What do I want to be when I grow up?
April 16, 2008 8:11 PM Subscribe
Help me figure out what to do as a part-time secondary job, in addition to writing.
I'm a writer, working full-time as a payroll/HR admin (I've done a wide variety of admin-related jobs over the years). When my husband graduates law school in a year, I would like to start working part-time, to allow myself more time for writing. I don't want to write full-time (I've tried it in the past and find that it's socially isolating and I can only be productive for about five hours a day anyway).
I hold a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Mathematics. After graduating 12 years ago, I spent 5 years being the office manager/admin assistant/jenny-of-all-trades for an arts service organization, and then quit to travel and write, and then spent the intervening years temping as an administrator, mostly office management and/or human resources/payroll work. What I enjoy about admin stuff is helping people, and imposing order on a chaotic world. I also do a little web design on the side, but I'm not interested in expanding that - I enjoy it, but in a hobbyist kind of way, and I can't see doing it for more than a handful of hours a week.
I have reached my level of incompetence in math, and it's second-year calculus, so going further with math itself is not an option, but I'd be keenly interested in practical disciplines that are math-related. (Like accounting, but I don't know if it satisfies the "keeps the mind alive" criterion, or not. It seems like the kind of thing that might get tedious after a few years.)
I also love language, obviously, but I think I'd rather have a job that uses other skills, to keep me from feeling burned out on writing before I ever get home (so becoming an editor or journalist or something like that seems like a bad idea).
I find great appeal in something that will let me feel as though I am making the world a better place. When I worked for the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia, and later for Addiction Services at the NS Dept of Health, I could tolerate the most tedious tasks and still feel great about my job because I knew that I was helping people in a really concrete way. Issues I feel strongly about include but are not limited to: civil rights, reproductive rights, domestic violence, disease prevention, and substance abuse.
Several people have suggested law school, which has some fairly obvious making-the-world-a-better-place applications, and which I think would be a good fit for my aptitudes, but my impression is that practicing the law involves a lot of conflict (regardless of the personalities involved). I don't enjoy conflict - I can tolerate it, but it doesn't energize me the way it does some people. My impression of this is based mostly on movies/TV/books and not on watching actual lawyers, however.
I have an aversion to teaching (based on informal tutoring I've done, which I found profoundly frustrating). I hate public speaking. I hate sales and marketing. I am wigged out by blood so nothing medical (if there are even medical jobs you can do part-time). I have almost no skill with second languages. I fail at physics so things like engineering are right out. I won't be able to travel to wherever the jobs are, because my husband's lawyering (which, keep in mind, will be paying the bulk of our bills) is stationary. And, most importantly, it has to be something I can do part-time, because I am not giving up writing. The goal here is to find a more interesting second job than my current options allow.
I would love to get some suggestions for jobs or disciplines to consider.
I'm a writer, working full-time as a payroll/HR admin (I've done a wide variety of admin-related jobs over the years). When my husband graduates law school in a year, I would like to start working part-time, to allow myself more time for writing. I don't want to write full-time (I've tried it in the past and find that it's socially isolating and I can only be productive for about five hours a day anyway).
I hold a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Mathematics. After graduating 12 years ago, I spent 5 years being the office manager/admin assistant/jenny-of-all-trades for an arts service organization, and then quit to travel and write, and then spent the intervening years temping as an administrator, mostly office management and/or human resources/payroll work. What I enjoy about admin stuff is helping people, and imposing order on a chaotic world. I also do a little web design on the side, but I'm not interested in expanding that - I enjoy it, but in a hobbyist kind of way, and I can't see doing it for more than a handful of hours a week.
I have reached my level of incompetence in math, and it's second-year calculus, so going further with math itself is not an option, but I'd be keenly interested in practical disciplines that are math-related. (Like accounting, but I don't know if it satisfies the "keeps the mind alive" criterion, or not. It seems like the kind of thing that might get tedious after a few years.)
I also love language, obviously, but I think I'd rather have a job that uses other skills, to keep me from feeling burned out on writing before I ever get home (so becoming an editor or journalist or something like that seems like a bad idea).
I find great appeal in something that will let me feel as though I am making the world a better place. When I worked for the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia, and later for Addiction Services at the NS Dept of Health, I could tolerate the most tedious tasks and still feel great about my job because I knew that I was helping people in a really concrete way. Issues I feel strongly about include but are not limited to: civil rights, reproductive rights, domestic violence, disease prevention, and substance abuse.
Several people have suggested law school, which has some fairly obvious making-the-world-a-better-place applications, and which I think would be a good fit for my aptitudes, but my impression is that practicing the law involves a lot of conflict (regardless of the personalities involved). I don't enjoy conflict - I can tolerate it, but it doesn't energize me the way it does some people. My impression of this is based mostly on movies/TV/books and not on watching actual lawyers, however.
