how can I find a boring job?

by Alison Green on October 29, 2012

Remember the recent letter from someone who didn’t want to sit in an office all day and and stare at a computer? A commenter on that post asked a question quite different from what we normally hear here:

After literally many years of searching online for a job I might not totally despise … I’ve heard time and time again about these jobs (that people hate) where they just sit in front of a computer doing the same thing every day. My question is: What the heck are these jobs and how do you get them?

I found this blog by doing a google search on “job where you can just sit at a computer all day.” And just like every other website I see on the subject, people seem to hate these jobs and want something different … I would LOVE to just do routine work at a computer. But no one ever seems to say what exactly these jobs are and how a person can get them.

I’ve asked the question before, of course, but am usually told IT jobs, programmer, etc. But the problem is those jobs require degrees in which you need to be able to pass courses such as Calculus and Physics. I’ve tried that route and am just not good enough at higher level maths and math-based sciences. The person in this article landed a “boring” job that was just sitting at a computer all day with just a History degree…how? What kind of job was that? I might be willing to go get a History degree if I could get a job like that.

I’ve heard data entry tossed around as well, but have never been given a clear answer on what’s required to get a job like that and where those jobs are located. I’ve never seen a job listed as “data entry” in the area I live. I assume most jobs that would require that type of work are lumped in with general office duties that are performed by secretaries. Are there such jobs where you’re just typing stuff into a computer and not having to answer phones, etc. as well? Are those jobs just located in bigger companies in large cities? At this point I may even be willing to move to get one of these so-called “boring” jobs.

Well, there’s a difference between jobs where you’re in front of a computer all day and jobs where you’re in front of a computer all day doing routine work. Lots of professional jobs (maybe the majority) involve sitting at a computer most of the day, but many aren’t especially routine — although plenty of people who have them still call them boring.

If what you’re looking for is routine work where you don’t have to problem solve, interact much with others, or deal with much variety, your options are more limited.

Data entry would indeed fit the bill, and there are lots of jobs focused on it (transcription, medical coding, incoming mail processing, and lots more). To do data entry, you need to be a reasonably fast typist, accurate, and uptight about details … and to get a data entry job, you need to demonstrate that you’re all those things, plus professional and easy to work with. I’m not sure why you’re not seeing those jobs — I just Googled “data entry job” and tons of listings came up, although of course I don’t know where you live.

But it would help to know more about your background. What’s your work history? What are you good at and not so good at? Why do you want this type of job?

Meanwhile, maybe readers will weigh in with details about boring jobs they’ve had and they got them … but to really help, we need to know more about you.

You may also like:
{ 138 comments }

{ 138 comments… read them below }

  1. Long Time Admin*

    Another place for you to look is with staffing agencies that handle administrative assistants and other office workers. You will be tested, and if your keyboarding skills are not very good, either they won’t be able to place in you in any kind of data entry job, or you might be offered some training. If you want to get a headstart on this kind of work, practice, practice, practice! You need to very proficient in both touch typing and 10-key (no looking at the keys while you type).

    A lot of people look down on these types of jobs, but they’re great if your main goal is a paycheck, and if you have a high boredom threshold.

    However, don’t forget that you still must qualify for these jobs.

    1. JessB*

      I was going to post a similar comment! I work in admin for a temp agency and have had a few postings that were basic data entry. One in particular was entering license details into a database of registered drivers for a government department, which was incredibly mundane.

      I started with my agency by doing a typing test, and was initially given quite short, junior postings. Thanks to some great feedback from the clients, I was moved up fairly quickly, and now work in longer term positions. My agency is really good though, and will do their best to place you in positions that suit your interests, so it wouldn’t be that unusual if you were to say to one that you were particularly interested in data entry.

      I’m in Australia, which I don’t think you are, but there have to be jobs like this all over the place.

      1. JessB*

        I forgot to say, I always loved the idea of jobs like this, but quickly became bored with the reality. I felt like I wasn’t contributing anything to the company or the world at large, and was totally dissatisfied when I went home at the end of every day. As much as I often had time to goof off, I just did not enjoy these jobs. I would still take them if they were short postings, and there was nothing else on offer, but I’ve learnt I need work that changes often to keep me interested.

    2. Anna*

      If you do go to a staffing agency and tell them you want a data entry job, they will eat you up. Agencies often have tons of those jobs and not a lot of people interested in filling them.

  2. Mike M*

    A couple years ago I applied for a social media position through a posting on Monster. While the posting made it sound like a customer service role, the interviewer said it was basically scanning twitter for eight hours a day for any mentions of client companies and flagging them through software the company was developing. I didn’t get the job because they (and I) knew I would be bored out of my ever-loving mind.

    Something you may want to try is coming up with broad categories of what you are interested in and then doing keyword searches on Indeed or browsing related categories on Craigslist. No employer is going to advertise that the job is boring, so some reading between the lines of a posting will be required.

  3. Anonymous*

    OP can also visit http://www.onetonline.org (US Dept. of Labor), where he/she can browse work activities under the advanced search tool; looking for “interacting with computers”. This will provide a list of related occupations, with corresponding reports about what else the job entails. The OP can then search for postings for those jobs on job boards. (You can search for all kinds of things on ONET; it’s a great resource!) Best wishes.

  4. MentalEngineer*

    To be honest, in a lot of categories the answer to your question is probably just “gone,” the main factors being automation and offshoring. Chances are, if the job involved doing rote, repetitive operations on data, it’s now done directly by a computer rather than by a human interfacing with a computer – why pay someone to tell the machine what to do when it can follow the instructions by itself? Additionally, many of the ‘boring’ jobs that can’t be automated have been offshored, because there’s no business reason to pay $8.25/hour for an American to do them when the same services are available at a third of that price.

    That said, there are certainly plenty of data entry jobs in my area (DC). The recession has caused the experience requirement for many of these positions to shoot up, but you could probably still get in if your skills were up to snuff.

    1. Julie*

      Law firms may still have data entry work, but it will likely be the overnight shift, and you would need to be extremely careful with details, so I don’t know if that would be considered routine computer work. My partner is trying to find a “mindless” second job for some steady income, and she’s looking into driving a cab or making deliveries. It’s not in front of a computer, and of course, it requires concentration while working, but you probably wouldn’t need to think about it when you weren’t working, if that’s what you’re looking for.

      1. Ellie H.*

        Driving a cab is not what I would think of as mindless work . . . I think it’s really difficult and emotionally involving! I was considering it briefly when I lived in Austin, TX.

