Any suggestions?

September 10, 2008 4:03 PM

Is there an occupation easy to get into, self contained in regard to expectations, and sufficient?

As I approached graduation from High School in 1999, I chose to pursue art in college. My life since has been strange and varied, I struggled through my B.A., the onset of 'mental illness', a religious awakening, and a change in contexts. Art is kind of out of the picture now, I hate it as much as I love it, I don't have any drive toward art, the passion part of making art is not there. I don’t care about expressing myself with art, I don’t really want to express myself at all, I just seem to be happening, I don’t feel the need to have anything to say.
My area is kind of economically depressed, the jobs I've gotten in the last few years have been short lived and have only really constituted underemployment at best. The meds I take for narcolepsy are expensive, like $650/month or so for the one I can't get shipped from overseas on the cheap. I'm not really career driven, my conscious is already pinched in the world's machinery enough as it is. I don't need much money, just enough to be independent. There seems to be an economic threshold for romantic relationships, I'd like to get over that too, sex and companionship seem legitimate as I can’t turn off my reproductive mechanisms. I need to make money now, consistently, and I'd like some advice on how to do that. Is there an occupation easy to get into, self contained in regard to expectations, and sufficient?

posted by Vague_Blur to work & money (11 comments total)

Any call centres in your area? Specifically, for telco or internet providers?
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:33 PM on September 10, 2008

Telemarketing was one of the easiest jobs that I ever got and it paid the bills (back when I had very few bills). Show up to an interview and as long as you have an OK speaking voice you'll get hired. Telemarketing companies have a high turnover (more on that later) so they're always looking for fresh meat.

Ideally you'd want one that pays a wage, not a commission (or better yet, a wage with a commission!), just to ensure consistency of income, since a lot of people you ring probably won't be interested in what you're being forced to sell. So feel free to decline offers that don't include a wage, since agin there are plenty of companies out there that need new telemarketers and will be offering a wage (again, the high turnover of staff is responsible for that... I'm getting to that!).

Expectations from your employer will be that you sell stuff. If you're able to take a bit of abuse (people will get pissed off at you when you're calling them during dinner or their favorite TV show), and if you're able to quickly surmise when a person isn't interested (rather than following on with the script in an attempt to get them to change their mind), you'll burn through your call lists quickly and get more hits, which will please your employer. There's very little room for advancement, probably none at all, so for your own expectations you know you're there to ring people, sell them stuff, and get paid.

OK, so, the high turnover. For me, I found that telemarketing was hugely soul destroying. I would usually do it in short bouts, usually when my economic situation was at its most dire. I would show up on the first night, eager and willing to call and sell stuff. But by the end of the night, hundreds of calls later and after lots of busy signals, lots of no-one-at-homes (when no one picks up the phone) and plenty of abuse hurled my way by angry people being called at times they didn't want to talk to me, I'd be mentally exhausted. And after a while, usually a month, I'd have had enough. I found that at the start of a new job I'd sell a lot and my results would taper off as I stopped caring.

I also found that a lot of the time the people I worked for were less than reputable. After one nasty incident where I found out people I'd been working for where ruipping off the people we had set up appointments with, I made a decision not to work for any small telemarketing companies, usually only going for the bigger, more well known companies. This made getting a job a little harder but my conscience would allow nothing else.

So that's one reason there's high turnover... burnout. The other is that many telemarketing companies expect crazyily high results from their callers. This is understandable. Lots of telemarketers making lots of calls late at night equals a lot of expense. Not many can perform to the level that some employers want. But again, as I said earlier, if you're able to take a bit of abuse and if you're able to quickly surmise when a person isn't interested (rather than following on with the script in an attempt to get them to change their mind), you'll burn through your call lists quickly and get more hits, which will please your employer.

Nowadays I'm in my dream job, which is not telemarketing. I'd probably never telemarket again, unless I really, really had to. But in terms of wanting a job that's easy to get and will pay the bills, telemarketing is first and foremost in my mind.

Hope that info helps you out a bit. Good luck!
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:34 PM on September 10, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Call center work is a lot less soul-destroying than telemarketing for most people, but with almost as high a turnover. Sometimes it's receiving calls (eg basic customer service or tech support), sometimes it's making calls (eg telephone surveys). Either way, the basic criteria are you having good standard English, being able to read and write, showing up on time, etc. If you made it through college, you can almost certainly manage call center work, though you will learn why the turnover is so high.

