Hate being asked what I do

[EggDaisy]

AIBU to think this is a bit of a personal question and it's rude to ask?

"Where do you work?"
"What do you do?"
"What profession are you in?"

Etc.

I find it really invasive and wish people wouldn't ask! My situation is not straight forward so it takes a bit of explanation, and giving any level of information to a stranger who has just asked makes me feel uncomfortable.

Why is it anyone's buisness? I feel like they want to know where I "fit" - as in, am I skilled, roughly what that role would earn, what type of person am I; be honest, people judge you differently based on your job. You can be stereotyped so easily too.

Now I just reply "Oh, I do this and that."

It can't be that difficult to say something that's at least in the general area. If you don't want to be judged, saying you do "this and that" is totally the wrong way to go, because the person you're talking to will assume you're unemployed.

Yep I hate it too.
I work in the rail industry in a technical role.
It's difficult to explain what I do to people outside of the industry.
When I say I work in the rail industry I've been asked if I'm a railway station cleaner, a ticket seller, a trolley dolly etc.
I suppose people assume women are unable to work in a technical role.
When I explain my job people tend to glaze over as they don't understand/ find it boring, it's actually really interesting (to me😁)

I am usually generic; 'I'm a solicitor'. If you start saying you are a divorce lawyer then everyone wants to talk about how shit their divorce lawyers were and their ex took them to the cleaners. Sometimes I will say I work in child protection which is 50% of what I do and no-one knows what to say to that.

Before I retrained I worked in reproductive health and the procurement of contraceptions in dveeloping countries. It was hilarious how many men sneered that this was a silly little job and how many women got immediately how important it was to the women who need contraception. If I could not be bothered talking about it I used to say i worked in the procurement of condoms. Total conversation stopper.

What do you do?
Where do you live?
Have you got children?

All conversations people can have but also ones that can categorise people.

I am part of a Meet Up group - so constantly meeting new people and trying to get to know them.

What do you do is one of the "standard" questions people say.

It's just a question to get to know more about you. Others will be offended for being asked 'are you married?' Or 'do you have kids?'. We can't get so 'PC' that there is nothing to talk about.

I would be more offended by the assumption that I do nothing.

"what do you do for a living?"

"I could tell you but then I would have to kill you. So, have you lived in this area long? What do you think of the schools?"

There, both deflection and the implication that you have a sexy spy job.

Not all but some definitely judge you I think.
I used to have a well paid job, worked ridiculous hours for it. Took sabbatical to ttc again and decided not to go back once we finally had DC. When DC started school I wanted an easy stress free job that was within school hours, so now work a minimum wage job 9:30-3. The school mums that I knew already are the same with me but the ones that didn’t know me - after asking what I did kind of looked through me. Once after overhearing one of the mums I knew ask if I still lived where I did and I said yes, the one mum that thinks I’m see through asked quite bluntly how can you afford to live there if you only work part time 😳 (I’d only spoken to this person once when she asked about my job and deemed me not worthy of her time). The mum that knows me laughed and said she only works to pass the time, she doesn’t need to work anymore after all the years she put in at previous job. The next time I saw the rude mum she asked if I wanted to go for coffee - I politely declined and said I had weeding to do. To top it off the CF asked why I didn’t have a gardener to do that 😤

I think people are being harsh. Some people are not trying to rank or categorise you, they’re just interested and being nice by making conversation. If you’re so worried about being ranked give minimal info. By saying ‘I do this and that’ you might as well say ‘piss off’.

But if you work on a Tesco checkout say you work in retail, if you’re a millionaire stock broker, say finance. I say I work in PR, I might be on 20k, I might be on 120k, no one knows or ranks me.

What do you say to people if you’re not allowed to ask what you do? Yesterday there was a woman on here that said it was rude to ask if someone was married with children. What’s left to talk about as an opening question? Terrible day isn’t it?

I am not sure it’s invasive. I do find it a bit irritating but that’s because the context it’s asked in tends to be those forced conversations and forced small talk exhausts me. Plus it’s hard to explain. My boss doesn’t even understand that my team does as they cover a few quite niche functions

""I could tell you but then I would have to kill you"

That doesn't say "sexy spy job", that says tosser who I don't really want to spend any time with. Someone with an over inflated idea about how interesting and important their job actually is.

On Mumsnet asking if someone has children is also considered off limits! Actually I'm sure there was a thread recently enough from someone who was insulted by people asking where she lived too.

Some people may have a hidden agenda when they ask but I think it's pretty rare. Most people are just making conversation. You don't need to explain the "complications" just give an approximation.

Yes, people may say they don't care but there is a level of assumption, stereotyping, bias and preconceptions at play

That might be what you do, OP, but it's honestly strange not to realise that others are different to you.

I personally don't give a shit - thinking about it now I have no idea what most people I know do, despite having been told.

Surely it's more efficient to make judgements about the person right in front of you from their behaviour rather than guessing based on their job?