    2. Michael*

      A friend of mine is a checker for those automated systems. His day consists of most pressing ‘next’ for 8 hours a day as he makes sure PDF redaction software does it’s job correctly. They’re out there.

      2. snuck*

        I know a person who confirms that the automatic computer reading of number plates from speed camera / red light photos is correct – a computer reads the photo, pulls up the registration information, and then two people are employed to confirm that the registration does indeed match the numberplate in the photo.

    3. The IT Manager*

      I was thinking that these job may simply disappear in the coming decades. Transcription used to have to be done by humans, but computers can do it now – maybe not to an acceptable degree – but how much longer will it take for computers to get there? Mindless, repetitive activities with no interaction with people can very often easily be programmed. The OP is probably in luck, though, because we have’t managed to automate it all yet.

    4. Steve G*

      I agree with MentalEngineer that alot of those jobs I don’t see anymore. I was thinking about suggesting the position of Jr Contracts Admin, because when I was one, once you were trained, there were a limited amounts of problems and out-of-the-box situations, you could spend whole weeks just processing “paperwork” at your computer with just some email communication, but I saw my former employer outsources 1/2 those jobs to New Mexico because labor is cheap there. The 2nd company I was a Contract Admin at – it was a basic job to begin with, but they made it more “challenging” as time went on – which most people would like. So that type of position was gone at yet another company.

      I was thinking of suggesting Accounts Payable clerk. Those seem to be filled with either very young people at my last 4 companies which makes me assume you don’t need much experience. At my current job, it seems to be a proccessing-lots-of-sheets-and-“paperwork” job. Not that there arent problems or that it is boring, but it certainly isnt a job where you have to think out of the box every day, or plan long and short term goals and agendas and work, as you have to in certain type of jobs. You come in, switch one the computer, and start “processing.”

      And I don’t know if this is true but it seems that Accounts Receivable is not the same because they’ll expect you to work with vendors who are late paying, which wouldn’t fit the OP’s desired role.

      1. Parfait*

        I used to work in Accounts Payable and it was exactly what the OP ordered. Enter the invoice number, the due date, the amount, the budget code, and repeat. Then file all the paper invoices! Then when the checks come out you get to run them through the envelope-stuffing machine, yay.

        I would suggest that the OP sign up with a bunch of temp agencies. That is a good way to get data entry and low-level clerical jobs. That’s how I got through my 20s.

        1. Jamie*

          I agree on the temping ting, if only to try on a bunch of different jobs to see what sparks the OP.

          But I guess it depends on the company, but AP can also mean dealing with vendors on discrepancies, negotiating discounts and shipping charges, etc. Huge attention to detail needed here so I wouldn’t want anyone in this role who’s looking to be bored.

          1. AgilePhalanges*

            I was going to post about AP being perfect for this poster, but if they truly want mind-numbing repetition, they’ll need to look into an AP clerk position in a large company. Because yes, in a small company, it’s likely to include other duties including tracking down why something didn’t pay (or didn’t pay for the right amount), reconciling to some degree, etc. If you truly want rote data entry, a one-person AP department is not for you. But if you want a lot of rote data entry with a little excitement thrown in, I recommend it–I did AP for ten years, starting as a temporary assistant until I was the department’s guru on a lot of things and had kind of maxed out what I could learn.

            Another job I was going to suggest is transcription. (I was a transcriptionist many moons ago, and that’s where my username comes from.) I know a lot of it is now being done by voice recognition software, but I believe even that requires a human to check it. But there are plenty of places that still do it the old-fashioned way. DO NOT, however, just google for medical transcription jobs, as they’re likely to be scams. I got my foot in the door by getting hired on nothing but being a fast typist and good speller (including of medical-related words) at a veterinary pathology lab. Vets would look at biopsies of pet’s lumps and bumps under a microscope and dictate what they saw. A team of us transcribed them (from TAPE! which we erased with magnets). While working there, I also began moonlighting doing transcription of ER records. That company required I begin in person at their office, and when they felt comfortable with my accuracy, I began working from home. If you would like to ultimately work from home, but can stand an in-office training period, I recommend looking into legitimate transcription places. When I was transcribing, the words went into my ears and out of my fingers without much involvement by my brain. I could spend the day planning my weekend, assembling shopping lists in my head, or just generally daydreaming, and only occasionally having to engage my brain in the actual work.

  5. Anonymous2*

    Transcription and medical coding DO require some problem solving. Actually, a lot more than many people would think.

    1. AP*

      I used to be a transcriber and it is HARD! Lots of “do you think this means X or Y….” And shifts can be very irregular or temp.

      You do get to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day, though. I hope I don’t ever have to fall back on those skills but it’s nice to know I could if I have to.

  6. Cody C*

    Look for a small town bank a lot of those still process checks by hand so it is data entry without a degree required.

    1. The Other Dawn*

      I work for a small bank (one branch) and we do not process checks by hand. Everything is electronic and it’s done by our core processor, which most smalls banks have one. It’s not in-house like the bigger banks. I don’t think there are many of those left. And working at a small bank isn’t routine or boring at all, not in my experience or according to my peers. People at small banks often wear many hats so there aren’t likely to be many “boring” jobs.

      That said, maybe OP could get a job in an items processing department at a big bank that has an in-house department, or with a core processor such as Fiserv or Jack Henry. Better yet, the branch capture area of that department. Operations in that area are fairly routine and consist of correcting errors and balancing the checks that are run through the scanner at the branch and then transmitted electronically to the branch capture area.

      I think everyone’s definition of a boring job is going to be different. My Operations person had her hands into pretty much everything and every department, and her day was pretty busy and diverse; however, she was bored with it because the same basic tasks had to be done everyday, even though those basic tasks only took up about 25% of her day.

      1. snuck*

        I was going to suggest banks/financial institutions/anywhere that has high volumes of mail and paper work – they often have people who scan, confirm scans, electronically assign the files to correct records areas etc.

        Accounts payable is another… lots of data entry there – and hard to automate because there’s so many different invoice styles that people send in.

        Another could be HR/payroll – especially in a temping or casual work environment in a place that doesn’t have a big office and software automation.

        Another could be medical coding, medical typing etc. Lots of opportunities there.

        Simple receptionist/front desk.

        Need to be able to type, need to be able to keep your head down, preferred to be not too loud/big a personality, need to find satisfaction in getting through the pile to turn to the next one. A person who has a well organised home office with everything filed well would be a good fit possibly.

