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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

#181

Post by capableweb »

datavirtue wrote: post #175
blitzar wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most interesting of 'genuine interest to know what people do for a living' converstations I have had are with parents of late teen parents ... who want to guide their children towards careers or advice about careers (almost always includes - "there is good money in that" so the same rule applies all the same).

I ruin my health and drain my soul by sitting in a chair all day for $200k a year. Not recommended.

Beats ruining your health and draining your soul by lifting heavy stuff at a construction site all day for $50k a year.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#182

Post by dpkirchner »

darkerside wrote: post #105
version_five wrote: post #88

When I did my PhD I hated it when (most) people asked about my research. It's not because I wasn't interested, it's because I'm really interested and was (still am) bad at giving concise summaries, so I felt like people who really didn't care and wouldn't listen to the answer were asking me to embark on a long explanation that required a bunch of preamble etc, just in order to make conversation. Anyway, I feel largel…

> 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.

This is also good practice for when you need to find a job, which often requires interfacing with people that have little familiarity with your PhD topic but have access to those that do (e.g., recruiters, business owners).

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#183

Post by docandrew »

plaguepilled wrote: post #91
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

Architects are above engineers? I think this is a highly subjective list.

I wanted to be an architect, but now I’m really thinking I’d rather be a city planner.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#184

Post by boredemployee »

datavirtue wrote: post #175
blitzar wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most interesting of 'genuine interest to know what people do for a living' converstations I have had are with parents of late teen parents ... who want to guide their children towards careers or advice about careers (almost always includes - "there is good money in that" so the same rule applies all the same).

I ruin my health and drain my soul by sitting in a chair all day for $200k a year. Not recommended.

Me too. But what I earn is not even close to half of that.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#185

Post by snapcaster »

fxtentacle wrote: post #142

"I approximate high-dimensional continuous probability distributions, and you?" (which, BTW, is training neutral networks to predict float numbers) I always thought it's a great question to ask because if someone is doing something for 8 hours a day, I'd assume (or hope?) that they'll at least enjoy parts of it. Or else they would have switched jobs a long time ago - or so I thought.

i hope you don't actually say this. Cringed really hard just reading it

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#186

Post by dogb3rt »

iamben wrote: post #30

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 ou…

Very often those people just wait until you finish talking to start talking about themselves. Once I attended a party with my brother's group of friends. I decided to do a little experiment. I asked people about them and I listened to get to know them, but i talked about myself only when asked directly. For two days no one bothered to ask me what I do for a living or what are my hobbies.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#187

Post by zigman1 »

docandrew wrote: post #183
plaguepilled wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Architects are above engineers? I think this is a highly subjective list.

I wanted to be an architect, but now I’m really thinking I’d rather be a city planner.

Why limit yourself to just one building, when you can design a whole city, right?

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#188

Post by Ekaros »

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

  - Artist/Designer/Creative
How is that not below the Cleaner or the guy who empties septic tanks?

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#189

Post by LoganDark »

david38 wrote: post #176
version_five wrote: post #88

When I did my PhD I hated it when (most) people asked about my research. It's not because I wasn't interested, it's because I'm really interested and was (still am) bad at giving concise summaries, so I felt like people who really didn't care and wouldn't listen to the answer were asking me to embark on a long explanation that required a bunch of preamble etc, just in order to make conversation. Anyway, I feel largel…

This is a lost opportunity to gain some valuable communication skills

So what? I lose opportunities to gain "valuable skills" all the time. There are better ways to acquire those skills than this, especially since it's a huge mood drain
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