Well unless people are going to remain silent or keep conversation to the weather, its fairly inevitable there will be a certain level of enquiry about each others lives. In social settings the enquiries are to an extent used to evaluate the person. Are they interesting? Do we share any common ground? Given most people spend a great deal of their lives at work, and choice of occupation (or not) often does give some background to a person, it's not an unreasonable start point. It's generally not just about what they do, but what they have to say about it that's interesting.
The only reasons to feel uncomfortable about it is if you don't work and are embarrassed by that, you work in a job you feel is controversial (lower status than you'd like, ethically questionable) or you hate your work. All of those would be 'you' things and arent resolved by changing a wide spread social convention that works well for most.
People aren't going to stop asking so you need to prepare a way to shut it down that you're comfortable with.

I suppose some people will judge your job. But they're the sort of people who will also judge where you live, what car you drove up in, your clothes. People who are trying to establish whether you are worth talking to will do that regardless. The vast majority of people are making desperate small talk and couldn't give a shit what you do. Or they're trying to look interested, find out a bit about you for all the right reasons. MN is so paranoid sometimes.

That doesn't say "sexy spy job", that says tosser who I don't really want to spend any time with.

That makes it a perfect answer for OP. She doesn't want any social interaction at all.

I agree with a PP that it's one of the standard set of questions people ask when meeting someone new.

As I said in a previous post, you don't have to be accurate; just mention the industry if you don't want to say.

I do know what you mean though OP, I used to do a job that would make people launch into stories or complaints that I didn't want to hear.

Now I just vaguely say 'hospitality'.

I often ask people but not because I'm trying to judge them. It feels like a fairly safe conversation starter when you don't know anything about someone. If they say I'm a SAHP then I know they have kids and can ask questions about that, maybe their ages ir if they've started school yet. If they say they work in something arts based I can talk about that. If they mention business I could ask if they get to travel a lot and branch into travel and so on. I don't care what you do or how much you earn it's just a way to find some common ground to keep a conversation flowing and maybe get to know someone. Other questions I might start with are 'Have you been here before?' Or 'How do you know so and so?'. Again, not being nosey just trying to create a but of conversation.

For what it's worth I have no clue how to describe the business related jobs of two of my relatives so I just say something in business and then move on to something more interesting about them. No wonder there are so many people on Mumsnet saying they are lonely or don't have any friends, everyone is offended about every topic of conversation these days.

There are obviously undercurrents to every conversation. Parents asking others 'do you have kids?' married folk asking new acquaintances 'are you with anyone?' people asking 'so what do you do?' but by and large, it's usually just the default stuff people go to to make conversation that goes a little beyond the weather.

I try ask people more general stuff, I never ask about kid status, usually ask something like 'so what do you get up to in your free time?' as then people can talk about whatever they enjoy rather than just their job. But you're never gonna stop people as a whole from asking 'so what do you do?' as an early getting to know you question so you're better off formulating a response you feel comfortable with and having it in your pocket ready to use.

This. There’s almost always a vague high-level answer you can give isn’t there? A sector?

I’d think someone who said ‘I do this and that’ really strange and rude.

Context is everything.

At a networking seminar, that question IS about judging you.

Sitting by the pool on holiday and chatting to the people on the next lounger, it would just be polite conversation.

Anyway OP, 99 percent of people you'll meet in your life are, shock horror, perfectly normal, work in perfectly normal jobs, have perfectly normal boring lives and definitely aren't trying to catagorise you by asking that question.

it is a conversation opener as many people say. I use it to just try to find a connection, doesn’t matter if someone says they’re unemployed, I’ll then probably ask them how they’re coping in the cost of living crisis or some such and hope I can while away 10 minutes with a fellow conservative hater 🤷🏼‍♀️🤣

but there are better questions I try to ask now “what do you do with your time?” Is a good one for people to choose whether to talk their job, hobbies or family. “Working on anything exciting?” Is also a good one to leave it wide open to silly ones or real deep passions or work stuff…both of those will work for people in any situation

it is just a way to get someone talking about random shit until you find some commonality to then launch into a proper conversation with

I’d suggest, OP, perhaps look at 2 questions above and think how you’d answer those as well, have a stock answer to hand, that tells someone a very little about yourself as a starter that conversation can then build upon. Be selective to just give a nugget to make that social connection. We are social beings, we don’t groom like the rest of the great apes, we use language instead.

I used to give the name of my job title but found that because it wasn't something people heard if I'd end up being asked what it involves (it's not exciting) or once 'so in a normal day what would you do'..

I don't want to bore anyone with that! I now say 'admin' as my role is on a computer so that will do lol

I think you should be pleased that others are interested enough to ask what you do for a living, even though it may be chit-chat or some sort of categorisation.

When I was married no-one cared one jot what I did. I was merely known as the wife of my husband (think "vicars' wife" type scenario). It went on for so many years I'd become a non-person.

I divorced, got a job in academia and moved across the country. As I began to socialise in my new home town, people would ask who I was and what I did. They were the most wonderful conversations, at first I couldn't believe people were interested in me, for myself, rather than as an attachment to someone else! And it went a long way towards my gaining confidence as a single (but valid) person in society again, and eventually as a professional in the world of work.

I have held various jobs since, I tend to answer the 'what do you do' question by describing a sector rather than a job (eg. I've worked in education as well as hospitality) and if anyone's interested I can always elaborate or not as I choose.

"Do you like BSM?" is a personal question."What do you do?" is small talk.