I'm tired of being a social worker and having to do the following tasks everyday:

1. Get yelled at by people when I don't have money to give them.

2. Tell people I don't have money to give them.

3. Telling people that I can't change their husbands, but I can help them change themselves, and seeing that look on their face which gives me about a 65% certainty they aren't going to come back to hear more.

4. Getting yelled at a lot for not being able to fix the unfixable and only making a pittance for the honor.


I would like a job where:

1. There is a beginning and an ending to a task

2. THe amount of effort I put in will have some relationship to the quality of speed of the outcome.

3. Less people contact.


Any thoughts????????????

Become a Recruiter.

UPSIDES:
- Money is tied to performance
- Closure on assignments
- Don't have to deal with people face-to-face if you don't want
- Can work virtually (helllooooo Sun Valleyyyy!!!)
- You still get to help people
- Highly transferrable skill

DOWNSIDES:
- Very competitive
- Can be very difficult at times
- Availability is key; you never get to leave your work behind
- Can run across a lot of a**es ('course it sounds like you already do)

Fwin,

"3. Less people contact."

Kinda blows that recruiter idea.


And there are thousands of seasoned veteran recruiters looking for that position right now.

I don't know an answer, as I said to Tweil, be thankful you got one right now?

/shrug

I don't like to give advice that often, but I think you should stay in social work but change to a different aspect of it. I don't know which kind of social work you're doing now, but if you get out of it and go work for a different kind of nonprofit agency or company, you might be able to expand beyond the dealing with negative people day in and day out.

Hmm....

Any technical abilities?

I'm in the voluntary sector working as a database designer believe it or not, and it's great. It's nothing professional like Oracle but just relational databases in MS Access... however being a charitable organisation with a number of different projects they are quite happy to hire me full time to design systems that can track the information that they need.

I know it's a bit of a bizarre suggestion, but given that you're on here it shows at least a reasonable amount of computer literacy... more than most ;) Access is really not very difficult to learn.

These are tough times to be looking for a new job. That being said, a position with a Human Resources department might fit your skillset.

You would still have a fair amount of human contact, but most of that is the "I'd like to change HMO's" variety.

Don't go into computer programming.

Since they started tracking the stats of employment as a "computer programmer", this year the UNemployment rate of programmers is at the all-time high since 1982.

Unless you have an "in" into a job position, stay away from general programming (including database work). Trust me, I know. :)

Borras

The job market for social workers continues to be healthy. I dont' know that I have the energy for more education. I think probably the best bet is to move into a different are of the field which is less emotionally demanding for me.

Woot. Heheh. That's what I was thinking. Another area.

Regarding programming, yeah, it must suck nationwide, but if you are midlevel or senior, you can still find a job in the major tech areas although it might not be the "sweet" or "tricked-out" job you were used to five or ten years ago. It might not be a field or product you're interested in, but hey, money is money.