I hate my job.

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I'm an adult school teacher. I have two classes, in which I teach all core academic subjects. In the first class (individualized study), most of my students are actually teenagers. In the second class (they do all the work at home for this one and just make appointments with me to turn it in), I have half teenagers, half adults.

I HATE the first class. They come up to me for help randomly, so I never know when to expect them. I have to monitor their behavior constantly. I'm supposed to be friendly (which I'm not, naturally), but I feel like a sour old woman in that class.

The second class is better because of the limited interaction. Since they have appointments, I know when to expect them. I still have the problem being friendly, but at least I barely see them. I do very little actual teaching in this class.

I have taught teacher-directed classes (like a traditional classroom), and they were torture. I hate being the center of attention, I hate talking to groups, and I have Tourette's to boot.

I wish both of the classes were like the second one. But even then, I'd rather have a different job. It turns out that I just don't like being a teacher. I'm talented at explaining difficult concepts in an easy way, but I don't get any enjoyment out of it. In addition, I work at night, which I hate. I really can't believe I've managed to keep this job for 6 years. The only saving grace of it is that I only work part time.

Anyway, I want to change careers, but I have no idea what to do. I'm not averse to going back to school, but I'm pretty anxious about competition, so I'd like it to be something I can do in community college. It must also be a career that pays well. I'm good at math, science, computers and English. I've been leaning toward computers, but I don't know what types of jobs I could do. Suggestions?

Bonus question: How many times did I use the word "hate" in this post?


(Edited to add: I have a bachelor's degree in anthropology, but I don't mind getting another (or another type of) degree in a different subject.)

Well, there's IT, which would still have people coming up to you, but there would not be an audience. There's actuarial work for insurance companies. There's data entry for retail, though I believe that does not pay well. There's work and phone companies and cable companies. Um, I think I suck at giving advice for this. Oh, have you tried office work for educational entities, like say, the treasurer's office?

Thank you! Frankly I'm disgusted with education, and would like out of it completely. I think I might like being one of the phone/cable people who fix underground cables (not the ones who set it up in your home!), or an IT person. I like solving problems, and I like using my hands. One of the biggest motivators for me is a sense of completion and accomplishment, something I don't get in my current job. Those two jobs seem to have that. Thanks again for your suggestions. Keep them coming!

One thing...do you think I would face discrimination because of my gender? Those are typically male jobs, and I'm female. I understand that that type of discrimination is illegal, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.

I'm in IT and I work from home. I send some mails and there's no direct contact when communicating with the team. The only problem is when I have to talk to my team on the phone I absolutely hate it but its mostly just once or twice a week so I put up with it. I know there are some meetings once a week but they are scheduled so its okay for me.

That doesn't sound so bad. I have a big issue with telephones, but I think I could muster up the courage to use it once a week, especially if I knew when the meeting was and what would be discussed so I could prepare. I don't like surprises!

That is the reason why I left my old job and am so much happier with the current job. Not much work to do outside of the working hours. The pay is sensible too.
And No I have so far not experienced any discrimination when I was looking for work.

What sort of training/qualifications/degree do you have, if you don't mind me asking? What sort of IT work do you do?

Well for now I am a QA tester for JAVA but I am learning some databasing languages like SAS and Pegasystems so I can find jobs with better pay. And I like learning about databasing I find it easy and fun.

My major in school was biochemistry but I minored in IT and took some computer programming courses. I guess if you can just do some IT certification programs that should be good enough to get you employment.

That's funny--the first computer subject I started looking into is programming. Thanks for your input!

You're welcome. You can learn most of it on your own its not hard. You'll just need the lab for practicals. Once you feel you know the subject well you can look into programming and languages and pick one that interests and get a certificate in that program. You don't need much to start out as a QA tester in IT though. Once you get a QA job you can start from there.

Will you explain what you do at this job?