  7. Penguin*

    If you are reasonably good with numbers, but not to the point of a Maths degree, Business Analyst may be another job title to consider; some BA roles can be hectic, especially at month/ quarter end, but many are not.

    1. Steve G*

      Business Analysts roles are NOT routine, you have to find and solve business issues, and it involves a fair amount of communication, even if your company allows it to be via email.

      1. Jamie*

        This. I’d be hard pressed to think of a job less “mindless.”. It requires more critical thinking than most.

        1. Not that kind of BA*

          I suspect Penguin is referring to a different kind BA (not the IT, Technology kind).

          I know some Financial Data Analysts that are called BAs and their job is to run a fixed set of (pre-defined) Excel scrips at the end of the month and turn in some reports, which could be pretty routine.

          (I’m in no way implying Financial Data Analysis is a boring job. I also know other Financial Analysts whose job involves creating tooling and automation to get better financial insights.)

  8. ChristineH*

    I think even data entry isn’t entirely mindless. I had one data entry that was most definitely boring, but there was also very little tolerance for error due to the nature of what was being entered.

    1. The IT Manager*

      I agree, I think the OP needs to define what she’s (he’s) looking for better. Mindless don’t have to think about it and let my mind wander while doing it? Stress free don’t have major responsibilities and don’t have to think about it when not working?

      1. fposte*

        Agreed. There aren’t many jobs where you’re paid just to be a warm body, and even jobs that don’t require a lot of creativity tend to require attentiveness.

        Alternatively, there might be jobs where your brawn matters more than your brain, but there’s a lot of competition for those in most places, and you need some decent brawn.

    2. Small Nonprofit Employee*

      Boring doesn’t have to be mindless. Sometimes I work on tasks that are not mindless at all, but if I stop and think about what I’m actually doing, or try to describe to someone else what I’m doing, it is super boring to think about…

      Maybe the OP doesn’t mean mindless, and not necessarily boring to them, just something that most other people would regard as boring.

  9. Natalie*

    I used to work for a company that processed checks for various companies that get a lot of checks – utilities, hospitals, charities. I sat at a workstation for 6-12 hours (depending on the day of the week and time of year) and looked at each check to verify it met that client’s rules (i.e. would they take post-dated checks, did the payee match one of their acceptable payees) , fill out a form, and put the checks in a batch to be cashed. Then we took photocopies of each check and attached them to everything that had come with and mailed it off to the client. Someone else mailed all the checks to a bank.

    I’m not sure how much automated systems like ACH have changed the business – I worked there in 2004 – but it was fairly mindless and repetitive, didn’t require much standing, and paid okay for a job that also required very little education or experience. I made around $12/hour and full time employees got decent benefits. And I was allowed to listen to headphones while processing so I burned through a boatload of audiobooks and old-timey radio.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      This is tied into a pretty boring job that any decent-sized nonprofit will have: donation processing. People send in donations by check and credit card, and you have to go through each one and log it in a membership database, noting all kinds of additional information (contact info, what the donation was in response to, etc.). Accuracy is key, but it’s very repetitive. At many organizations, this is a full-time job.

      1. KC*

        This is true. I manage the gift processing team for a larger non profit. We have 1.6 permanent year round data entry operators for donation processing with good hourly wages and benefits. At the holidays, our peak season, we more than double our staff, bringing on 2 to 3 full time seasonal employees. We often hire the temporary staff through placement agencies. This role is considered crucial for the reasons Alison mentioned, they are often the only contact we have with donor preferences and are key to providing excellent customer service. This is also why, even though we strive to streamline and automate as much of donation processing as possible, these jobs will never completely disappear.

  10. Elizabeth*

    If you can stand to do both data entry and work with people, check your local hospitals & health systems for patient registration positions. They don’t pay high wages but almost always in need of people. It is how I got my start in healthcare.

    Like most data entry jobs, though, patient scheduling & registration must be perfect. The point of registration (where someone is asking you a million of questions just at the moment you’re feeling sickest) is where over 85% of the information on the bill that goes to the insurance company is collected. If it is inaccurate, the bill won’t get paid.

    1. sophylou*

      Having just experienced exactly that (insurance number keyed in incorrectly for hospital stay), yes, accuracy is REALLY IMPORTANT there. It’s been months and I’m still dealing with the fallout.

  11. Anlyn*

    My idea of a wonderfully boring job is to be an employee of a small, locally-owned used book store or antique shop, where the owner doesn’t care so much about the business or customers, but still needs someone to watch the front door and occasionally help those who sort of wander in. And then spend the rest of the time cross-stitching.

    1. Anlyn*

      Oops, hit submit too quickly. Meant to mention that unfortunately, those kinds of jobs are pretty rare unless you’re related to said owner.

        1. Lynne*

          There’s a series by Lawrence Block starring someone who runs a bookstore like that…but he doesn’t have to make a profit because he’s a burglar on the side. :)

      1. Cassie*

        My friend has a coworker who knits during work. They works in a government agency (said coworker has been there for 40+ years so nobody says anything).

    3. Blinx*

      It was always my dream to own this type of shop, on the main street in my town. I’d have a resident dog or cat. People could bring in coffee, pull a book off the shelf, sit in a comfy chair and read… but then I realized that I didn’t want to be in charge, and how the heck could it make any real money? But it would be a nice environment to be in all day, as an employee.

  12. BadMovieLover*

    Programming is definitely not the job you are looking for. You do sit most of the time, but you’ll be dealing with problem solving, long hours. If dealing with a manager who doesn’t have the slightest idea about tech, you can add unrealistic expectations to the mix.

  13. Mike*

    As a programmer I can tell you that it isn’t boring nor routine. Especially at a non-tech company. I spend a good amount of time meeting with people to figure out what the requirements and wants are. Then I have to go back and develop it and start the cycle of feedback and adjustments until the requirements are meet.

    At my current company we are actively using programmers to automate as many of the routine tasks that can be done faster/better with computers. Why? So we can free up the humans to do tasks the computers can’t do, like talking to our customers and giving them personalized attention. So if you are looking for a routine/boring job you will want to be careful as your job might not exist in a few years.

  14. Jamie*

    Maybe it’s because I’m home sick with and not thinking clearly, but I don’t understand the question.

    Wanting to work in front of a computer all day is like “wanting to work outside”. I’m sure a forrest ranger, landscape architect, and professional surfer wouldn’t consider their jobs similar even though they are all performed outside.