I have an aversion to teaching (based on informal tutoring I've done, which I found profoundly frustrating). I hate public speaking. I hate sales and marketing. I am wigged out by blood so nothing medical (if there are even medical jobs you can do part-time). I have almost no skill with second languages. I fail at physics so things like engineering are right out. I won't be able to travel to wherever the jobs are, because my husband's lawyering (which, keep in mind, will be paying the bulk of our bills) is stationary. And, most importantly, it has to be something I can do part-time, because I am not giving up writing. The goal here is to find a more interesting second job than my current options allow.
I would love to get some suggestions for jobs or disciplines to consider.
If the only reason you need a job at all is because you find full time writing to be "socially isolating".... and if you want to "make the world a better place".... why not just volunteer?
posted by moxiedoll at 8:29 PM on April 16, 2008
posted by moxiedoll at 8:29 PM on April 16, 2008
You've set up a fairly difficult set of parameters here. A BA in English doesn't qualify you to teach, and you don't like teaching anyway. You've ruled out law, sales, marketing, medicine, foreign languages, most sciences (none of which you state any qualifications for), and anything full-time.
You don't say why you don't like working in HR, or why you couldn't do that on a part-time basis. My advice would be to get a job at Starbucks or something and use your spare time to write. You might even consider looking into MFA programs, as that would be a natural progression from your undergraduate degree and open up more employment opportunities for you in the future (though those, too, would probably involve teaching).
If you don't need the money, why work? If you do need the money, will working a part-time hourly gig at a coffee shop, restaurant, or bookstore suffice?
posted by wheat at 9:51 PM on April 16, 2008
You don't say why you don't like working in HR, or why you couldn't do that on a part-time basis. My advice would be to get a job at Starbucks or something and use your spare time to write. You might even consider looking into MFA programs, as that would be a natural progression from your undergraduate degree and open up more employment opportunities for you in the future (though those, too, would probably involve teaching).
If you don't need the money, why work? If you do need the money, will working a part-time hourly gig at a coffee shop, restaurant, or bookstore suffice?
posted by wheat at 9:51 PM on April 16, 2008
Library clerk.
posted by ryanissuper at 1:02 AM on April 17, 2008
posted by ryanissuper at 1:02 AM on April 17, 2008
Response by poster: parmanparman, at WFNS I was an admin assistant, in a two-person structure, which meant I did everything the executive director didn't do (so, program management, volunteer organization, library management, receipting/banking, answering phones and secretarial work). At Addiction Services I was secretary to the Director, and did a lot of ministerial correspondence, budget tracking, answering phones and secretarial work. Currently I'm doing payroll for a large company, and it's mostly math and data entry. It's a pleasant job but not at all challenging. I want to be challenged.
wheat, to be clearer, I haven't ruled out law, I am worried it's not for me because of the conflict angle, but I'd be interested to hear from real lawyers if that's true or if movies/tv/books misrepresent what their jobs are actually like.
posted by joannemerriam at 3:38 AM on April 17, 2008
wheat, to be clearer, I haven't ruled out law, I am worried it's not for me because of the conflict angle, but I'd be interested to hear from real lawyers if that's true or if movies/tv/books misrepresent what their jobs are actually like.
posted by joannemerriam at 3:38 AM on April 17, 2008
Best answer: Does tutoring English as a Second Language count as teaching? Lots of corporations who bring foreign employees in need them to learn English. Or you could do it to help immigrants for a sliding-scale fee and get some satisfaction out of that.
Something else might be event planner for a non-profit group. Perhaps to do with fundraising activities. Getting them a booth at an appropriate trade fair, running the booth, developing marketing materials, collecting information from attendees (potential donors?) for follow-up, things like that. Could also do it for a for-profit company. If you do it out of your house as a consultant, you could do one event every 2-3 months and have time off for writing.
I've worked for lawyers before. Patent law is definitely non-conflicting, it's just helping type up documents and getting them filed and following up. Criminal law, meh, don't like the clients. Assistant to a law professor? Helping read and grade papers or doing research?
Good luck!
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 7:03 AM on April 17, 2008
Something else might be event planner for a non-profit group. Perhaps to do with fundraising activities. Getting them a booth at an appropriate trade fair, running the booth, developing marketing materials, collecting information from attendees (potential donors?) for follow-up, things like that. Could also do it for a for-profit company. If you do it out of your house as a consultant, you could do one event every 2-3 months and have time off for writing.
I've worked for lawyers before. Patent law is definitely non-conflicting, it's just helping type up documents and getting them filed and following up. Criminal law, meh, don't like the clients. Assistant to a law professor? Helping read and grade papers or doing research?
Good luck!
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 7:03 AM on April 17, 2008
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posted by parmanparman at 8:28 PM on April 16, 2008