Entry level jobs...

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Hi,

What are some entry level jobs that do not require a post-high school education for people who hate dealing with the general population? I worked as a cashier at Walmart for two years and that sort of constant interaction was overwhelming, overstimulating, and I was too drained to do anything when I got home. You constantly have to ask "hi, how are you", with a constant forced smile on your face and pretend you care. You constantly have to pretend to act interested and care when the customer is making small talk or talking about their experience in the store. The management badgers you to push customers to apply for credit cards. It didn't help either that I am a mild-moderate stutterer and I'm not a huge fan of verbal contact with people. (Thank God for email!)

I am also not mechanically inclined, not well coordinated, and have a tough time lifting more than 40 lbs. safely. Working in a restaurant kitchen is not well suited because I only speak English. Contact with co-workers is fine, as long as they don't talk personally a lot. Work is work to me. I would also prefer a more structured schedule. At Walmart, you can't really have a life. You are at their whim, 100%. As a cashier, you have every shift imaginable, so it makes it tough to plan vacations and such. Trying to ask for two consecutive days off per week is like asking King Kong to get out of the jungle.

I like to write, I like analyzing and playing with numbers. I like a desk environment. I like fairly stationary work.
I don't like mechanical type work. I can not do extreme physical work. I don't like overtly social work (like retail).

Plus, working with the public for two years has moulded me to have a bitter outlook on humanity and the future. If you are a sensitive person with an idealistic outlook, avoid working with people like the plague.

Office clerk is the first thing that comes to mind. Try some basic accounting job. Seek jobs in small companies, where they need someone to do accounting and office work like keeping books and records collecting. You may need some extra training before you can do it, but you can probably do some study-from-home-program and get an associate's degree in administration or accounting.

I understand. I hated public facing jobs like that. Exhausting.

Maybe something that would help would be starting in custodial work.
It's hard for housekeeping services and companies to find reliable people turn up on time every day and who don't steal.

The porter who empties the trash and wipes down our kitchens in my office building works 8-4 or so, bank holidays and weekends off. She's from an outside service, but, she knows by now which departments are quiet and which are loud, so, if she wanted to keep an eye open for jobs in our company, she could look for the ones with the environment she felt most comfortable in.
She might say Hi to people when they come in for coffee while she's emptying the trash, but, otherwise, she probably doesn't need to do much talking.

Larger companies might have an in-house housekeeping department, hospitals, universities, large businesses. If you got on in one of those roles, and got familiar with the departments, you'd have an edge over external candidates when applying for new gigs you saw come open.
Now, with that, you might have to work in the first role for 12 months or something with no-writes ups, before you could apply for a transfer to a clerical role you saw come open.

Just an idea. I worked with a few mechanics at my last job that had started in housekeeping and transferred in, because our managers were nice and offered lots of training and preferred internal candidates.

I would say production work like mail sorting or perhaps a job with picking and packing. You generally don't have to deal with the public and there's no heavy lifting. I would say there are also some warehouse jobs that don't require much heaving lifting, it depends on the products they are working with.