    Also, to be honest, the OP seems to be confused about what positions even entail – there is nothing boring and mindless about IT – and while I’ll admit some may find it boring, it’s not routine by any definition.

    I’m confused and maybe it’s just me.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      No, I’m confused too. We need more details. This is a question where, if it had come to me by email, I would have written back for more details. It was left as a comment so I can’t, but I’m hoping the questioner will come back with more context.

    2. The IT Manager*

      I’ll be honest, I was mildly offended by the OP’s idea that programming and IT jobs were routine and that she lumped them in with data entry which is a much less skilled career. My dream job is some sort of IT operations because I think it’ll be a fun challenge. And I decided I didn’t really want to be a programmer all day long after four and half years of higher education, but I still enjoy solving a programming puzzle now and again.

      I don’t think s/he meant to offend or even realized the comment might so I am not up in arms, but s/he’s misinformed.

      PS To be honest, though, all that higher math required for computer science (which for me 20ish years ago was basically a computer programming degree) was mostly unneccessary. My computer science classes never required me to do higher math even though my degree required through Calcus III, Linear Algebra, and Physics I and II. But that’s OT because computer programmer or IT professional is not the job that the OP is looking for.

      1. class factotum*

        Yeah, but I bet the people who couldn’t do that math would not make very good programmers. It takes a really logical mindset combined with a keen sense of the abstract – can you envision something that does not exist and make it come into being? – to be a good programmer, I think.

        1. Camellia*

          ” It takes a really logical mindset combined with a keen sense of the abstract – can you envision something that does not exist and make it come into being?”

          This ties into the comment I wanted to leave – I’m not sure where the emphasis on calculus, physics, and higher math being required for IT comes from right now. Yes, in the early stages of computing, maybe, but not these days.

          A logical mind is needed, true, but ‘envision something that does not exist and make it come into being’ is called ‘creation’. My entire career has been spent in IT and I’ve only worked with one math major (that I know of), but have worked with numerous ‘artistic types’ – interior design degrees, fine art degrees, people who are amazingly talented painters, sculptors, quilters, and yes, cross-stitchers. IT is really most about creating, and I think the ‘artistic types’ are much more common in IT than the higher math majors.

          Just my two cents at the end of a looooong Monday.

        2. Windchime*

          I know this is an old thread, but I agree. On my old team of 6 programmers, only one of us had a CS degree. One person had an MIS, one had a two year degree in Film and TV Production, and the rest of us had a little community college but no degree. I was fortunate (?) enough to live in a rural area where it was easier to break into the field without a degree at that time.

          At any rate, Class Factotum is correct. To be a good programmer requires the ability to envision something and the creativity to imagine how to accomplish that. No calculus or physics involved.

      2. moss*

        It depends on the type of programming you’re doing. User interface work probably doesn’t need math.

        I’ve worked with data collection devices and on drug studies and to make it in the more technically oriented programming cultures you have to be at least conversant with higher math. People unwilling or unable to be comfortable with math won’t get interesting programming work.

        1. Neeta (RO)*

          Actually it often does… well maybe not necessarily solving complex calculus problems, but simple arithmetic and geometry are quite not at all out of the norm.

          As for repetitive jobs in IT… perhaps the OP was being told about QA work. Which could be somewhat repetitive, depending on the program one has to test. But even then, you are encourage to try variations, to see if you can “break things” using unusual testing scenarios and the like.

          1. Lily*

            I had a job testing software for compatibility. First I had to figure out how to install a program on the comparison machine and observe how the software was supposed to react, then see how it acted on the test machine. Then do the same for the next program. Over time, it can become repetitive, but at the beginning it is a job needing good IT problem-solving skills.

        2. Neeta (RO)*

          Ah sorry, forgot to mention. The first part of my reply about needing Math in user interface design.

      3. Ask a Manager* Post author

        I can’t tell if the OP wants mindless jobs or just jobs where you’re at a computer all day without a lot of in-person interaction. I get the sense that the OP may be confusing the two, or doesn’t have a good understanding of what all the possibilities are and the differences among them.

      4. BadMovieLover*

        I can agree with this. None of the work I do has ever required that level of math. It’s mostly data manipulation. The most math I’ve ever had to use was algebra to calculate a radius.

        What has benefitted me the most directly was learning algorithms, data structures, relational algebra, design of databases to 3rd Normal Form, and SQL. After that, most of what I need comes down to learning the framework flavor du jour.

  15. Bridgette*

    You might could try getting work a data center, where they host servers. A lot of those places have entry level positions where you basically do reboots and make sure the servers don’t catch on fire. Some IT experience is a plus but not the kind you’re talking about with advanced math, they want more customer service experience. There is some customer interaction, but if you got an overnight shift or something like that, it could be less. Data centers tend to be in large cities though, so I don’t know how feasible that is for you.

  17. Victoria*

    I’m wondering if what the OP wants is a job that she can leave behind (mentally) at the end of the day. I have that fantasy sometimes, too. I’d love to give up being anxious and stressed out about what’s coming next for work.

    But I’ve come to realize that it’s my relationship to work (and responsibility, and authority, and etc. etc. etc.) that causes my stress (and causes me to be an effective, focused employee). In other words, it’s not the job, it’s me.

    1. Bridgette*

      That is an excellent point. For many years I dreamed about such a job, thinking that all I needed to fix my after-work stressing was a mindless, boring job that wouldn’t tax my brain during the day. That’s not the answer. I have to change my attitude and handle my stress because there is no job boring and mindless enough for me to stop thinking about it after work.

  19. Anonymous*

    Try looking for jobs in client services/customer service. A lot of that work is at a computer and requires working with customers via email and/or phone. I work in client services for an education company and I spent most of my day at a computer. It pays pretty decently and has the flexibility to work at home (like I am today due to Hurricane Sandy). I can leave my work at work, which is nice.

    1. Sandrine*

      I work customer service on the phone. It’s far from being boring or routine work. Sure, I’m in another country, but it’s horrible, horrible work.

  20. Dom*

    Does it have to be at a desk? Or is it just the go-to for boring? I have a relative that does night-shifts in a warehouse stocking a major chain department store…often these kinds of jobs are very routine, moving a lot of pallets from A to B… although you need training on heavy machinery. Or jobs in night security can be pretty full of nothing…

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Yes! When I was in college, I had a job sitting at a night security desk. All I had to do was log the occasional check-in from security officers, who would call in on walkie talkies to report that things were clear at whatever location they were at. I just read books the whole time. And plus I got to say things like “10-four” without irony.

