Same here. I sold computers for a living and I was pretty good, I was top salesman for my region at the chain I worked for. But wow I hated it.
Since then I’ve had a long career in straight computer support. It’s much more satisfying to help people with their computers without simultaneously trying to part them from their money.
Every now and then those sales skills come in handy for trying to convince people at work to go in a particular direction, or to “sell” them on a particular technology to give them more confidence/be more tolerant of new/different hardware or software. But the world of sales never made me feel good.
Back when I was a CS student and then early years as a prof., I was “into” it. As time wore on it just became incredibly tedious. So much time and effort chasing down petty bugs, coding up boring subroutines, etc.
I came to hate it years ago.
I want to write a nifty browser plug in. Got it all figured out it terms of “If x happens, do y using calls to browser hooks z1, z2, etc.”
But I just can’t get started on the actual coding. Dreading the pain.
After graduating high school I got a temp job working in a warehouse for an insurance company. The warehouse stored paper forms, pamphlets, and other material for agents and customers. My job there was to assemble “kits”, which was simply gathering the specified brochures and forms and putting them into folders, envelopes, binders, etc. based on the sample they gave me.
I would stand there making thousands of the same pamphlet filled folders or whatever it was all day by myself; occasionally a forklift would whiz by or drop off another pallet for me to fill up. I was killing it there for months, typically getting a weeks’ worth of work done in 2 or 3 days. Unfortunately when I finished one type of kit they usually had another one ready for me to work on. If I was lucky they would let me cut down empty boxes or ship brochures to other offices for a couple hours until they found new kit for me to do.
That was a long 4 or 5 months (most people quit the job after less than a week), but they did eventually hire me fulltime for another monotonous job… filing correspondence in the file room. After working there for a few years I decided to go to college. But man, I was amazing at both of those job.
It’s a bit of an offshoot because I’m so damn personable, but I have been told by everyone even remotely in a sales job that I should go into it and would thrive. But I loooaatthhheee sales and loathe sales people.
I’m much better at selling ideas than I am things for money, but even doing that is closer to sales than I want to be.
There’s a simple kitchen setup next to the bar. Turkey burgers, pulled-pork sliders, grilled cheese sandies, etc. I cook while tending bar. Customers and staff are endlessly complimenting me (employees get a free meal on each shift). I just really care that customers get their money’s worth and enjoy being there. But my blood boils with each order.
I was a superstar as a personnel manager/leader, and actually enjoyed it for a long time. Wouldn’t do it now for love or money, as there is just way too much drama involved.
I’m good at sharpening blades, but it’s really tedious, especially for shop tools like planes and chisels. Love the result, hate the process.
Apparently I am really good at teaching knitting and crochet. I agreed to teach both at the Michaels where I work, because I love to do it, and thought it would be fun to pick up some extra hours teaching what I love. I hate it. I hate teaching, but every time I have a class, my manger gets feed back about what a great class I taught and how I’m a really patient teacher. So after 6 months, this is my last month teaching. I told my students last night and they were all disappointed, “But you’re so good at it!”
I work in a hotel, and I am incredibly good at guest relations (I’ve received commendations) and yet I work the night shift so I can avoid people. I would much rather just do my paperwork and get on with it than deal with folks, but it’s obviously required with this job.
Holy crap, this is eerie. I actually double checked to see if this was one of my old OPs.
I was a supermarket cashier well before scanners appeared. For some reason my fingers could fly on those keys, even doing some complex maneuvers that came up from time to time with speed and without looking at the keys. Some regulars told me they always checked to see where I was and then went to my line, even if it was longer. Some doubted my accuracy and scanned the receipt before leaving the line. I remember one old crank in particular said, “are you sure you’re punching the right levers??”
And I hated every goddamned minute of it.
And yes, I often wished I would get in an accident on the way to work so I wouldn’t have to go in.
mmm
Back when I was working, I got assigned to do a lot of written reports. With no false modesty, I did them well. I would speak to all the people who needed to be spoken to, gather up all the evidence, check all the relevant procedures, and then present it all with a nice summation and recommendation. And I flatter myself that I can write clearly.
But I didn’t enjoy doing this. It usually meant spending a few hours of work to produce a report that could be read in two minutes. And most of them were over issues that didn’t justify the use of two minutes much less several hours.
I wouldn’t say I’m good at moving friends, but I would have assumed I was horrible in my limited experience. But this summer I helped a friend move with only 1 other friend to help (so 3 ppl total), and he had two full truckloads of bulky and sometimes heavy furniture.
My arms are fairly thin and weak, but I still found that the limiting factor in whether I could carry something alone was almost always bulkiness rather than weight. And I didn’t get tired until in the middle of carrying in the second load, and that might have been due to the heat rather than the lifting. Plus, being in my 40s and not having worked out my arms in years, I assumed that I would be very sore the next day, but I was not sore at all.
But I completely hated it because it was in the middle of the Florida summer and my shirt was completely soaked at the end. Plus he only gave us cold cuts and chips rather than pizza and beer.
