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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

#51

Post by mordae »

sc2862 wrote: post #41
andrewstuart wrote: post #26

I like telling people I’m a programmer. There’s lots of less exciting jobs.

When I tell people that, they assume I'm somewhere on the deeper end of the autism spectrum.

That's part of the fun, isn't it?

If they can't appreciate my job, I will simply did into their so deep that by the end of the conversation, I have rough idea of what function does their job perform and where are the pain points for them.

I usually weave in some personal job-related stories for them to relate to my job a little bit better. Usually they are left stumped, because nobody ever digs and then gets them. Especially not an Aspie programmer.

It's also easy to find some of their efforts you appreciate and then compliment them on those.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#52

Post by jackstraw14 »

adrianh wrote: post #29

I stopped doing this when a person here in Amsterdam bluntly responded: "You Americans! That's all you ever talk about is work!" Haven't asked anybody an open-ended "So what do you do" in the five years since, and it feels refreshing.

Agreed that non-work stuff is usually better for casual discussion, but I really dislike this position of "work? surely you can talk about something more interesting!" because for some people that is all they want to talk about, and everyone's definition of "work" is different. It's more important to listen to people than criticize their general topic of conversation, imo. Based on personal experience this is probably nicer in theory than practice, but it's still what I tend to work toward these days.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#53

Post by subroutine »

Instead you should ask what don't you do for a living?

Anything is better than talking about my job at MIT studying the black hole physics of advanced NLP models tasked with designing CRISPR experiments for enhancing woolly mammoth meat.

I also collect rare trinkets and enjoy seeing the sights of different places.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#54

Post by jwestbury »

tuyiown wrote: post #35
Tor3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People don't asks questions on what's a carpenter doing because the very abstract notion of the job they have is enough for them, whereas they have actually no idea how the jobs is done, and certainly none of its technical aspects. Strip down any technical aspect of your daily job to figure out its actual social function. It has one. Whatever it is it'll help you figure out how telling what's your job to people, and…

"I make a billionaire richer" isn't a very fun answer for most people in FAANG, though.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#55

Post by russnes »

What people do for a living takes up about half of their waking life (and they probably dream about it too), so it will tell you so much about the person. Personally I love my job and what I do, so I really want to talk about matters at least related to it because my life does revolve around it indeed. So establishing some common ground with the other person can really help to start the conversation.

But of course the conversation doesn't have to specifically be about either job through progression.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#56

Post by strken »

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.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#57

Post by latexr »

jwestbury wrote: post #54
tuyiown wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't asks questions on what's a carpenter doing because the very abstract notion of the job they have is enough for them, whereas they have actually no idea how the jobs is done, and certainly none of its technical aspects. Strip down any technical aspect of your daily job to figure out its actual social function. It has one. Whatever it is it'll help you figure out how telling what's your job to people, and…

"I make a billionaire richer" isn't a very fun answer for most people in FAANG, though.

But it’s an honest answer. And if the honest answer about someone’s own job makes them uncomfortable, it’s time to consider looking for something different.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#58

Post by nailer »

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…

Just tell them you're a barista or if you really want to tell them you're uninterested, a chimney sweep.

Re: Stop Telling Everyone What You Do for a Living

#60

Post by flybrand »

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.

My wife and I’s favorite game when meeting new people is to try and go as long as possible without talking about our work or asking about theirs. It makes it so much more interesting when careers / jobs finally enter the dialog.
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