I would suggest going and meeting with a career adviser at your local community college as a first step. I had lunch the other month with someone who has that job, and he was saying that they have a number of one- and two-year programs with 100% local job placement rates. That means that if you can make it through a year (or two) of classes and you aren't a fuckup of world-class proportions, you pretty much have a guarantee of a job that pays a decent wage. They have even been running ads in the paper for students, because employers are pressuring them for more graduates.
posted by Forktine at 5:09 PM on September 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Working as a care assistant for the elderly or disabled is worthwhile, easy to get into, and pays better than telemarketing.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:11 PM on September 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I've been in the situation a couple of times in my life where I needed a job quickly and wasn't qualified to do anything that I might actually like.

The first job was working in a call center for reservations for a big motel chain. I found it a little less soul-draining than telemarketing because even though it was fundamentally sales oriented (trying to get people to make reservations), it wasn't cold calling or badgering people. The potential for commissions is a lot lower, but so is the stress, and you get fewer people yelling at you for disturbing their supper. I hated it, but it paid the bills and required nothing more of me than my time.

The other job was working in a group home with developmentally delayed adults. This job was a lot easier in the sense that I didn't hate going there; the job involved cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, some occupational training, as well as bathing and toileting in the case of some lower-functioning individuals. This level of healthcare jobs is usually fairly easy to get because the wages are low, but I was able to subsist on what they paid.

Other suggestions that I've never done but people I know have successfully worked in similar situations: hotel/motel front desk (particularly late shift), security guard, postal worker, janitor, grocery-store stocker.
posted by camcgee at 5:20 PM on September 10, 2008

If you can get around the narcolepsy issue I'd recommend the military. I guess that could be a non-starter, but we don't know the particulars of your medical situation.

It's not all guns and bombs... there's actual careers to be found. Certainly turned my life around... i.e. I had no idea I'd end up as an Air Traffic Controller (and then aviator). Point is - the military helped me and a lot of people I know find their purpose in life. It kinda sounds like that's what you're looking for.
posted by matty at 5:57 PM on September 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I would suggest caregiving if you're good with people.

You could possibly harness your arts background to doing something with a preschool or daycare center, or with art projects for the elderly or disabled.
posted by sondrialiac at 7:33 PM on September 10, 2008

Another tele-sales / phone rep job is to work for an airline in customer service or reservations. I knew someone who did this and was therefore eligible for the BEST-PERK-KNOWN-TO-MANKIND: FREE FLIGHTS (disregarding the environmental issues of flying to the Caribbean on a whim). These jobs aren't everywhere, but if you're in a city that has them, that's pretty good work if you can get it. Travel is a nice way to get some new perspective on things.
posted by zpousman at 8:14 PM on September 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

having a college degree means you can get licensed as a substitute teacher in most places. you can work as much or as little as you want, there's no beyond-the-job obligation, and you're basically just a glorified babysitter. and they always needs substitutes, in the most depressed economy.
posted by RedEmma at 8:35 PM on September 10, 2008

Truck driving seems to fit your requirements pretty well.

Easy to get into: usually you start by signing on with one of the big national companies. The recruiters are notoriously aggressive as there is a constant need for more long-distance truckers. (You should ask yourself why there is such turnover.) Many of the big companies that take new people also have training centers where you can get your CDL. If you drive for them long enough (a year or so but it can vary), they'll pay for the training. There is a physical you need to pass, narcolepsy might be a dealbreaker.

Self-contained: yep, pretty much. Be in good health, with a reasonably clean driving and criminal record, and of adequate intelligence and they'll take you from there.

Sufficient: benefits and around $35-40k your first year, substantially more possible after that ($50k+).

Truck driving seems to be a traditional fall-back profession for hard-working, uneducated folks who have a family to feed, and whatever they were doing before just isn't working anymore. Obviously there are a lot of things about truck driving that aren't great, but I guess that's why they call it "work."

Note: I'm not a truck driver but I knew someone who went into it, and I've considered it seriously myself and done some research.
posted by skallagrim at 11:00 PM on September 10, 2008

Thank you for all your replies. I appreciate the insight. I am still adjusting to metafilter, so please excuse me if I express my gratitude oddly.
posted by Vague_Blur at 7:23 AM on September 12, 2008