c/boring-but-great-jobs

Substitute teaching pays $22/hr here and I just nap during study hall

I took a gig filling in at a suburban middle school near Austin and realized the prep periods are basically paid downtime, plus the district covers training days. Anyone else find a school job that sounds mind-numbing but gets you free snacks and zero stress?

0 comments

amy858•22h ago

Hit 500 repeat clients at my audit gig, never expected that

I do compliance audits for small medical offices, mostly boring spreadsheet stuff. Started tracking in 2021 and this Tuesday I logged my 500th returning client, a dental clinic in Akron that booked me 4 times now. The number surprised me because I figured folks would just do the state minimum once. Turns out the ones who stick around like that I catch tiny billing errors before they become fines, like a $300 code mixup that would've snowballed. Anyone else find their most boring tasks bring the loyalty they never advertise?

0 comments

riverp37•1d ago

The school counselor who told me to try lift operation was dead on

Back in 2011, my guidance counselor at a community college in Dayton said maintenance jobs are boring but they pay the bills. I took a gig operating a freight elevator at a hospital for $14 an hour. Turns out, you see all this weird behind-the-scenes stuff, like organs being moved and code blue drills. I still do it 13 years later and make $32 an hour now. Anyone else get pushed into a 'boring' trade that actually turned out great?

0 comments

nathan_patel•1d ago

The old surveyor who let me hold his level rod changed everything

I do landscaping in Boise and last spring a retired surveyor watched me roughly square off a retaining wall, then handed me his old rod and showed me how he checks slope with his eyes before any tool comes out. After following him for one afternoon, I started walking every job site like that first, and I haven't had to re-grade a single bed in 8 months because of it. Has anyone else had a mentor from a completely unrelated trade drop a habit on you that quietly made your own boring job way easier?

0 comments

jordan653•2d ago

PSA: Bridge inspector gig pays $28/hr and nobody talks about the rush

My buddy Mike does bridge inspections for the state DOT and he keeps trying to get me to apply. I always figured it was just looking at concrete and traffic, but last week he showed me photos from a 300 foot span over the Ohio River. He said you get harnessed up, crawl under the deck, and you see cracks and rust spots that nobody else ever looks at. It pays around $28 an hour starting here in Columbus, which beats my warehouse gig by a mile. He claims the best part is the quiet, you're hanging there with the river noise and zero coworkers yapping in your ear. But he also said you gotta be okay with heights and spiders, and one bad inspection report can shut down a bridge for weeks. So I'm torn, is that kind of solitary fieldwork actually great, or is he just trying to get me to take his Saturday shifts? Has anyone else tried a job that sounds boring on paper but turned out to be this weird mix of danger and calm?

0 comments

jade221•4d ago

That parking garage audit in Tucson flipped how I see stripes

I took a side gig counting cars in a four story garage near the university for a week. The job sounded boring as dirt, but I ended up noticing the painted line spacing was off on level two, cars were squeezing into spots meant for compacts. I brought it up to the building manager and he had me measure all 300 stalls with a tape measure. Turns out the striping crew saved money by shrinking bays by 6 inches, and now I check line widths everywhere I park. It paid $18 an hour, but the real payoff was realizing boring work can uncover stuff nobody else sees. Has anyone else found a hidden issue in a place you were just supposed to observe?

0 comments

cole_bailey85•6d ago

Pest control route opened my eyes to one retired guy's routine

Tbh I do termite inspections in Fresno and most houses blur together. But last fall I had this one older fella, must have been 80, who had me check the same crawlspace he'd been paying us to do for 17 years. He met me at the door with a notebook full of dates and little diagrams of every treatment we'd ever done. Said he used to be an accountant and tracking our visits was his hobby now. We sat on his porch for 20 minutes and he showed me how he charts the seasonal moisture swings against our bait station reports. Ngl it made me realize this job has a side people don't see, you become part of someone's weekly rhythm without even knowing it. Has anyone else had a regular customer who treated your visits like a bigger deal than you did?

0 comments

shane_ross•7d ago

TIL parking enforcement in Tucson makes $60k a year walking 8 miles a shift

My cousin does it and he basically just walks around with a scanner, writes tickets, and listens to podcasts all day. He said the best part is people almost never argue because he just points at the sign and walks away. Anyone else know a gig that sounds boring but pays way better than it should?

0 comments

piper_green•7d ago

The 6 AM shift nobody wants is actually the best one

Everyone at my station fights to avoid the overnight shift, but I requested it permanently last year. The calls are mostly quiet until around 4 AM, so I get real downtime to do deep cleaning and equipment checks without anyone breathing down my neck. I tried the day shift for six months in Portland and it was nonstop noise, false alarms, and people hovering while I tried to inventory the hose. The overnight pace lets me actually catch small issues before they become big problems, like the time I found a cracked coupling on Engine 3 at 2:30 AM before it failed during a morning response. Anyone else found a schedule that everyone hates but is secretly perfect for getting work done?

0 comments

kim.wren•8d ago

Bought a $40 label maker for inventory and it flipped my workday around

I used to write SKUs on masking tape with a sharpie, then slipped up on a big batch of 80 boxes and lost half a day fixing ship dates. That little machine paid off within a week, and now I'm wondering if anyone else here secretly loves the dumb tools that make you look organized.

0 comments