      1. Anonymous*

        This is the job I would do anything for. Minimum wage would be fine. But every time I see jobs like this, they want either heavy security experience or sometimes even police experience, like laid off or retired police officers. Like any other job, they CAN ask for overkill on experience right now, so they do. :(

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          I did it for our campus security office (had to be a student), but I also did it for an apartment building serving seniors. I worked the night shift so literally never had contact with anyone. I was basically there in case something came up, but nothing ever did.

    2. Kimberlee, Esq.*

      Oooh! My sisters had a job like these. They were basically check-in people at a residential substance abuse treatment facility. You had to do rounds every couple of hours, and anytime someone entered or left you had to make sure they signed a paper. Other than that, it was book-reading city (and since they both worked overnight shifts, they’d have to do rounds like twice and never see another person the whole evening).

  21. Mary Sue*

    The most boring, mindless jobs I ever had were when I was an “Office Specialist” working through various temp agencies. This means I did light filing, phones, and some word processing. But mostly, I sat and stared at the wall.

    These gigs do not pay well. You can’t afford the health insurance. You’re not guaranteed hours. But hey, if that’s what you’re looking for to get you through a patch of your life, can’t hurt to try. Learn how to do a vlookup table in Excel and you will rarely be between jobs as a temp.

    I spent two years as a temp in my current position before I was hired. I have a History undergraduate degree, and now I’m a Healthcare Buyer. It involves a lot of detail-oriented, routine work– and heavy-duty negotiation skills, math proficiency, and Excel and SQL expertise. All of which I picked up in a decade of temping.

    1. AP*

      I was just going to suggest temp work!

      I’ve never done it but I’ve had friends who have, and it really is just light computer-based office work. Sure, you move around and every situation is different, but data entry, filing, etc. seem to be the keywords. And if you don’t have experience with those, you might be able to build them up working temp and then try to turn that into full-time elsewhere.

      Of the people I know who have done this, one of them didn’t even have a college degree, but a couple of years doing customer support for a big company that he had been fired from. (I was surprised by that, the current job market being what it is, but I guess he had a contact who got him in.)

      I don’t know where you live, but try googling for temp agencies and setting up appointments with them to get you on their roster?

    2. Blinx*

      Me too. I temped a lot during college breaks, and basically most of the jobs required little instruction. You just did them Anything involving filing or data entry. And several of them (who didn’t know I was just on break) offered me full time positions.

    3. LondonI*

      Temping can be a wonderful way to get into ultra-boring jobs. Make sure you tell the agency what you’re looking for, though. Some temp jobs can be pretty exciting.

      Find an office which has acquired a backlog of something-or-other (filing; data-entry) and become the temp who clears the that backlog because noone else has the time or the inclination to do it.

      I myself spent several months in a silent office where I did nothing but scan a backlog of certificates for eight hours a day.

  22. Sandy Says*

    There are plenty of boring jobs around, but I don’t think they necessarily fall into any particular field. I was an administrative assistant at a real estate company in college, and while that particular position was extremely boring, many other admin positions are not. So it would be rather hard to find a particular boring job. Also, many (most?) jobs are boring some of the time, but not all the time. Instead, you need to get a better idea of what specific traits you want and ask about those in the interview.

    Boring can also mean many things–you mentioned repetitive in particular. Repetitive office jobs could include data entry and accounting support. Do you mean low stress? The jobs I mentioned above require lots of attention to detail, which would get stressful if you aren’t obsessively detail oriented. Also, if you aren’t trained properly, an otherwise boring job might be stressful. Do you mean that you want time to shop online (and read AAM)? If so, a data entry job probably won’t give you much time for that, as you will be expected to get a certain amount done each day.

    Instead of seeking out a “boring” job, I would look for jobs you qualify for and then ask more specific questions–how much oversight is there? Is there someone you can go to for questions, or are you on your own? Is overtime expected? Do things frequently pop up unexpectedly or is the work predictable?

    If you don’t mind interacting with people, I would imagine that a receptionist job might be a good choice–preferably at a large company where you would just be the receptionist and not the receptionist/admin assistant/office manager.

    1. Elizabeth West*

      Yeah, you don’t get left alone in this job. Receptionist are the dumpees of the office. You get all the clerical crap work that no one else wants to do, punctuated with continual interruptions as people come in and out, and phones phones phones. It is NOT a boring rote job. And with companies cutting staff, you will not be bored- you’ll be very, very busy.

      1. LondonI*

        Being a receptionist can be extremely difficult and stressful, particularly in a busy environment, and yet it gets you no respect at all.

  23. Sabrina*

    I have a job like that! I do data entry. I am a “Claims Intake Representative” basically I process short and long term disability claims. I put them in the system or add mail to them if someone sends in additional supporting documentation. I don’t make the decision on the claim, and I don’t take calls. Now and then I do need to call out because information is missing on a form and they are wanting to start a new claim.

    A lot of companies have offshored this job or made it more efficient to not need as many people doing it. There are A LOT of changes they could make here to do that. For instance they could bar code the documents so that when they come back in the system scans the code and pre populates what form it is or even who it’s for.

    But most of it is very routine and very boring. Plus the training wasn’t that great. It’s a job until I finish my degree.

  24. AnotherAlison*

    Most of my jobs have fit the bill for sitting at a desk working at a computer all day, but none have been easy and all required a college degree in engineering or an MBA. I think if you want to sit at a desk & not be bothered by too many people, you have to be prepared to do some higher level problem solving and decision making because that’s just what those jobs require now.

  25. Anonymous*

    Scanning paper records into an electronic system. I did it for a few months and found it incredibly dull. I felt like I was getting dumber by the day because I never had to use my brain and had no interaction with other people.

    You literally just put paper in the scanner, make sure it comes out looking ok on the computer screen and assign the file to certain categories. For eight hours a day.

    Government and medical offices are the places to check for this sort of job.

    1. Kimberlee, Esq.*

      I’ve seen several non-profits with “archiving” jobs doing this. Often at the intern level, but still mostly paid.

  26. Katie*

    I found copy editing to be pretty routine and boring, but it’s not exactly the mindless work you may be looking for. It requires laser focus attention to detail and pretty extensive knowledge of style and grammar. In the position I was in, there wasn’t a lot of oversight, so you had to be a pretty self-motivated worker too.

