What do you think are the quietest jobs?

Book editor is the first thing that comes to my mind.

I once spent a week doing data entry for a charity. Alone in a quiet room with a soft touch keyboard, lists handed to me when I came in in the morning. Very quiet and soothing.

In the movie Idiocracy, Joe Bauer’s job as caretaker of the records department was pretty quiet.

I used to work in an archive. That was very quiet.

@chyna, exactly what I did for many years of my career. And yes, it was quiet, mostly, working at home with just local and neighborhood noise outside. Some phone calls with production editors, a few meetings with authors. During the years that I had small children at home, though—well, no, but they were not a feature of the job.

@canidmajor, that sounds lovely.

@LuckyGuy, outward-facing desk, no door, people coming in to talk to you? Nope, not quiet enough.

@jca2, could be, if it didn’t have the public angle to contend with.

Meditation instructor

File clerk in a hospital’s billing department was my quietest job.

I worked at a Title Search Company (real estate stuff). I basically typed up reports. The business was in a house. It was just me, my boss and the secretary. I had my own room. No contact with the public, just the occasional interruption by my boss, who I just loved.

How about the life of a writer? Or fire watch in a lookout tower for the Park Service or the Forest Service. Light house keeper. Inspector for subway tunnels. Night watchman. Astronomer.

I worked in the school library when I was in high school. The Librarian didn’t;t want me talking to kids as they checked out books, so I was put in the back typing up card catalog cards and the “check out” card for the card pocket in the book.

For those of you under forty, this is how libraries used to keep track of books.

@LuckyGuy Joe Bauer’s job as caretaker of the records department

Heh, heh I used to spend days looking up real estate tax records in a facility which looked EXACTLY like that.

I described it as “you know the humongous warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones where they put the ark? That’s where I am looking through the books.”

At the time we appreciated the escape. We could perform useful work while hiding out, guilt-free.

@Jeruba: The archive I worked in had a reading room which was open two days a week for five hours. All the rest of the week it was quiet. Even when it was open to the public, it was quiet. A friend and fellow college student worked at a private archive and at that place, it was only her and you could definitely hear a pin drop.

Anything creative you can do with just your hands. Painting, restoration of ancient books, perhaps creating things to sell on Etsy.

My job can be completely silent for hours on end. I work from home and I talk to someone about once a month for an hour. Almost everything is done online. I have a keyboard that clicks so I hear the typing if I use the keyboard, it I just use my laptop no clicking. I often have the TV on in the background, but not always. Especially when I work on my patio it’s very very quiet.

I worked in records in a hospital now and then and it was very quiet. I was mostly filing the records not interacting with other staff, never dealt with patients in that job. Sometimes I had to copy a chart, so the copier made some noise. Now that charts are electronic more and more maybe that job is changing. Thing is, I was on my feet a lot, and somehow quiet while moving around is t the same as quiet and sitting more still. In fact, even working from home, if I’m weaving in other chores it makes it less peaceful, less quiet.

Tending to a plant nursery or farm. Clipping leaves, and maybe you hear the water when watering the plants. If it’s large there might be other workers, which would change the scenario.

Jobs where you test the environment can be quiet if you consider nature quiet. Samples of soil and waterways. Driving to the location (is that quiet?) taking samples, and writing up findings. Eventually, you do talk to some people though.

A job as a baker. Some machine noise now and then if it’s very large scale with large mixers, but a smaller scale operation, if you are a one man show, it should be relatively quiet, especially if the items have long cooking times.

Crafts done by hand. Painting, sculpting (depending on the material) glass fusion, weaving, rug hooking.

Taste tester and product tester. Eventually, you need to communicate somehow your findings, but depending on the job it might mostly or all be in writing. It’s often not a full time job though.

Researcher.
Genealogist
Documentary film ( creating) also photography
Bird watching
Astronomy
Drawing, sketching urban or other scenes
Painter
Lots of careers that involve just observation and studying

Pretty much anything that has to do with the dead. There may be the occasional conversation, yet it is usually in soft tones.

Monastery Abbott. With an oath of silence.