Career Advice Thread

[duma]

Hi I wanted to create a thread for people who have a job or career to share their advice for people who are still trying to figure out how to manage Social Phobia and a job.

Please share some advice to people who dont know what job area they should go into that is best for people with Social phobia. Also share some negative experiences of work for others to be aware of.

I'm especially looking for some "sucess" stories to share and give hope to others.

Maybe some things you could share is (if you feel comfortable):
- Your career area; eg, Trade, IT, Hospitality etc
- How much social interaction is involved in your job
- Do you enjoy your job
- Jobs you would recommend for people with Severe social phobia
- Jobs you would recommend for people with limited social phobia
- Your experience of jobs that you do not reccomend for people with social phobia
- Your experience of jobs that you do reccomend for people with social phobia
- whether the income is good or not
- whether you are self employed or not
- sucess stories; you have found a job you love and feel completly comfortable and happy in, maybe you make millions a year but also have social phobia, you completely love your job not matter it pays

 

[duma]

I'll go first

I do not consider that I have a career at all but I have a job lol
I deliver mail part time. I walk for 4 hrs a day and deliver mail 5 days a week, pretty simple. Its good exercise, almost like you get paid to exercise , money is not too bad but for the amt of hrs I work a week (20hrs) it doesn't add up to much, I'll share how much I make an hr $17.50.

In terms of jobs I have had in my life, only 2, a job at pizza hut and this one.

In terms of social exposure, being a mailman is great for not having to deal with people, essentially I am on my own for 4hrs except for the occasional passer by and the old men and ladies that wait by their letter box for their mail (which is pretty annoying to me lol, coz they always like to point out if your late).
But realistically the job for me is very anxiety producing becuase i still have to deal with people at the post office for 10mins at the start of my shift and about 15mins after. For example; I have to get a book signed by the people at the post office after every shift, so I stand there with my head down waiting for them to take their time to do what is essentially their job but they take their time to do it and I dont think that they like me anyway.

In terms of my recovery from social phobia, proir to my mail delivery jobs I had had around 6 mnths off, and I was happy, exposing myself to social settings and all together very happy. But since I started my job, my life seems to revolve around work, even tho I only work 20hrs a week but it causes me alot of stress etc. But I seem to have gone backwards in my recovery from social phobia since I started this job, I have neglected working on social exposure becuase of my job. Becuase of this my experience of work is that it kind of is detrimental to getting better because it takes away your focus, but thats just my experience.

I'll stop blabbing on lol. I do not consider myself sucessful in jobs by any means and I have not found my dream job or know how to find it (thats why I created this thread) but my experience of work so far is that if you want to become a postman, I say its very good becuase it has limited (small amts) social interaction but not without its social challenges (but what job doesn't have that?) and if your from my country the pay is rather good, but the walking is long and sometimes tiring.