I want to work alone. OR make good money, part time. I can't think of careers?

[ISTJ Vortex]

Originally Posted by Caldus

IThe issue is that so many programming jobs on freelancing sites are done by Indian programmers for $5 an hour. Your competition becomes global

$5 an hour?
Last time I checked, I saw $0.75-$1.50 per hour.

Lots of European companies are now pulling out from the Indian experiment as they have found, to their cost, the real cost of moving work to India, which is quite high for some.

[INTN]

What type of database administration? How did you transition into this? I've been looking at various tech related jobs including database admin, tech writer, business analyst, etc., that's why I'm curious.

[ISTJ Vortex]

Unfortunately, the area I work in is not well defined and so it can be called different things.
There's also an added complexity which is that companies nowadays want you to do a disparate number of things, often that 2 or 3 people used to do, so the actual work that I do for my job title won't be the same as someone else does for the exact same job title.

What I do can be described by all of the following titles:
Data clean up, Customer Data Specialist, Data Specialist, Data Administrator, Data Quality, Data Verification (FYI - I am not a DBA though, nor an Analyst).

They all involve in some form or other, looking after, correcting, assessing, searching for and sometimes, guarding, data.

Some of the jobs are actual techie jobs with various misc admin thrown in and that require you to know some form of programming or SQL stuff (which I don't know), as well as building databases, tables and such stuff.
I could learn some of these things but I am not a technically minded or mechanically minded person and it doesn't really hold much appeal to me.

I worked for many years with spreadsheet software in a marketing role, both with Supercalc and then Excel.
I got up to Vlookups and Pivot tables but I didn't really understand or master these. I haven't worked with Excel for several years now as I moved on to other things.

I was laid off and then I was offered a temp job in a networking company to find and insert missing router data.
The company had migrated its system software but during the migration, data got corrupted or lost and this had to be resolved.
So a small army of temps were hired to "find' this data, which could be in any number of places. I was surprised to be offered the job and felt I would be taking on too much.
I was introduced to new concepts, terminology and a bunch of new software.
I was the only non-technical person on the team and the job was very hard for me.
I would be in tears going home as I couldn't understand so many things and the work was quite chaotic.
In the end, I became the most productive person on that team.

This job gave me the chance to be offered other jobs in this rough "data fixing" area, which I have since discovered is needed by many companies.
This is because data is a mess with many companies (for a variety of reasons) and there will be a demand for people to clean this up as well as find solutions to stop the data getting crappy in the first place.

Data Quality is an area that is on the rise and people who excel in this will be in demand. Money will be pretty good but the jobs do require substantial & appropriate computer knowledge and qualifications, which I don't have nor do I want to get them TBH.

My various roles could be termed as "super user" or "power user".

I prefer project work rather than support-related work. My current job is a mix of both.

What I have found out about myself is that I (and many people like me), need to know the extent or gamut of what i am letting myself in for before I can commit.

The jobs that have open-ended situations, which are generally those which you have to engage with people all the time and without knowing in advance what will happen or who comes to you, are unsettling and very difficult for me.

E.G. I won't go into a busy bar/pub just on a whim, but if I have a date (a specific reason for being there and my knowing the limits of what will happen in advance), I can go to the bar and feel OK.

Essentially, I need to know what to expect in any situation (work or social) and the unknown, in a work or social setting, are threatening to me.

[INTN]

Thank you for sharing ^

[therewego]

Originally Posted by fierce_flawless

Seriously, I like to work alone, do my thing, be left alone, just me and my work and maybe an MP3 player, so I am trying to think of jobs that would allow that.

If I MUST be cooped up with other people and deal with office BS, I'd really like to find something that pays well enough that when I choose, I can work part time only and still make good money.

So I have thought about dental hygiene for the part time options... but ugh. The schooling is intense here and my city does NOT have a 2 year degree program for dental hygiene (although many/most cities DO).... so I'm not sure about that.

I don't want to drive a big truck or be gone all the time, so no truck driving please. I could drive otherwise though, locally.

I would love to hear from those of you lucky enough to work in solitude. What do you do?

How about a lawn service? No schooling needed and you could start today.

[ISTJ Vortex]

I also greatly resent the over emphasis on "team" references in job ads and job descriptions or the highly irritating demand that candidates "must be able to work in a team" but then these same companies go on to isolate and treat you individually when they choose to.

There is an undervaluing of the contribution that lone workers can bring to an organization by the vast majority of employers and an over-valuation in the potency and efficacy of teams, which are essentially forums for gridlock, indecision and mostly, they all end up being used by the person that shouts the loudest or who has the most domineering personality and style to get their way.

While there is nothing forcing those who wish to work alone to work in office-based careers, there is unfortunately a paucity of opportunities in this country outside of such environments when the economy is becoming more and more of a service economy.

[nebulous1]

Originally Posted by ISTJ Vortex

I also greatly resent the over emphasis on "team" references in job ads and job descriptions or the highly irritating demand that candidates "must be able to work in a team" but then these same companies go on to isolate and treat you individually when they choose to.

There is an undervaluing of the contribution that lone workers can bring to an organization by the vast majority of employers and an over-valuation in the potency and efficacy of teams, which are essentially forums for gridlock, indecision and mostly, they all end up being used by the person that shouts the loudest or who has the most domineering personality and style to get their way.

While there is nothing forcing those who wish to work alone to work in office-based careers, there is unfortunately a paucity of opportunities in this country outside of such environments when the economy is becoming more and more of a service economy.

It is all just self-serving talk on their part. A lot of managers hiring don't even know what your job is, and just write buzzwords, etc.

As far as the medical transcription suggestion, these jobs are going the wayside. They used to be individuals at home, then hospitals got their own people or firms to do them, and now EMR (electronic medical records) are going to do away with the whole field. I wouldn't suggest someone go into that.

Yeah, everyone wants that job they can stay home in their pajamas and sip coffee at the computer with the music on and get paid a lot. Very few people really can, and most had already paid their dues working in a field for a very long time. The whole work-at-home thing is very much overrated.

The sound engineer...a field where you have to know someone. Everyone is dying to be a sound engineer in LA.

You see, so many fields look good, but are hard to get into. If your uncle owns a company and can get you that job doing what you really want to do, then go for it.