Jobs that don't require dealing with people

Run n Spread

Norm Smith Medallist
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Thread starter #1
The impossible dream I know but it seems to me nearly every job in this country is related to the service economy in some way. So failing the ability to work for yourself what jobs are there that allow you to work in solitude with minimal interaction and just get the job done and/or not have to work with some manager/boss breathing down your neck every 5 minutes?

I once worked as part of a mailroom and that tended to fit the bill. Also way back did basic cleaning and maintenance, thou believe it or not you always had some fu^&^wit inisisting some ridiculous standard wasn't met. I suppose the more sophisticated mining jobs.

Although given the diabolical statement of the economy and the fact that the only jobs available tend to be service based I really and struggling to think of much of an alternative. Anyone out there have a job like this.
 

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The Passenger

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#2
It depends how far you wanna take it. Are we talking about client/customer communication or just with fellow employees?

If you're talking literally no face to face communication and simply filling in your timesheet and some sort of report to a manager than there is probably none.

I've read a few stories of people starting to work for themselves because they wanted to cut down their interaction with people, but ended up communication more with the outside world.
 

Plugger35

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#4
Lighthouse Keeper? Do those jobs even still exist?

I had a job as an auto parts delivery driver in San Diego where you spend most of your time cruising around in a van by yourself dropping off parts to mechanics and car dealers. Minimal dealing with people, apart from getting people to sign for dropping off stuff and picking up stuff from the guys in the warehouse. Pay wasn't great, you were pretty much your own boss though and you only got in shit from the supervisor if you were too slow on your delivery runs but most runs you had about 30 mins or more to spare to just cruise around with the stereo cranking. It was just a casual travel job to keep me afloat but I enjoyed it a lot more than the office jobs I've had here that I'm qualified for and pay better.
 
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JUBJUB

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#7
Sounds like you're a fan of his webcam show.

Even masturbating on webcam you'd have to deal with a lot of creepy online stalkers and sex depraved freaks, it wouldn't be all plain sailing.
You've justed described 75% of the people that post on the General Discussion board
 

Stratton_Gun

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#8
I am the same as you Run n Spread. Hate talking to ******* customers and having to act polite to them.
Got a job at a warehouse as a storeperson (mainly pick/packing). No customers even come in the joint which is good. I'm a casual now and get 22/23 an hour which is ok for a job with no qualifications needed. Don't need to talk to anyone apart from small talk in the lunchroom with other staff (which annoys me tbh)
 

skilts

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#11
Can't help you with career advice, but I admire enormously your determination to have nothing whatsoever to do with the public. After nearly fifty years of self-imposed contact with the them, the conclusion I came to was that the public sucks. The worst part for me was when, three months or so into a job, I'd hear myself saying the same vacuous shit over and over to people in whom I had no interest. Think, "Have a nice day". I sort of fell into the 'profession' because I'm a confident and proficient talker. I completely understand those who find themselves incapable of such demeaning superficialities.

Customer service/selling is living a lie. What's worse is that it's someone elses lie. In the last job I'm ever likely to have (phew), I had a falling out with the owner of the company after he told me that my problem was that I was too honest. He saw clients as potential victims. And that's the other odious aspect of sales - the arseholes posing as workmates, with whom you must cohabit.

Don't get me started about people who pretend to teach others how to sell. This industry is based on the false premise that the salesman is the subtle manipulator of every aspect of the relationship with a client, because he/she is the one 'in the know'. This process fails at the most basic question: "If you are so good at selling, why aren't you out making shitloads selling, rather than pretending to teach others how to do it?" It also provides no answer to how one copes in a situation when your antagonist in a negotiation has done the same courses you have. I'm the only person Dale Carnegie ever punched in the nose.*

Good luck with your career. If possible, educate yourself out of the necessity to sell your soul in the way set out above. If this appears to be a jaundiced view of the 'profession', that's because it is. I did it so I could eat. 'Realistic' is a term I prefer.

* In the 1950s, he wrote a book called, How to Win Friends and Influence People - the beginning of customers as victims of a calculated, institutionalised and ongoing insult.
 
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Scotland

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#22
Is it face to face interaction you seek to avoid or all interaction? The latter is the tougher of the two.

I reckon a good job for avoiding other humans would be a passenger train driver. They hop in the carriage, close the door then hop out at the end of shift. I don't even know what they do any more given the level of automation in the rail system. Unruly passengers etc. are dealt with by transit guards and station personnel. The driver just sits in the cabin and drives the train. How hard can it be? </Jeremy Clarkson>
 

tants

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#23
Is it face to face interaction you seek to avoid or all interaction? The latter is the tougher of the two.

I reckon a good job for avoiding other humans would be a passenger train driver. They hop in the carriage, close the door then hop out at the end of shift. I don't even know what they do any more given the level of automation in the rail system. Unruly passengers etc. are dealt with by transit guards and station personnel. The driver just sits in the cabin and drives the train. How hard can it be? </Jeremy Clarkson>
Easy until you see your 1st jumper for the day.
 
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