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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be fed up of social conversations going like this...

213 replies

nevereverhaveiever · 16/11/2015 01:27

To DH: what do you do for work? Oh that's very interesting. And where do you do it? And do you incorporate x and y in your work? Oh we must meet and chat about what our professions have in common. Did you see X story in the news regarding your profession? What do you think about it?

To me: Do you have any children? How old? Enjoying school? Good.

I work too! Nobody ever asks me what I do. I actually do a more objectively interesting job than DH. I am dying to tell someone about it but if they only ask me about the kids, I can't just volunteer it.

Any suggestions as to how I might steer people away from the children topic and be able to talk about my job with them and get a fully, fledged, interactive conversation at social occasions?

OP posts:
caitlinohara · 16/11/2015 09:34

I NEVER ask people what they do, in case they have a really boring job that they don't want to talk about (I'm projecting: I did for years) or no job at all. I don't like having to justify what I do all day as small talk and I don't like to be defined by my job. (Disclaimer: this can be really annoying when you find out, as I did, that someone I had been having small talk for years with turned out to have a really cool job. Like, really cool. She was a Madonna impersonator.)

I know that wasn't really your question OP by the way. Dh and I have literally no interest in each other's jobs and unless we have an actual problem we need the other's advice on, we don't talk about work at all.

caitlinohara · 16/11/2015 09:36

OnlyLovers Dh has his own business and his mum once asked, when I was out of work, whether he couldn't give me a job "doing the filing or something" Hmm

VintageTrouble · 16/11/2015 09:37

I work 3 days and therefore it's assumed I can't have a proper job.

The fact that I managed to complete the 6 years worth of exams and training to get my job before I met DH, which is why I now have the freedom to be able to work flexible hours - nope, that doesn't occur to anyone.

But why would it? Society tells us so often that mums in part time roles do it for a bit of pin money, for treats, around their husband being the main wage earner.

But then SAHM's, well they don't do PROPER work, and full time mums are child abusing bastards who should never have had kids if they are just going to dump them on someone else.

It's almost like we can't win Wink

OnlyLovers · 16/11/2015 09:40

caitlin, FFS, that's infuriating!

Meloncoley2 · 16/11/2015 09:40

I socialise to get away from work not to talk about it!

caitlinohara · 16/11/2015 09:43

I know, I thought the fact that she thought that people still do filing showed that she was stuck in the 1970s.

grumpysquash · 16/11/2015 09:43

OP, what is your job? I am interested.

Other posters, what do you do that you love to talk about?

My job is great - will be back later to tell you about it :)

StampyMum · 16/11/2015 09:43

My DH and I do exactly the same job for the same company. And I still get bored when he comes home and talks about it. I'm just not very interested in work - I'd rather talk about poetry and nature and crap like that. Which is why we are skint.

VintageTrouble · 16/11/2015 09:48

I work as a financial specialist in national government.

When I was pregnant with DC3 my BIL stated, "oh well you'll be giving up work now then".

"Hardly, at the moment one of the projects I work on is bringing in £330m a year, you can't afford me to give up work DBIL."

BeyondThirty · 16/11/2015 09:53

What do you enjoy doing.

Can be anything... i love taking my kids to the park, i love my job as a bull-fighter, or i love base jumping

WorraLiberty · 16/11/2015 09:58

I would think myself lucky if I were you.

What do you do for work? Oh that's very interesting. And where do you do it? And do you incorporate x and y in your work? Oh we must meet and chat about what our professions have in common. Did you see X story in the news regarding your profession? What do you think about it?

Because that ^^ sounds mind numbingly dull.

Meet and chat about what their professions have in common, rather than chat about each other/hobbies/life and other normal things?

No thanks.

BigFriendlyGirl · 16/11/2015 10:06

Caitlin your MIL had a point. It would have been more tax efficient for your dh's (ie family) business. Although quite possibly that wasn't the reason she suggested it.....

