Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 249 posts

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#151

Post by somewhereoutth »

hotpotamus wrote: post #123
somewhereoutth wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably with Doctor. An actual scientist might come above Lawyer/Doctor (and below Artist/Designer), but this is a rather recent upwards move, as it became cooler to be smart (note this does not apply to engineers, who are looked down upon by scientists anyway)

It's a reference to a Mitchell and Webb sketch about the status games that people play around employment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I

Oh I missed the reference! Yes great sketch, and exactly what we are talking about here.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#152

Post by jraph »

chrisweekly wrote: post #143
jraph wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I think the parent commenter is aware this is not the fault of the one who asked. Though when doing a PhD, it's a worthy goal to be able do give a quick description. It also forces you to think about the goal / meaning of your work. Some topics are more easily summarized, but still. We do science for people, it's only fair to be able to present them your work more or less roughly. I had something for peop…

Good technique. Also (aiming for helpfulness not pedantry), > "if you peaked their curiosity" you meant "piqued", a homophone (different word w/ same pronunciation).

Thanks, I was convinced it was "peaked". I guess I could have used "tickle" too.

I edited and fixed my comment.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#153

Post by ry8806 »

morelikeborelax wrote: post #83
somewhereoutth wrote: post #79

In the UK we do this as part of status negotiation - the second question anyone asks (after whats your name?) is what do you do? Then we can decide whether we are above or below the other person in the status hierarchy, which is roughly as follows: - Architect - Artist/Designer/Creative - Lawyer/Doctor/Teacher - Executive/Manager - ... - ... - Bar staff - Engineer - Software Engineer - Waiter - Driver - Cleaner

You forgot brain surgeon. Of course it's not rocket science is it.

fantastic reference! made me chuckle

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#154

Post by t43562 »

Why are you talking to them? Is it to have a pleasant time? I'm going to assume that. This means you both go away feeling slightly positive about your chat.

There's no way of knowing for sure that your question will be one the other party wants to answer so it's always going to be some kind of stab in the dark and you just have to interpret the reply and move the conversation on to other more neutral things (in the UK weather is one) until you find something they like talking about. You encourage them to talk about that a bit and talk a bit yourself.

The main thing is not to persist with a subject that they dismiss - or any subject about yourself too long. Then let other people into the conversation.

If you go into a conversation with someone and you have any prejudicial reaction to their looks or what they say then you'll probably mirror it. If you make yourself internally respect them regardless of what they do or look like (or earn) then it will show in your words. Disrespect will show and screw it all up.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#155

Post by jraph »

astura wrote: post #133
darkerside wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bad at giving concise summaries This seems like something you could work on instead of implying it's other people's fault for asking you about a topic that they don't know they aren't interested in yet. If you have a punchy 20 second description, and then ask what they do, you'll have pivoted away unless they want to bring it back.

Yeah, when someone asks about you research as a casual conversation they're only looking for extremely high level summaries. Something like "I research plant metabolism." I could see how a conversation could go very sideways if you're responding to "oh what do you research?" with details that are "in the weeds."

Yes, if you do a monologue, it's likely just plain boring even to someone curious anyway. The same info given in a interactive manner is likely more enjoyable to everyone involved.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#156

Post by zafka »

strken wrote: post #56

Secret life hack: you don't have to answer "what do you do?" by talking about your job. You can talk about literally anything else that you do, preferably something that seems relevant to the person in front of you, and turn it into a more interesting two-sided conversation.

When I used to get asked: "What do you do?" quite often, I would reply: "I plant flowers". Funny thing is, I still do - but now that I am not in prime "rat race" age, I have slipped away from that answer and usually just answer Med Tech developer" or such.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#158

Post by [deleted] »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #79

In the UK we do this as part of status negotiation - the second question anyone asks (after whats your name?) is what do you do? Then we can decide whether we are above or below the other person in the status hierarchy, which is roughly as follows: - Architect - Artist/Designer/Creative - Lawyer/Doctor/Teacher - Executive/Manager - ... - ... - Bar staff - Engineer - Software Engineer - Waiter - Driver - Cleaner

[deleted]

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#159

Post by it_citizen »

Manjuuu wrote: post #15
it_citizen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No it's not, no one cares about your job. While I agree with the sentiment of this article, I strongly disagree that no one cares. As a curious person, I often have a ton of questions about someone's occupation. For me, it is fun to hear people talk about their job. I just don't like asking about occupation early-on in the conversation because it sometimes feel like socially categorizing people.

Sure, I do too when meeting someone with a non-standard job or a job that could be interesting from some peculiar point of view, but most jobs are definitely not that interesting, most are really just an exchange of time for money.

I don't know, I cannot think of a lot of jobs that would be completely uninteresting to me. What would they be?

Even if the job doesn't have a technical angle that interests you, you can always talk about the human aspect of things: frustration with their management / the funny things that happened to them / stories they heard from their customers / something in their job they are passionate about / how they feel about their job / the things they have learnt while working in their domain.

I think I am using those conversations to try to imagine what my life might have been if software engineer didn't exist. It is pretty much the only thing I was really good at. I am insecure about how much harder my life might have been without it.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#160

Post by clnq »

cj wrote: post #114
clnq wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around a decade ago, I stopped asking people the basic questions, like what they do, where they're from, how old they are, or their gender and pronouns when that is unclear. I find that it's irrelevant and will bias the relationship for no good reason. I had a good friend with whom I mostly kept in touch over the phone and online for many years, and I didn't know their name until they died and I got a call from their…

Not to sound insensitive, but how is it possible to consider someone a good friend without knowing the person’s name?

As many are guessing, I only knew their online handle and they only knew mine. That was fine, it didn't impact our friendship in any kind of negative way.
Post reply on HN