Bookkeeping. I’m very good at it, being somewhat detail oriented, but I hate it. I have to do a lot of it, though, one way or the other.
In 1992 as I was graduating Architecture school I became extremely good at Autocad. I pretty much became the go to guy at school because I self taught the entire program to myself and was extremely fast at it also.
I also took an advanced class outside the university to get even better at it and ended up co-teaching the class.
However, I was arrogant and decided I wasn’t going to take any jobs after graduating doing solely Autocad because I didn’t want to sit in front of a computer all day.
I even took an Autocad test at a technical staffing firm that tested for speed and knowledge of the software and they said I had the highest score they ever had.
They called me non-stop for a year offering me good paying Autocad jobs at engineering firms, large corporations, etc. but I turned them all down being arrogant because the only place I’d work was an architectural firm using Autocad as step in the door.
Fast forward 16 years and I’m not an Architect, never worked for Architecture firm, never did Autocad again. But I do sit in front of a computer all day.
This is kind of in the customer service vein picked up above, but not quite:
In my years as a frontline ISP tech support rep, I discovered that I was absolutely fantastic at breaking down the technical stuff for stupid birdbrains - not just your average moron, but the ones who actually start panicking loudly when they open the box and find out the DSL modem’s power adapter needs to be plugged in instead of being part of the case. I am really amazingly good at calming these people down, and phrasing the processes in steps small enough that they can contemplate them without descending into abject terror.
As you can imagine, these calls were really long, really annoying, and taught me to control my tone of voice to an inhuman level. Yeesh.
I’ve never quite acquired the poker face that would need to accompany this situation in face-to-face interactions, though.
I’m the kind of moron you dealt with, and I am always so grateful to you wonderful, kind, patient guyz. So you probably have plenty of stars in your heavenly crown.
Wheres the blush smiley? 
For me, answering phones. I am a fabulous phone person, problem is, I don’t hear well and it takes alot of focus for me to do phones well.
Yep. Customer service yet again.
Wherever I’ve worked, it has always devolved to me to deal with the uber prick customers. I get the hard to handle, pain in the ass jerkwads because I can smooth the ruffled feathers, keep things on track, get the mission accomplished, and get them out without going all medieval on their nasty asses.
Yeah, I hate it.
I’m really good at taking blood. And I don’t mind it in small doses on average patients. The problem is, when you’re known for being ‘good’ at taking blood every frickin’ body in the hospital will come looking for you to get blood from people with the most miserable veins. Seriously. Egyptian mummies probably have better veins than some of these people. By the time I get there, the patient has probably already been poked at least twice and are often quite pissy (understandable) leaving me to deal with them and poke them again.
What I especially hate, though, is when they call me to try and get blood out of pre term infants every day for a week straight and then wonder why the baby is turning anemic after I pull 5ml of blood out daily for all the tests they order.
Some days I just feel like crawling into the dryer and turning it on.
Web design. I’m not great but I know HTML and CSS. I hate it. It’s incredibly frustrating and nitpicky and drives me nuts.
I also hate selling on eBay.
Guess what the next project at work is? Yup, an eBay store! :mad:
I’m God’s gift to data entry. Seriously. I’m a good librarian, don’t get me wrong. I was once quite a decent pianist. I’m a fantastic cross-stitcher. But what I’m really good at, what if I believed in a deity who did that sort of thing I’d think I was put on this earth to do, is data entry.
I hate it.
Another Customer Service person here. I don’t loathe people, but like olives, I am terrified of them. I’ve been a little social recluse for most of my life, you know: introverted, hermit-y, rabbit-like skills at bounding away from a social situation. I worked inside factory walls for seven years of my life (plus all of my summers snce I was 13), then I was unable to work for two years due to immigration limbo… and then came the magical day I got my work permit from the US government. Here in Seattle, there’s plenty of work available for those with only a high school education - but it’s pretty much all customer service.
At my job, a couple of weeks ago, I got my annual review. I scored significantly high (as in, highest score one can get outside of the “perfect” score, which most people either never see, or maybe see one after 10+ years of working there) in four areas: Professionalism, Product Knowledge, Communication, and CUSTOMER SERVICE. The Product Knowledge one was a gimme; I actually really love my work and am unusually interested in the products we carry. While I know, deep down, my Customer Service skills are shining and that I deserved that high score, I don’t really know where it’s coming from in me. People freak me out! But perhaps that is a part of it. Maybe the mask I wear behind the counter to hide the fact that I would rather be an anchoress than hanging out behind a counter is convincing. Or endearing. I don’t know. I am bolstered by the fact that I work with a good crew, as well; when I am comfortable where I am, you are walking into my territory, and I can be a little more at ease.
It could be the Product Knowledge part, too, however. You know how once you get someone started talking about a favourite subject? Well, anyone who comes in to talk to me is likely going to be asking me questions about the products I seem to love so very much. And I cheerfully vomit information into their eager ears. For once in my life, I actually have the answers to certain questions.
This is probably all good for me, in the long run. My husband and family says I’ve taken leaps and bounds since I first started working here, so something’s happening. But if my manager approached me today and told me to stay in the back from now on and do nothing but freight, I wouldn’t be sad.
Switch to Mac.
Seriously.
Being all-Mac at home and telling friends and family that I don’t keep up with Windows problems and don’t know how to fix their viruses has saved me countless hours of tedium.
At work, I’m so good at some weird little niche systems that I’ve become the one and only person out of more than 160,000 people that knows the thing inside and out. As a result, I have to try and teach people about it. <shudder> “Hey Boss, why do we need to have eight people trained on how to support this horrid screwball application that’s used by eleven people?”