Lollipopgirl8 · 16/11/2015 10:06

Yes it's really annoying how some women like to define themselves by what their husbands do! I mean come on I want to know about YOU I'm sorry most people can have kids

I am a firm believer that as women we should have our own identity and for those that say they don't have to work they forget husbands can up and leave them at any time

3point14159265359 · 16/11/2015 10:08

I'm with Worra.

Other people's jobs are tedious in the extreme. My own job is tedious in the extreme to anyone that's not me, and, indeed to me, if I'm made to talk about it in anything but the very vaguest terms socially.

Probably people ask you about children because it's either more interesting or more relatable because they have their own/will have their own/know someone else with children.

I like people asking me how I juggle it all, because it's an acknowledgement that it's a juggling act and that they have correctly guessed or surmised that on the whole it's me who is doing the juggling.

EnaSharplesHairnet · 16/11/2015 10:09

I would never ask a stranger man or woman about what they do for a living. It may come up naturally if they like to talk about work, but to ask the bald question, no!

StealthPolarBear · 16/11/2015 10:11

" Probably people ask you about children because it's either more interesting or more relatable because they have their own/will have their own/know someone else with children."

But the op has said that the same people have usually just asked her dh about his job. So they can cope with uninteresting / unrelatabe from a man?

vvviola · 16/11/2015 10:12

I'm a bit stuck. I work in a job that I love, but that is tangentially related to an area of work that makes many of my contemporaries explode with badly informed rage. So I try to not mention what I do until I know someone better and can get past "I work for X organisation" on to "but I don't have anything to do with Xx"

EnaSharplesHairnet · 16/11/2015 10:13

As to the previous poster who asks school gate parents what they do and then if SAHP what they used to do. I find that squirm inducing - it may smack of "are you high enough in the food chain for me to bother with." I'm sure you don't mean it to come across that way but it could be misinterpreted.

blueshoes · 16/11/2015 10:15

Talking about work tends to be quite dull for most people and so I avoid asking people what they do. Just seems a little intrusive as well.

However I am incredibly inquisitive about what people do and what their job involves and have to hold myself back from asking. I would love to talk about my work and think I have the best job in the world for the best firm but no one tends to ask for fear of offending, I think, as SAHM can be a sensitive topic. I am equally happy for people to think of me as being fluffy and not in paid employment. I feel like a spy because if it involves the City I know so much more than they think I do and far more than dh.

I think people ask men because it tends to dominate male life and it is how some men rank themselves in the pecking order.

I agree with boogle to be pleasantly surprised that some of the mums I assume did not work had really responsible jobs, just that they were either self-employed or worked flexibly or did not go on about it.

WorraLiberty · 16/11/2015 10:16

Am I the only person who never thinks to ask someone what they do for a living?

I've been in business settings before and asked someone what department they're in (purely out of politeness), but I then pray to god that they just tell me, without banging on about it.

Enjolrass · 16/11/2015 10:17

I agree with boogle to be pleasantly surprised that some of the mums I assume did not work had really responsible jobs, just that they were either self-employed or worked flexibly or did not go on about it.

This is me. Lots of parents at the school gates have thought o don't work. But because I work from home I do the school run in my gym clothes and can not imagine anyone caring tbh. As jobs go, I like my job but it's not exciting m.

StealthPolarBear · 16/11/2015 10:19

I tend to find other people's jobs interesting. And children for that matter. I don't understand why their hobbies etc are interesting but their work and children aren't. Obviously we all have things were more or less interested in personally but that seems a fairly artificial segregation to me.

EssentialHummus · 16/11/2015 10:20

I try not to ask or bring up what I do - I felt like I was letting it define me,so I'm making an effort to find something else to talk about. Luckily I have a limitless capacity to discuss house prices and schools Grin

StealthPolarBear · 16/11/2015 10:22

School veering into child territory. Apparently thATs boring.
house prices must class as your life though, which is fine.

EssentialHummus · 16/11/2015 10:25

It's more that those topics seem to generate a rich seam of conversation round my way. As I don't have DC it's more listening to others go on about schools etc - I'm genuinely happy to listen.