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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to ask if you have any idea what your DP does at work?

263 replies

MrsSeymourButts · 10/03/2015 09:32

God knows what mine gets up to all day. I have asked on occasion - I really have - but I get the urge to start smashing the crockery by the time he finishes the first sentence. I think it might involve a sophisticated way of counting toilet rolls.

AIBU to start making things up (weasel trainer, Beyonce's body double, etc.) if anyone asks me again what he does?

OP posts:

Jengnr · 10/03/2015 17:54

No idea. Largely because I don't care. I know who he works for and that the job involves lots of speadsheets but it's boring as fuck and I'm just not interested. As long as he's happy I'm happy, I don't need the details.

He furnishes me with the gossip from his colleagues though. THAT I'm interested in :)

SwedeDreams · 10/03/2015 17:55

Firefighter. He does cutting open cars mostly! And if he's lucky in the summer there may be grass fires to put out

ElspethTascioni · 10/03/2015 17:55

NRTFT but, I know exactly what DH's job entails - we do the same job, and almost the same area of practice.

I completely object to this thread though- it completely suggests we are poor little women who can barely comprehend what the wonderful menz do...

HicDraconis · 10/03/2015 18:01

DH is a SAHD, I know exactly what he does all day. It involves childcare, dog care and playing on computers a lot.

He knows what I do as well and can describe it in reasonable detail (anaesthetist).

Before we got together he was a civil servant working in Cheltenham. I wasn't allowed to know what he did, didn't ask.

Thurlow · 10/03/2015 18:01

I've also explained it as weeping quietly that some lawyers think it's ok to charge £200 an hour for just googling something a client could find themselves that way (some lawyers!)

Carola, are you going to conference this year?

UnikittyInHerBusinessSuit · 10/03/2015 18:03

Yes I'm pretty sure I understand what DH does. Couldn't do it myself of course, but I do understand what tasks he does on an average day and why. It's obscure but it's a subject I've always been really interested in.

DH OTOH has only the dimmest idea of what I do, because it's very specialised and he's not really interested - it took him about five years to realise that I'd moved from specialism A to specialism B.

Charlotte3333 · 10/03/2015 18:04

DH is a management consultant. He travels around lots, including trips abroad (which seems to suit our marriage, I couldn't live in his pocket or have him under my feet too much). He goes into businesses, saves them millions and charges them an obscene amount for his time. He owns the company which means he can be flexible, and when DS2 was born he fancied a break so took off 3 months with only a little work from home. He's quite good at it, and it keeps a roof over our heads. It isn't complex at all; the majority of what he does is simply common sense. But businesses don't always have a huge quantity of sense when it comes to processes.

He knows what I do, too, though he swears blind he'd never survive a day in a school (he's right, he can't even do bedtime here properly).

MrsKoala · 10/03/2015 18:14

DH works for a mercenary company. I just say 'he's in security ' ominously if anyone asks. I don't know exactly what he does but i do know he spends large parts of his days having Nerf battles with his colleagues and ordering Nerf guns and amo to shoot them with. He's basically the anti-mumsnet and would make all of your teeth itch

Actually I don't feel like the 'thick little wife' because most people, even his bosses, don't seem to know what he does or how he does it. He is at the pioneering end of a very small but increasingly important industry. He has just had his first book published and is doing a phd/research in his subject. He often gets to fly round the world and advise people and sometimes he has to carry a gun

flippineck · 10/03/2015 18:20

CarolaStorm - pre-children I was a librarian in central government, not in the library but doing research or telling people to manage their research better. I seemed to spend a lot of time telling senior civil servants that no, there wasn't any evidence for what they were suggesting.

craftynclothy · 10/03/2015 18:33

Dh is a software developer. I know what it involves as I've also studied programming and I work for the same company (in a different role). I have been known to point out his mistakes

HedgehogsDontBite · 10/03/2015 18:41

DH works in field of a similar level as a rocket scientist. Asking him what he does all day puts normal people at risk of having their brains explode. He told me one time and it took 6 months to recover, and I still don't have a clue.

ratspeaker · 10/03/2015 19:05

Yup, we met as we worked in the same field but different areas ( no we're not farmers ) but as he's now in management I don't know much about the paperwork

FelixCulpa · 10/03/2015 19:06

ElspethTascioni I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this

I doubt very much this many men have jobs that an of-average-intelligence woman couldn't possibly get their head around.

