Escape Customer Service--A New Snowflake Edition!

March 1, 2017 6:33 AM

What should I pursue as a new “day job” that has potential for high-earning & eventually going part-time? Snowflake-a-licious skills & experiences below...

My long term goal is to work part-time in a high-paying job and pour the rest of my energy into creative writing. Writing is my actual passion--not just a hobby. I have advanced my skills to a semi-pro level and believe I can make some money with it, but it’s too unstable and I also want to freedom to choose most of my writing projects. But in the meantime I need full-time work.

Deets:
I might be considered “mid-career” in that I’m in my thirties, have two (kinda useless, arts& humanites-type) Master’s Degrees, and a lot of financial obligations. I’m not super-keen on going back to school as I’m still in heavy debt from the other degrees, but if it were part of a larger plan I could make it work.

Skills/Interests:

I love research. I’m motivated by curiosity and creativity. But I’m not particularly math-skilled. I could learn a math thing if it was in the service of some greater career goal, but it’s not my favorite. So though I’ve considered bookkeeping, it doesn’t seem like a great fit.

I’m also skilled at organizing information and making it presentable. For example, I created database cards for our patrons explaining how to use the library’s databases, as well as information sheets on how to use our ebook and downloadable audiobook catalog. I also have great merchandising experience with books and enjoy making materials easy to find.

I love developing collections--selecting materials, weeding damaged materials, discovering when we were missing something vital that our patrons wanted, seeing it circulate.

I have some skill organizing events, though I don’t particularly like attending them, haha. Introverted, but I like the process of contacting people, getting something creative coming together, following up etc.
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Finally, though I am so so burned out on “Customer Service” (with the exception of one office job, everything I’ve done since age 16 was service) I DO enjoy helping clients one-on-one. I especially love connecting people with sources of information, demonstrating a new technique, or opening their eyes to new ideas, options, or opportunities. The delighted “huh, I didn’t know I could do that!” or “I didn’t know that existed!” at the end of an interaction indicates I’ve done my job successfully.

I am a “nice person” and I love quiet and peaceful environments and so got into a career which you might think would be great for that--librarianship. However after many years I’ve come to HATE it. It’s nothing but constant customer service with either crazy or shitty people. Half the time I’m bored and waiting anxiously for the next person I have to tell to stop doing something (like shouting, playing music out loud and other WTF YOU’RE IN A LIBRARY things...only to have them sass back because apparently the rules/common decency doesn’t apply to them), and the other half of the time I’m dealing with “someone shit all over the floor” or “that homeless person tried to touch me” type issues. I HATE it. I especially hate policing other people’s behavior--I tested as an INFJ on MyersBriggs and I completely resonated with the description of their “aversion to controlling others.” Basically everything described here fits me: https://www.16personalities.com/infj-careers

Every day I want to quit. I event typed up my letter of resignation. But the most common thing anyone has said has been “don’t quit until you have another job”! I don’t want another library job because 1) I’m not detail-oriented enough for the technical side--MARC records, Dublin Core..etc that was my least interesting class in library school 2) any service-facing job at a smaller or “quieter” library that I’ve found just pays too damn little--I have certain non-negotiable financial obligations (loan payments, supporting parents, chronic medical condition, etc) and need to make at least $50k/year

So much snowflake! :) Thanks for reading, even if you don't have any suggestions. I love MeFi

posted by Calicatt to Work & Money (7 answers total)

Have you considered working for a library vendor rather than in a library proper? I have an MLIS and that's what I do (I've never worked in an actual library, actually). It's basically the best of all worlds as far as I'm concerned. I'm a product manager on our client services team, and it's oodles of customer service, but in all the ways that you mentioned finding enjoyable - working 1x1 with clients (all of whom are also librarians!), building an ongoing relationship with them, training them on our product, teaching them all kinds of tips and tricks to get more use out of the tool, brainstorming ways they can adapt current workflows and processes to it, creating and managing content for our training portal, etc. I'm not exaggerating in the least when I say it generates at least one "aha!" moment every single day, if not more.

