That’s the short answer.
The long answer is, the idea of a job without human interaction is a myth. I wouldn’t say it’s a lie because I get why people believe it. The dream of making money without talking to anyone is comforting, especially if you burned out or just built that way. But in reality, even the most ‘solo’ jobs still involve some form of interaction. It might not be meeting or small talk, but internal communication, collaboration, client instruction, even bringing a brilliant idea to life with your team takes effective interaction.
I remember back when I just graduated from high school and was so new to the workforce, talking felt so exhausting. I worked at a clinic and my job was basically sucking people’s blood out (there’s a child literally called me the vampire lady). But that wasn’t just it, there are numbers of unwritten procedures that require great interaction with the patient before executing a vein. Like a chit-chat for example. Distraction techniques, and even convincing younger patients that “it doesn't hurt at all, just feel like an ant biting your arm.” If only I could tell them that the ant I was referring to was the bullet ant from the Amazon rainforest.
My favorite patients were mainly elderly. Not only because their veins are popping out, but also because they love telling stories. I would just be there nodding and listening to them without having to say a word and called it a (great) day.
One afternoon, I felt like I had enough of socializing. So then I played a YouTube video about ‘Top 10 Jobs for Introverts’ on the way home. I watched three other videos about it and apparently, being a programmer is always on the top list.
Little did I know that even being a programmer, you still must talk.
Yeah nah, I’m not planning on working with other people. I’m gonna be my own boss.
Especially that one. As the founder and CEO of your company, you’re gonna have to do even more talks. You will go out and find as many people as possible to tell them what your product is and why they have to use or even buy it.
BUT… don’t worry, just because there is no job in the world with zero human interaction, doesn’t mean there aren’t levels or types of interaction that can be adjusted to fit you. I believe there is some stuff you can do on platforms like UpWork and Fiverr that mostly communicate through chat. However, you might have to show up on the online interview to prove credibility and build trust.
There’s an episode of Subscription Heroes podcast that I wish I had watched sooner. If only I knew that even being a programmer requires enough peopleing, I would’ve been learning something else —like how to talk to anyone, or even playing the guitar that’s been collecting dust in the corner of the room— rather than sleeping through a three-hour-long video of someone sharing their knowledge on how to learn Python on PyCharm. And showing up late to work the morning after.
But hey, it turns out I’m not the only one feeling this way. Adrian Marin’s found this out the hard way, too. He thought he just needed to build something great and, as he said on the podcast,
People would just chase me, you know, with money to actually throw on me to give them my product.