RagamuffinAndFidget · 10/03/2015 19:07

I know exactly what DH does at work. He does the same thing as he does at home - as little as fecking possible.

He is actually a chef/kitchen assistant type thing. It's laughable because he has probably cooked about ten proper meals at home in the nearly eight years we've been together. And he's a shite cook.

EddieVeddersfoxymop · 10/03/2015 19:11

I posted upthread about not really understanding what my DH does as I'm not qualified in that area. He's a specialised engineer for the oil and gas industry. I'm laughing to myself at the folk commenting that this whole thread is "poor little wife at home, too think to understand what their powerful men do". I am considerably more educated than my DH and am self employed - something that HE has openly admitted he could never do. And for what it's worth, he doesn't understand what I do either...............

blacktreaclecat · 10/03/2015 19:13

Not really. Something to do with money and spreadsheets. He's like Chandler :)
I'm a dentist so easy to understand what I do

Idontseeanysontarans · 10/03/2015 19:17

I don't think very many of us on this thread are or feel like silly little women who can't wrap their heads round the job our OH's do
It's quite normal to not know or care about the minute details of every job, even the ones our nearest and dearest are involved in unless we have actually done the job ourselves.
When we met DH was working on his family farm. Part of his job was to help calving mothers if necessary, occasionally this involved him diving in up to the elbows - I had no wish to know anything about that particular part of his day! Doesn't makes a weak little woman...

bringmejoy2015 · 10/03/2015 19:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MrsKoala · 10/03/2015 19:24

For what it's worth DH didn't really understand what i did when we met. We met at work and i was marketing and recruiting for a course he was teaching and his approach to how to market/recruit was, erm interesting and involved a logo made out of a gun or something equally shit!

It's completely normal to not know the ins and outs of someone elses job. I think most people on here have the necessary amount of knowledge of their partners job to have enough of an interest to chat about it. Not many have said they have no idea whatsoever or have said they lack the capacity to understand - more the inclination to. Some jobs are quite boring if they are technical and not your bag. When DH talks about coding i want to set my head on fire. It doesn't make me thick. Just not into coding.

0x530x610x750x630x79 · 10/03/2015 19:45

And i dont understand what the bloke sat next to me at work does, he natters about transactions and all that boring archetcrue shit, whreas i natter tonhim about accounting stuff and he doesnt understand, computing and engineering seems to be so specialised and technical, people dont know what each other do.

ChillySundays · 10/03/2015 20:03

Yes - used to work there

brokenhearted55a - after some of the things my parents have said about my jobs 'sat in an office' would be high praise indeed

GreatAuntDinah · 10/03/2015 20:06

Yeah, I've even been along and watched him doing it. He's a musician.

wheresthelight · 10/03/2015 20:11

I used to work for the same company so I know exactly what he does! I danger very bored listening to him rant after a bad shift though!

PrettyPenguin · 10/03/2015 20:18

My husband has had different roles within the same company for the past 16 years (he started there just before we met) and so I know pretty much what he does. It's immensely technical but he finds it fascinating and loves it because he gets to completely geek out when he visits places like F1 or aerospace factories, military bases and even the boffins at the NPL (National Physics Laboratory). He tells me a lot about his work and I try very hard to listen most of the time but I do often warn him that I am starting to glaze over and so he'll stop at that point.
Some of the other roles he had at his company weren't so interesting but he did travel abroad a lot then, so he'd tell me about his travels rather than the actual work. The general manager's Christmas party speeches are a bit dull though...

itsbetterthanabox · 10/03/2015 21:00

Yes I know exactly what he does.
He doesn't quite get what I do though.

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