    1. Miss Displaced*

      My mind always wanders too much when I proof. I’ve been fortunate to work with some great proofreaders over the years.
      Talk about lifesavers!

        1. Jen in RO*

          Sometimes I wished I could turn off the internet while I copy edited. And then I realized I needed it for online dictionaries. 15 minutes later, I was on Wikipedia reading about the ogham alphabet…

    2. Rana*

      What’s mildly amusing to me about this comment is that I love that kind of stuff. Editing is one of my favorite tasks!

      I’m also a sucker for data entry, especially if I also get to generate reports from the data.

      I don’t know why I enjoy these things, but I do.

  27. Blinx*

    In college, I worked at the check out desk at the library. That was the interesting part. During lulls, we had to go up and “read the stacks”. That meant we picked a section of shelves, and made sure that the books were in order, according to the Dewey decimal system. Some more obscure sections rarely had books pulled out, and were never out of order, but you had to check anyway. Borrrrring! I always tried to be assigned to the art books — they were always a mess and never in the right order.

    Years ago, I read a book called “All the Live Long Day”. A woman travelled the country interviewing people who had boring, repetitive jobs, and wanted to find out just how did they do the same task all day long, day in and day out. Many of the jobs were physical jobs, though, and it was pre-digital days.

    1. class factotum*

      I did this as a volunteer at my library (until I got a job). I loved walking away from the shelves at the end of my shift, knowing everything was in order. I was amused at which sections got out of order and which did not. The cookbooks and the books about kittens were always in disarray.

      Blessitsheart, the section about feminism and about teaching theory were always perfect.

      1. Another Ellie*

        This really reminds me of the section of the library I used to study in when I was in college. I used to hole up on the children’s books floor, right next to the “B-authors” section (the university had a huge college of education). For some reason, right in the middle of Clyde Robert Bulla the books just went totally out of order. There was a shelf with some B books, then a jump to the Cs, and then a random collection of books with authors from all over the alphabet. Then on the next shelf they all of a sudden resumed being Clyde Robert Bulla and continued exactly as they should. I had a lot of theories as to how this happened, but none as to why somebody hadn’t corrected it. At some point I met the head librarian and mentioned it to her, and she must have remembered because it was corrected very soon after that.

    2. Julie*

      I was going to suggest working at a library shelving books (my summer job during college), but then I realized that 1. it can involve a lot of patron and co-worker interaction and headaches (for some reason, very strange people tend to visit libraries and you have to deal with the crazy), and 2. many libraries are cutting back on staff and closing branches, so there might not be as many “shelving only” types of positions available any more. Plus, they tend to be stingy with hours, so if you need something full time, it’s probably not for you.

      1. Lynne*

        On the library front, there’s also cataloguing, I suppose. I am assured by my cataloguer friend that it is Not Boring, but *I* would be driven out of my mind with boredom if I had to do that all day, so, you know.

        A lot of cataloguing these days is outsourced to vendors and not done by libraries themselves, but the jobs do still exist in libraries too; in fact, my library system just hired a couple of cataloguers. Around here such positions usually require a two-year library tech diploma, but that varies elsewhere; I know there are people who’ve gotten into the field without a formal qualification (that might be harder these days than it used to be though).

        It’s a back room job with no patron interaction, and tends to attract very introverted people who are extremely detail oriented and, ah, maybe just slightly obsessive about their records – at least, the good ones are. ;)

        1. zemkat*

          Cataloger here! I concur, (to those of us who like it) it is neither boring nor routine. Vendors are helpful, but working with them brings challenges of its own.

          I think that is a common impression though; I did have someone apply for a position in my unit, and state in their resume that they were looking for a boring/routine job. They felt so strongly about it that that sentence was in RED!

          1. Lynne*

            Hee. Yeah, I don’t think I’d want to hire someone as a cataloguer who thought cataloguing was boring…you want someone for whom it *isn’t*!

    3. Rana*

      See, that’s the sort of weird task I find fascinating. It becomes sort of a game to figure out what’s going on the stacks, why someone wrote a book on topic X, how many weird topics are out there getting published, etc.

      I guess I’m an organizing nerd…

      1. Lily*

        People who can find a higher purpose in routine tasks enjoy their work more. Read about the experience of flow.

  28. Kimberlee, Esq.*

    I would recommend a job in bookkeeping, as some have mentioned above. It does need to be done well, but doesn’t require much math (I use ratios from time to time, but as someone who counts on their fingers sometimes, I feel confident that bookkeeping has a level of math you can handle). Accounting is more complicated, and often more about problem-solving, but they’re both good jobs if you just want to sit at a computer and churn out invoices/reports/statements all day. You could get an associates in bookkeeping (2 years) and be qualified for gobs of boring desk jobs.

  29. TracyDee*

    I have a job where I sit at the computer all day and I LOVE it. I’m not a people person so this really is my “dream job”. I’m a medical records coder.

    I have a BA, but that isn’t really necessary for this position. I took a 9 month long course in CPT Coding, ICD-9 Coding, Anatomy and Medical Terminology then sat for my CPC (certified professional coder) exam. (accreditation is mandatory for most coding jobs)

    The pay is great and so is the atmosphere and I”m very happy in my job!

      2. TracyDee*

        Kat is right; no math whatsoever. Believe me, if there were math involved, I’d have run screaming in the opposite direction!

  30. Jennifer*

    If you want data entry jobs, look for the magic words “administrative assistant.” Especially if you work at a university.

    Though I will warn you that most admin assistant jobs do require face time/front desk-type stuff at least some of the time. I had a job where I literally hid in a corner for 10 years, but those days are gone.

  31. Miss Displaced*

    I do graphic design, and typically spend a LOT of time in front of a computer. If you do web design, it will likely be even more time in front of a computer. I wouldn’t say it’s a boring job, but some days can be extremely boring when there is a lot of routine (the not-so creative) layout and/or coding to be done. This typically requires a bachelor’s degree, but it’s not mandatory.

    I’ve also known some “boring” jobs that involve doing a lot of data entry, medical coding and bookkeeping. I don’t think these require 4 year degrees. Proofreading is also very boring in my book. I’ve also worked places where they had a person to do nothing but run the massive copy machines all night long for the law firms.

    Gee, when I really think about it, there seem to be more “boring” jobs than exciting ones!

