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]

I'm the poshest poster on this forum by miles and I've never encountered this

Well prove I'm not then. Go on if you're so hard, prove it

I see OP is being put firmly in her place. Lots of posters saying her job is boring, not posh and not that great at all. What rubbish. Being a researcher/lecturer is of course a good job and I had plenty of lecturers at Uni who were close to retirement even.
I would love meeting someone like OP at the school gates. Finally someone with an interesting job which could actually be a conversation starter.

There is no issue with her job, it's her attitude. "Oh the poor people think I'm snobby when I talk about my job, they just can't cope with me being so far above them!" slant to it.

I totally get this. I grew up in an area which was more working class and not many people had lecturer kind of jobs, but now I live in an area where the opposite is true - if you don't have a flashy sounding job or a well-paid career they look down on you a bit. So I've experienced both. I think there are different views about occupations, depending on where you live.

Even my own family are a bit uncomfortable about the fact that I've even got a degree. They are a bit defensive about it and mock that I must think I'm an intellectual FFS. I definitely know people who would behave weirdly around someone who worked as an academic (or a lawyer, other high professions, etc, etc).

It's sad, but just play it down a bit, or seek out friends who do not judge.

That’s interesting OP about you not being a native British English speaker, and having a bit of an American accent. What is it they say “the UK and the US are two countries separated by a common language”? 😀.
Your second comment in response to my post made me wider though if you’d appreciated the linguistic point I made.

You said “I have nothing against the working class”. If instead you had said “I have nothing against working class people” or “those from a working class background” it would have sounded better. Talking about “the working class” as a group with identical characteristics rather than a collection of individuals with similar socio-economic backgrounds can sound insulting, in the same way as if you had said “I have nothing against the disabled” or “I always try to help the poor”. It’s a subtle point and so wondered if it was symptomatic if other ways in which your use of language sounds subtly odd to people, hence the communications breakdowns that you seem to be experiencing.

I also wondered whether your subject is something esoteric or mainstream eg particle physics vs urban geography. If it’s a subject that most people will have heard of, why not say “I lecture in Geography” rather than “I’m an academic”. If you anchor the job title in something familiar to them it might make you seem more approachable. Doesn’t work of course if your subject is very obscure!

There is no issue with her job, it's her attitude

Firstly, the OP is a man and says so in his OP.

Secondly, there evidently is an issue with his job because so far I have heard that it's 'like a teacher but less qualified', 'low-ranking' and 'not exactly High Court judge or brain surgeon'. How is that not an issue with the job?

Interestingly, the highest ranking (Supreme Court) female judge in this country used to be a university academic before she became a judge.

Eltonjohnssyrup and others

A 'knowledge gap' could be described as reading and not being able to make sense of what you have read. She did not describe anyone as being 'in the gutter'.

Whiskyowl I think explained it at page 2 or 3.

I thought I'd mention this as I got to page 4 and realisded I didn't want to read anything else, because regardless of whether OP posted on AIBU or not, this crowd were not going to "listen" to anything she said.

You are an academic. I run tube stations for a living. Unless you have an issue trying to travel from my station, we would not meet, or likely have much in common.

Socially, if I get nowhere with finding something to say about your occupation, because I have no clue what it involves, I go to something else like TV, or films. It's just that not many of us working class types that are slung in the gutter have much in common with academia, unless we are studying on the side to get a promotion. Just change the subject and move on.

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'.

Oh, I think clever is a wonderful thing - what I meant to say is SOME w/c people (Dad, I'm looking at you) don't get that 'academic' is a job and think it is a personality trait. So when you say 'I'm an academic' they're like...'Yeah, I see that, but I asked you what your job is'.

I don't think its dumbing down to give out information slowly and on a need-to-know basis.

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.

This is the gutter comment, which still hasn't been explained

If you were really from the upper middle classes, though, you would know that being a lecturer/researcher is a bit, errrrm, low-ranking for someone of your age and intelligence and promise. I'm not being snarky here, honestly: everyone I went to school with who is now in academia has already reached a much more senior grade

Wow.

@Bubblebubblepop

How many times do I or other people need to elaborate on this? It's a reference to the elite who made the working-class worse off...as simple as that. It's not even near an insult if you grasped what I meant - perhaps I wasn't very clear.

@VanGoghsLeftEar Good point!

I want to know what you mean though. Why are the working class worse off?

Because I think you are mistaking working class for "the poor"

Bubble - it is a reference to the working classes vs the liberal elite. Where have you been during the Brexit debate?

@Bubblebubblepop

Sorry, should've been clearer.

I meant, the mainstream working class has become poorer on average. 'Working class' isn't a monolithic term, at least not as much as it used to be.

I understand him. W/c people don't have the priveleges of other classes. We can't say 'lecturer is a bit low-grade for someone of your age and promise'. Nothing is given to us on a plate.

@PrincessoftheSea

But again, why would I be interested in talking to you if you don't have a PhD ? This is rationale the was reflected 'in reverse' by some of the commentators here.

Will be nice to meet someone like you.

As a foreigner I would say that I have also never lived in a country with so much anti intellectualism and being a lecturer OP would be "guilty" of both having a fairly high status job and being very educated. A lot of people in the UK and I don't think that is limited to WC people are very suspicious of people who are more educated than them. Also people with certain interests like opera, ballet.....Basically the liberal elite I suppose.

That has always been the way for the working class. It's not new

Brexit has really brought this out in people.

People said they were voting against the elite. But clearly they didn't mean the inherited wealth public school elite of farage, rees mogg, Boris, give et al, they meant I suppose the intellectual elite. They don't like universities, civil servants, scientists, arts, lawyers - clever people basically.

It's a weird chipiness.

@PrincessoftheSea

Anti-intellectualism has been increasingly a reflection of the correlation, or rather confusion, between elitism and intellectualism. And yes, for a country that has some of the best universities in the world, anti-intellectualism is disturbing.

@Humpsfor20yards Ditto!

The point that people are making about your “gutter” comment is that while it is true that working class people are worse off now than they have been for some time, they are not so poor/destitute as to be seen as “in the gutter” and feel insulted to be perceived that way, with its connotations of scrabbling in dirt and rubbish for food. If you had said “have made this country’s working class even poorer” then people would not have taken offence.