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Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

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Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#21

Post by japanuspus »

fullsend wrote: post #4

We spend tons of time at work and it’s where we got a lot of our value in our lives. I recently went to a dinner party where there were lots of people like me who wanted to talk about work and it was refreshing after spending so long talking to people who hate their jobs. Grass is greener and all that.

Think there are large regional differences here. My experience from living two years in Boulder, CO a while back was that the first intro question was always "what did you do in the weekend".

I'm Danish, so it was not until I started discussing plans for moving to one of the coasts that I realized that I should expect another life there.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#22

Post by Irishsteve »

In my experience this is something that pops up where people emigrate for high paying jobs; (Relative to average salary).

It involves stating the type of position someone has, the tier company someone works at, which somehow demonstrates the persons value = (position * tier). Then because this is the norm people this is how people befriend each other, or how they attract love interests.

I'd just chalk it up to human nature.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#23

Post by ihateolives »

cbg0 wrote: post #6

Telling people what you do is more than just telling them your job title, it's also a great opportunity to tell them what motivates you about your job, and thus showing some of your values, which is pretty important when meeting new people and allows you to more easily form bonds with those that share similar values.

"So you're an accountant, huh? Tell me, what motivates you? You just like numbers? That's it? Just like working with numbers? Umm... do you have a dog?"

"Oh, you're in gambling industry? You build online gambling websites? What makes you passionate about it? What are your values that led you down to this path? Oh, just that the pay is good? Okay man, I can totally see that, yeah..."

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#24

Post by eloisant »

johnchristopher wrote: post #19
andreiii wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that depends on the city. In very international cities like London or Brussels you usually start the conversation with "so what brought you hear?" knowing that most of the time is the job. So you try to understand what someone is doing. I find that a very common opener with someone you're just meating.

OT: Somehow, the spellchecker made a very ominous number on your comment.

I'm going to use the verb "to meat with someone" from now on.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#25

Post by Tor3 »

cbg0 wrote: post #6

Telling people what you do is more than just telling them your job title, it's also a great opportunity to tell them what motivates you about your job, and thus showing some of your values, which is pretty important when meeting new people and allows you to more easily form bonds with those that share similar values.

I work with computers, but telling people what I do has always been very tricky. They won't understand it anyway.

As another comment said - in Europe it's not that common to ask what people work with. It's definitely not the first thing people ask. It comes much later, if at all. Fortunately. I got so fed up of trying to explain what I did that I started to reply "I'm a carpenter", if anyone asked.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#27

Post by cout »

medion wrote: post #20

I stopped asking people what they do, and instead ask ‘what are you about’ - always gets an interesting answer, after the initial perplexity of the question.

I like to say "tell me a story". What kind of story, you ask? Any story. I like true stories, but you can make something up too.

The conversation ends up a lot less awkward than going off script after talking about what you do for a living.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#28

Post by tgv »

bl4ckm0r3 wrote: post #7

To be honest I have experienced this a lot in San Francisco, where people ask first what do you do, second where do you work and then what's your name...in Europe it really isn't the central part of the conversation and most likely the job doesn't even get mentioned in a dinner or a normal conversation with someone you met in a bar/club/wherever. It always shocked me how "what you do" defines the start of the convers…

It definitely is part of the conversation in (parts of) Europe, but not very central. I see it as part of finding common ground to continue the conversation.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#30

Post by iamben »

I don't think the biggest problem is leading with the "what do you do?" question, or even being a person that somewhat defines their life around their work or career. I think the bigger problem is a lot of people are inherently selfish.

"What do you do" or even "what do you do for fun" tends to be a leading question because you want to talk about yourself, what you do, what you like or understand what you can get out of it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being at a conference, say, where we're all somewhat defined by a subject or interest and someone asks what you do. It's just very dull when it feels like they're aching for you to finish so they can explain how great they are. Or they're immediately angling for the opportunity to pitch to you, or make money from you, or tell you how further ahead in life they are.

IMO, by all means lead with a question about someone's work. But take a genuine interest in their job and their life. Ask questions. See if you can go for ten minutes without mentioning yourself. If they're not a fan of their role and you're genuinely taking an interest in them, it's incredibly easy to pivot into "what do you do when you're not studying gorillas in the Congo?!"

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