rather than meaning yet another person trying to (and getting frustrated by) trying to earn money by editing, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Philanthropy. (Not fundraising). Find a foundation whose looking for an Executive Director and you're set. Easy, good enough money.

I don’t think I have the networking and fundraising skills for this.

Plus you can't just walk in to door to a foundation and immediately become the Executive Director. People in those roles most likely have been working in the non-profit world for quite a while.

[Anonymous]

I suggest you look into becoming a project manager or a contracts manager. You can make pretty good money and there is a lot of demand for both of these positions. There are free certification courses that you can take on line to give you some initial training. Or with a background in education you could look into being a corporate trainer.

Google has a ton of free certifications you can look into that can help position you for new roles. If I were looking to transition into a new field, I would closely look into getting these types of certifications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admin is not an easy job. Sorry it's not. It usually requires lots of facetime and a good admin ends up being procedure police without any real power/respect.

I have an easy job. I work a good 4 hours a day and the rest is intermittent. Have busy periods a few times a year where I may put in a full 40 hours or even work overtime. I started at mid 40s and have gotten up to 70s recently in less than < 5 years. Pay is low but so is responsibility. leave is okay, health insurance is fantastic.
Retirement is x contribution at the end of the year based on salary.

Pay raises are consistent. I get to WAH FT and travel every 2-3 years for a few days, which is a nice break. I work with chill people who treat me like an adult and understand that I have a life outside of work. Some days are interesting, some are dull. Not a job for an extrovert as 99.9 of my communication is via email or website.

I thought about teaching or going back to school but I'll make more than my teacher friends ina few years who have masters degrees. Our HHI income will be 200k in a few years and that's good enough for me.

Where do you find this kind of work? This sounds perfect for me, I'd take something easy and remote for 50k a year but can't seem to find anything. Anything listed for remote has 1000 applicants.

I found the job after being underemployed for almost 3 years after graduating college. I was servinf tables which was honestly such a disappointment and made me very depressed because I had actual real jobs before I went back to school and I felt like going back to school to get a degree so I could get a better job never actually panned out and I was back to waiting tables just like I had done in my early twenties.
Needless to say many people would not be interested in the company because it starts at such a low salary but for me it felt like an opportunity to get my foot in the door where every door had slammed in my face because I was older and for most entry level jobs I had too much previous experience and for any non entry level jobs I didn't have enough experience or they didn't like that I was a non-traditional applicant

It's not remote as an initial job it's a remote job because of covid and I submitted to become full-time remote send side effectively been doing my job at home for two and a half years.

I definitely think that working for a federal contractor or the federal government or state government are really the most secure positions. And even getting in at the lower levels is okay. Maybe my post made it sound like I'm not a good worker because I only work you know 4 hours but I'm very effective. I've been given mid year raises for performance but I also know that I'm likely never to go up the managerial chain because I don't have an advanced degree. I've also learned in multiple jobs that many businesses will work you as hard as you're willing to let them work you and that sales jobs maybe some other professions that I'm not particularly knowledgeable about do actually correlate to direct compensation for effort. But most jobs don't. Which makes makes for a lot of unsatisfactory performance, pay, and satisfaction.

[Anonymous]

What about a job in higher education administration? You could look at something in academic advising, the registrar’s office, or financial aid to be able to advise students. Depending on the college, the pay might not be great, but you would have good benefits, a lot more flexibility, and wouldn’t need to bring work home.

[Anonymous]

You can check the local public library systems for a job called “library associate”. These are for bachelors degree people and seem to be very basic reference jobs. I think pay starts in the $40,000 to $45,000 rage and goes up to about $60,000 over time. If you have a Master of Library Science degree, you start out a bit higher. You can also work as an assistant checking out books to customers, dealing with fines, basic directional questions and the like. Not hard work.

Libraries aren’t dying and librarians are being hired. But it is a pink collar profession as are nursing and teaching. It gets little respect in terms of status or pay as compared to other professions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The easiest job is something you like. If you like English, maybe become a copyeditor or journalist or writer for blogs? An editor of books?

I’ve thought about these but how to break into this work? I see lots of random freelance websites and the field just seems very over saturated.

My friend finds copy editing work on upwork. She also has an English degree but is a certified teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you explain what you don’t like about your current job? Not sure what you are hoping to change.

I guess the things I don't like add up to feeling almost inhuman:

-not being able to go to the bathroom for hours (because you can't leave kids alone and there isn't a second adult)

-being massively underpaid-- I calculated by hours worked and if I break it down by hour, Starbucks and other wage workers make more than I do.

-being disrespected by students, parents, admin. Of course some are lovely, but the bad apples are... bad.

-having to skip meals or choke down a granola bar in the bathroom because of being pulled into subbing and having no lunch time. The reason for eating in the bathroom is because I don't think we are supposed to eat in front of students / in the classroom.

I guess I'd like to be able to drink water and go to the bathroom. And maybe make a little more than what amounts to about $17/hour. Summers off are nice, but I often end up working or doing classes so I don't actually take summer break.

Are you making less than $40k? If you work 55 hours a week (I’m usually in the 50-55 hour range) for the entire school year and average it out to $17/hour, it would be about $36,500 a year.

ES Teacher

Kids are in school 6.5 hours a day, 32.5 hrs/ week. Elementary students don’t have much (or any in most DMV districts) homework.

What in the world are you doing the other 20 hrs of the week? Sure, your first year teaching planning maybe daunting, but once you have a curriculum you just tweak from year to year (parents were teachers)

Thanks for demonstrating exactly why teachers feel disrespected and underappreciated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you explain what you don’t like about your current job? Not sure what you are hoping to change.

I guess the things I don't like add up to feeling almost inhuman:

-not being able to go to the bathroom for hours (because you can't leave kids alone and there isn't a second adult)

-being massively underpaid-- I calculated by hours worked and if I break it down by hour, Starbucks and other wage workers make more than I do.

-being disrespected by students, parents, admin. Of course some are lovely, but the bad apples are... bad.

-having to skip meals or choke down a granola bar in the bathroom because of being pulled into subbing and having no lunch time. The reason for eating in the bathroom is because I don't think we are supposed to eat in front of students / in the classroom.

I guess I'd like to be able to drink water and go to the bathroom. And maybe make a little more than what amounts to about $17/hour. Summers off are nice, but I often end up working or doing classes so I don't actually take summer break.

Are you making less than $40k? If you work 55 hours a week (I’m usually in the 50-55 hour range) for the entire school year and average it out to $17/hour, it would be about $36,500 a year.

ES Teacher

Kids are in school 6.5 hours a day, 32.5 hrs/ week. Elementary students don’t have much (or any in most DMV districts) homework.

What in the world are you doing the other 20 hrs of the week? Sure, your first year teaching planning maybe daunting, but once you have a curriculum you just tweak from year to year (parents were teachers)

Thanks for demonstrating exactly why teachers feel disrespected and underappreciated

Yep. And curriculum changes a lot. Maybe not 30 years ago or whenever PP’s parents taught, but these days? There are so many committees and studies and pilot programs and initiatives, people would be surprised. And a good teacher will change the coursework year to year anyway, of course they do! I’m an old millennial but part of what I find challenging is learning and incorporating all the new technology coming out.

[Anonymous]

If I had teaching experience I would become an Orton Gillingham certified reading tutor for kids with dyslexia.

The one we used had been an ESOL teacher for a few years and now charges $100 an hour for reading tutoring and is booked solid.

[Anonymous]

Tutor SAT
Tutor students at colleges for writing papers

Technical writers make $100K

I like the Orton Gillingham Tutor idea.