    1. Miss Displaced*

      I should also add that nearly ANY factory work is totally boring.
      I used to sit and watch telephone books go through a giant cutter all night on the graveyard shift going clunk, clunk, clunk.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        I used to have a factory job. One night I got stuck behind a giant press break for the entire 8-hour shift. I couldn’t see or hear anyone else, nor they me. So I stood there and bent little metal pieces all night and sang every TV theme song I could think of, and recited the entire dialogue of the originalFright Night movie* to pass the time.

        *I’ve seen it 70 times so I know it by heart, ha ha

        1. Jamie*

          Well, it’s official that we’ve never worked together. I can hear the press brake department through my office wall and I’d definitely have remembered that!

          I’d have joined in for a chorus or two of The Facts of Life or The Brady Bunch.

        2. jesicka309*

          I once worked in a chocolate factory. There were fun, hectic jobs liek picking the chocolate off the conveyer belt and putting them in boxes – you needed to be accurate, careful and fast.
          Then there were other jobs that sucked. One job was monitoring the machine that folded all the chocolate box bases. You had to catch them as they slid out of the machine, and stack them in piles of 21. After 8 hours of that, counting to 21 thousands of times a day, I was ready to murder someone. Lucky that role was on rotation, but one guy who didn’t speak English did that machine very day! He must have had the patience of a saint.

      2. Rana*

        Heh. I once temped at a place that did nothing but process listings for phone books. Equally boring!

  32. Jennifer*

    I’m confused by the number of people commenting that they are confused by the OP’s question. No where does he/she mention that they want a “mindless” job…just a routine job that other people deem boring. And I did not get the feeling that he/she was saying programmers work mindless jobs. The OP said he/she has asked the question before and has been TOLD programming may be a good choice. Of course the OP doesn’t seem to know exactly what programming entails, but if you’re told by other people that it would be something you might enjoy then you’re likely to look up what the degree requirements would be for that field.

    I happen to be one of those people who enjoy routine work (I work in data entry as well). Note that I did not say “mindless” or “boring” because my job does not feel that way to me. The OP said other people call these jobs boring, but, as I read it, that would be a perfect job for him/her as they tend to be for me.

    Believe it or not there are people out there who like these jobs. Think type D personalities. Then you have some (definitely not all) introverts or people with severe social anxiety issues who crave a job where they can just go in and do their work and go home with minimal interactions with co-workers and/or the public. People are different and come in all flavors. What suits one will not suit the next.

    To the OP, I feel your pain as I hail from a smallish town in the south. I don’t know where you’re from, but I know I had a terrible time finding anything I enjoyed while I lived there. Pretty much all clerical jobs were as you mentioned: all-encompassing secretarial positions where you do a little of this and a little of that. There were some larger companies that had, for example, just accounts payable positions, but they were terribly hard to land especially if you didn’t “know someone” at the company. I assume all of the other office workers in the area longed for a position where they didn’t have to be the receptionist, etc. as well. I moved just outside of Raleigh, NC about 5 years ago and found my “dream job” of data entry. Sure, it doesn’t pay alot, but for many people there are some things more important than money…like your happiness and your sanity. Of course you will have to put up with the stigma of some people looking down on you or thinking you’re just lazy, unintelligent, unambitious, etc. because you’re 40 years old and working a data entry job.

    My advice to you would be to get training in clerical work if you have yet to do so, definitely work on typing and 10-key speed, then hit up some temp agencies as others have mentioned. At least then you’ll (hopefully) be exposed to a broader range of positions where you can see what fits you best. If you still have bad luck in finding a job that’s right for you, then do consider moving to a larger city. I can’t say that’s the right choice for you, but I can say that data entry positions are definitely more abundant in higher populated areas. Best of luck to you!

  33. Another Jamie*

    If the OP likes the idea of programming, she/he could look into blackbox QA (software testing). I don’t think there are many QA jobs where you can get away with zero programming knowledge, but even a little familiarity with how code works will go a long way. Even the QA tasks that are automated still require a lot of maintenance.

    I did QA for many years, and really enjoyed it. I have a degree in English, and started as a temp at $8/hour clicking through the software like an end-user. I got hired full time and eventually worked up to learning how to automate the end-user clicking. I have a high tolerance for boring work (I call it “zen” work), and QA had the perfect mix of “zen” work and creative problem solving. Depending on the work environment, you may even get to be involved in all aspects of software development: interaction design, business analysis, coding, technical writing, and of course testing. Plus, it’s a fun mix of people. Almost everyone I worked with came from some random background. My team had a music major still going to school part time, a recent psychology major, a retired member of the Navy, a woman with a masters in education, another woman with a masters in engineering, and couple of people without college experience at all.

    Granted, I got into the field about 8 years ago, and a lot has changed since then. But it still may be worth looking into.

    1. Another Jamie*

      Also, if you want to get a feel for the basic level of coding experience needed for testing, you should play around with Selenium. It’s an open source test automation tool that’s pretty easy to learn. It records your actions and then writes the test code for you. It’s similar to a few other test automation tools.

      http://seleniumhq.org/

  36. Jesicka309*

    Do you want my job? I think it fits the bill.
    Commercial scheduler. Pretty much, you have a half hour that is full of TV commercials. You put them in order (highest paying first and last). Then onto the next half hour. All day.
    Then when you’ve finished one day, congrats! Start the next days commercials.
    They would love someone like you who wants a repetitive desk job. My station made the mistake of hiring 10 media and comms grads who were lured in by ‘TV station” and are now slowly withering away (me). They should have hired people who wanted to work the job, not the company.

    1. Steve G*

      Sounds like you just make a pivot table, sort by dollar amount, and you can have at least a tentative schedule for the next month done in 2 minutes (after the data is in excel of course). THAT is a job?

      1. jesicka309*

        Oh, it’s a tad bit more complicated than that. The schedules change (like when the TV programming changes), the breaks are different lengths, money gets booked in at the last minute, and the system we use is a special TV one that feeds straight into the satelite system.
        But the day-to-day work of my job is putting the ads in order, with no cars next to alcohol, World Visin next to McDonalds, no McDonalds next to KFC etc.
        Unfortunately if it was as easy as an Excel pivot table I’d be out of a job. :( What we time is just time consuming, and of course, your standard boring desk job.

        1. Laurie*

          Your job’s fascinating to hear about though. I watch soooo much TV, and I’ve always wondered who exactly is responsible for putting those ads in that order. Especially the ones designed to trick you into stopping for the ads and not fast-forwarding through them while you’re watching time-shifted TV (on DVR). CW is notorious for doing this, but they’ll have a 30 second ad with the title characters just ambling about on the screen, looking sultry, and to someone fast forwarding through the commercials, it can look like the show started up again. Gets me every time haha.