My boss and I were putting together my 2017 goals and objectives recently and I expressed a little insecurity at my lack of certain technical skills compared to others on our team, and wondered aloud if I should be taking some courses in stuff like that. And he basically said, well, if you're genuinely interested, you definitely can, but we already have quite a bit of technical aptitude on our team whereas we will always, ALWAYS need more people with excellent customer relations skills. So I wouldn't necessarily let a lack of technical detail or interest stand in your way.

Feel free to shoot me a MeMail if you have any questions!
posted by anderjen at 7:19 AM on March 1, 2017 [9 favorites]

If you're open to writing in your day job, you might be able to get into technical writing or medical writing. Both fields are conducive to part-time work (especially for experienced people who can work as contractors) and definitely have earning potential over $50k/year. It would require you to be somewhat detail-oriented, though probably not to the level that's required for technical librarian work, especially if you're on a team with others who can review/proofread your work. Of course, you might risk writing burnout; but on the flip side, it might help you hone your writing skills even more.
posted by neushoorn at 7:45 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Suggesting investigative work? Perhaps as a missing-persons investigator. Have you thought about investigative journalism? It may be a fit as well. This kind of work seems to play towards your skills/interests of research and contacting/following up without having to control people's behavior.
posted by mountainblue at 8:04 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

I read your description as a perfect set of skills for a technical support job. You don't want to work on a help desk, probably, but you might like deskside support, where you go to desks and help people with slightly more complicated problems. Lots of teaching moments throughout the day.

I would much rather have someone like you, good with people, good instincts, and a 'nice' person who knows nothing about IT work for me than an IT genius who has no soft skills. You can learn the technology, it's not that hard, just specific to the job.

Bonus: In the Twin Cities where I live, jobs for entry level are 55-70K right now.
posted by Ecgtheow at 10:12 AM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

Within librarianship: you might want to keep an eye out for special libraries jobs. A lot of them are more single-patron service without a lot of space management or annoying issues (I do 75% of my questions by email and phone: if I answer questions from more than three humans in front of me in the same day that's an unusual day).

Records management or competitive intelligence jobs show up on the SLA job lists pretty regularly, too, and might also be a good fit. Salaries vary a lot, but special library jobs in the corporate world can get comfortably into the range you need.

How do you feel about development (in the 'encourage people with money to give X institution some' meaning)? It might be a trick to find a job at a pay level you're good with (my experience was doing some summer data entry work in the development office of the school I was a library assistant at most of the time) but it also pinged a lot of my "I like to find things out and make them into orderly sets" desires, and a good cover letter talking about your experience with research and learning new tools might get you past the entry-level sort of job stage.

Finally, I know some people with roughly your skill set who've gone into things like elder care coordination or other health care coordination. Some of those jobs require health care background, but others don't necessarily, and might be worth investigating.
posted by modernhypatia at 11:25 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: These answers are great! Much better than the ideas I've gotten from (lovely and well-meaning) family and friends.

I may message some of you for more details.
posted by Calicatt at 4:05 PM on March 1, 2017

I don't make $50k, but close enough for your purposes given that I don't have a bachelor's degree yet. With zero legal background and a solid customer service resume, I'm a corporate legal assistant. The majority of my job is handling invoices (which allows me all the time in the world to listen to interesting audiobooks and podcasts), but I also coordinate meetings and training conferences, serve as first-level IT support when someone needs database/spreadsheet/my-electronic-thing-won't-work work, and take little projects for some of the attorneys such as designing an infographic for a presentation or researching or designing queries for reports. 99% of the people are great to work with, and I almost never have to deal with the public. The hours are extremely regular. And, best of all, it leaves me time and mental energy for all kinds of writing and other interests.
posted by notquitemaryann at 5:07 PM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]