For crying out loud, I'm not snobby! Or am I?!

[NoBreakNoProblem]

I moved to this area a year or so ago to be closer to work. It's a predominantly a working-class neighbourhood (nothing against the working class, BTW, my parents were ones - it's just a description). Except I tried so many times to be friends with the neighbours and other parents at my child's school. Everything goes perfectly fine and pleasant until they learn about what I did for living.

It usually goes like that: what do you do? Ah, well...I'm an academic researcher/university lecturer. Then, almost every time, a deafening silence follows! Almost always, they try to avoid speaking with me afterwards. Some even stopped saying 'hi' - including the parents of my child's best friends (they came to my house a couple of times before).

For the love of God, I'm not the 'elitist' snob they think I am. Take for example this, the other day the plumber came to fix something in our house. We were chatting and having a laugh for nearly an hour. As soon as he learned what I did, his attitude changed completely and started to stonewall me by being 'too formal'. It's either they don't understand what I do, hence the silence, or think I'm that educated snob similar to those posh snobs who have driven the country's working-class into the gutter. Then again, why the stonewalling and the avoidance? I don't really speak philosophy or political science to them.

I never ever experienced this before - until I moved into this area.

Please tell me what's going on?!

[Message edited by MNHQ]

@Ellapaella

You tell me! It baffles me, too.

Classic Mumsnet responses:

• Gaslight! Tell the OP that what she says is happening isn't actually happening.
• The opposite is true! Tell the OP she is exactly what she says she isn't.
• It's your fault! Tell the OP she must be doing something wrong
• You're crap! Tell the OP she ain't all that.

I’m an accountant and I also get the deafening silence when I say what I am. But then I remember it’s probably because it sounds utterly dull. So I follow it up with something like it’s as exciting as it sounds and that usually breaks the ice... not sure it’s got anything to do with ‘class’ strange presumption to make?

I came here to post exactly this! Accountancy is a conversation killer with everyone.

Sensimilla I'm stealing that!

You dodn’t Answer my question about whether or not you are a native English speaker OP? I wasn’t being sarcastic.

@NoBreakNoProblem - Right? I don't see what's so stunning about being a lecturer

My point was that you may be interpreting lack of interest as a judgement on you and your profession.

I'm not sure what I said that you felt was uncivil, unless you felt my comment on people not being stunned by a lecturer was an attack. If so, I apologise. I was using words used by previous posters but should have been clearer in my choice of language.

This... literally never happens to me? I have struggled to explain what I do since moving from a (temporary) lectureship to a research-only role, so I still quite often just say 'I'm a lecturer', because it makes it much easier. People might not have much conversation to make about my job, but then nor, normally, do I have much to contribute on theirs! It tends to be a pretty quick conversation topic before we move onto something else. I definitely don't find people responding with shocked awe! I do sometimes try and avoid saying where I got my PhD from, because people do have a slightly weird 'you must be very clever' reaction to that sometimes. But just being a lecturer is no biggie to basically everyone, of any class, that I have ever met.

Yeah Bluntness, my Cambridge dictionary says that the definition of working class is a social group sharing common characteristics, of which earning little money is often one. Not that all working class people absolutely must be paid by the hour of they're hoyed out the class. I don't think anyone would argue that there are working class unemployed people and they're not paid by the hour.

That there aren't*

I wasn’t putting it out there for discussion because quite simply these are the dictionary definitions. You can have your own definition, you can disagree, but factually these are the dictionary definitions and as such they are accurate. If you don’t like em. Don’t tell me, email the editor of the Cambridge English dictionary.🤣

But as another poster has already pointed out, the Cambridge dictionary's definitions bear no relation to your supposed attributions! How ridiculous you are.

Haven't RTFT but I've had similar. I've also had 'oh so what school do you teach in / what year level / age' etc. I explain I an am academic - I teach in a university and I get the raised eyes and 'o-o-oh'. Not all the time, but it has happened.

My SIL used to be a Maths lecturer and had similar experiences; but then she changed careers and now she says that the sentence, "I'm a Tax Inspector" brings a deafening silence like no other!

I don't know why you've come to the 'snob/posh/elitist' conclusion?
My lecturer friends are working class or middle class salt of the earth types.

Accountancy is a conversation killer with everyone.

You should meet my DH's friend. He works for HMRC in the prosecutions team....

@JessieMcJessie

Oh, sorry, didn't see your post.

It's a complex question actually. English is certainly my first language, but I wasn't in the UK as a child, if that's what you mean? Between the US and other countries, my English is heavily diluted - although increasingly British. I even still have an American twang in my accent. And yes, perhaps ' working-class' is a fluid, less controversial term to me as it is for other people whose connections to the country are transgenerational. But like I said, I never experienced the 'avoidance' problem anywhere else in the country until I moved down here.

Without a doubt, the UK is the most class-obsessed country I have ever lived in. It is really astonishing.
I forget about it sometimes, then there is a thread like this, or some news article, or a statement by a politician, that you think 'jesus, uk, get your shit together and move on!'.

It's cringe-worthy.

@NataliaOsipova

LOL. That's certainly intimidating...

My parents were ones

My parents always tell me I am where I'm from (a council estate in Port Talbot - now in the Cotswolds). I guess we're not working class anymore but we were and so I always see myself that way.

So... you are too! Hooray! Now we can all get on

@hollowtree

No problem whatsoever!

@NoBreakNoProblem - just to add, my comments are coloured by the fact I am Irish and so just don't get the class thing that appears to be so common in the UK (or is it just England? I'm not sure)

Remember, if one person has a problem with you it's probably them - if several people have a problem with you it's probably you.

ha ha Milk, you've not met my family...

People are actually the OP to simplify or downplay her career to make herself look more likable to strangers?

I don't really speak philosophy or political science to them.

Why not?

*Remember, if one person has a problem with you it's probably them - if several people have a problem with you it's probably you.

ha ha Milk, you've not met my family...*

Genuinely though, Op, I wouldn't say 'I'm an academic' to people who aren't in that field. My w/c ears would just hear 'I'm clever'.