          1. jesicka309*

            Haha I don’t know what those are, different country I guess. I think they ccould be sponsor billboards, eg. “This program was brought to you today by TiVo”.
            See that’s the thing, my job ‘sounds’ fascinating, but the day to day of it isn’t. That’s how they lure us media grads in. “Wow, TV, working with ads, it sounds really exciting!”
            It wears off when you’re completely bored and depressed by your job, and still have to throw on a happy face and say “Yes, I love working for Channel1234. My job is really fascinating, deifnitely not a dead end.”
            But some people want that sort of job as it has stability. The ads are what pays for the TV station, so you’re a bit safer than, say, the newsroom staff. But ambitious grads like me and not the right people to be targeting.

  37. Kat M*

    My old roommate once turned down a job as a night receptionist at a children’s home. College students tended to fill the job so they could sit at the desk all night and get their homework done, waiting for the very rare phone call or visitor.

    Also, if you can take some medical coding classes, you could match ICD-9 codes to medical conditions and put them in insurance billing forms all day. In the small place where I work, the therapists do their own coding. But bigger clinics and hospitals hire people to do that for them.

    1. Anonymous*

      Unfortunately like everything else right now, they hire people with experience to do that for them. It’s not something you can just show up and start doing after taking a course unless you know someone.

  38. Rana*

    The jobs I had that were like this were both ones I got through a temp agency. One was filing error reports for telephone listings (literally hundreds per day needed to be filed) and one was entering information from life insurance applications. The first one was exhausting, from physically wrangling the files, and not helped by the supervisor being awful, but the mental side of it was fine. The insurance forms were actually pretty interesting; I remember spending one day being fascinated by all the different sorts of last names people had, and another by all the exclusion forms you had to add to the packet (such as the skydiving waiver) depending on their answers. And both jobs had a lot of turnover, so the temp agencies were always trying to find people who enjoyed that sort of work.

  39. Madison*

    So this is my recommendation based off my experience at an ecommerce event company. I was in a customer service department that did customer email support, invoice and po adjustments, cancelled/rescheduled events notification to our customers, and tracking our packages.

    Any of those would be up your alley, I’d think. But especially tracking packages: get a bunch of tracking numbers and plug them into ups/fedex. Make sure they arrive in time for the event and contact the customer should a problem arise.

    Not sure if other ecommerce sites care if their packages are delivered or not, but my company does. Otherwise you could try going straight to fedex, ups, dhl and see if they have a similar position

  40. Cassie*

    Working in an admissions office, but just as a clerk and not one of the admissions counselors? Much of the work is filing and making sure applications include all the necessary material.

    Accounts payable clerk was the other job I thought of – assuming the company is large enough that they have other A/P staff handle discrepancies and other issues.

    1. Heather*

      I worked part time in the admissions records office all 4 years of college. Depending on the time of year, we did data entry, filing, arranging applications in order for readers, and sending out applications/brochures. It was routine but fun and a welcome break from classes and homework. I worked with a nice group of people, and at the very least, it was a relief not to be on my feet or serving customers – I spent high school working in retail and a cafe. Don’t know how the process has changed with technology – the dept may be evaluating applications on their iPads for all I know.

  41. zayq*

    Another possibility is something that is or resembles a relay service for hard of hearing folks. Basically you’d transcribe phone calls all day. It’s routine, and pretty boring, in that you pretty much just repeat what other people have said and it really doesn’t require much of any thought on your part. You do have to type quite fast, although I think some places use voice recognition, so you wouldn’t even have to type much.

  42. Rachel*

    I am not sure if certain states differ, but if OP lives in California, work for the government. Yes, workload differs within different departments, but in general it doesn’t get any more routine and boring than that! And you get most holidays off!

  43. JC*

    I was an administrative assistant for 2 years, and I was stuck in a back office in front of a computer all day. Every now and then I would answer the phone, or have a co-worker show up at my door looking for my boss, but for the most part it was emails, reimbursements, travel arrangements, etc. at my computer. At the time, all I had was a bachelor’s degree straight out of college in an unrelated field, but it was enough to land that job at a university. While I wouldn’t go back to that department in particular (way too much stress in a face paced environment and the higher ups didn’t fully appreciate or utilize the skill set of us admin assistants), I wouldn’t mind being an administrative assistant again for another organization. The pay can be decent, there’s solid benefits, and you’ll always have something to do. You are pretty much guaranteed a job as well…at least where I live which is in a city. Also, in my case anyway, I was on my own for most of the day with minimal interaction with my boss and co-workers in general. I was pretty much self-sufficient and independent, as I had to “hold down the fort” while my boss was away on travel or in meetings. But your mileage may vary depending on the industry you are working in and where you are located.

    In my experience, skills crucial to the job were strong writing (typing) and communication skills, professional demeanor, data management and/or technical and computer skills, research, detail-oriented, organization, and stress and time management (for all those curve balls you’ll be thrown!).

    Aw, I sort of miss being an administrative assistant now. Too bad my last job seriously soured me of the taste to it :/

  44. Editor*

    For any routine job, check how the employer monitors performance. I never had a data entry job, but a few years ago when I was traveling I sat in a booth next to four women complaining about their health-care data entry jobs, which measured keystrokes and was enforced with great rigidity. No allowance for sloppily written data that took more time to read before input, timeclocks, ever-increasing productivity measures. The jobs had been outsourced to the rural Midwest, so there weren’t a lot of alternatives for the workers who were burned out.

    So, like any job, find out about the company culture and the way success in the job is measured.

  45. Sloop*

    I work as an employee benefits consultant but we have “analysts” that do lots of data entry, document review, routine claim handling, etc. that I don’t have time to do (or capacity) while running around between meetings. It pays fairly well (look at insurance brokers) and you can definitely move up if you realize you love the industry, or stay pretty stagnant in a “boring” 9-5 if that’s what you prefer.

    1. TracyDee*

      Unfortunately, the Post Office isn’t doing too well right now so it’s probably not hiring many people. Even in the best of times, though, it’s definitely who you know or who you’re related to that gets your foor in the Post Office door.

  47. Victoria*

    One boring job that I had was at an insurance company. I started in the inbound call center and then transitioned to the licensing department. Basically we just did data entry of insurance agent applications to sell our insurance products. It was mindless.

Comments are closed.