What Do You Do For a Living Again?
April 6, 2009
A conversation between GeekDaddy and I last night prompted this post. But I’ll spare you the actual details of the conversation and just sum it up. You’ll get why in a moment.
We were talking about how unless you are speaking to someone who works in Information Technology, you always end up “dumbing down” your job description when someone asks you what you do for a living.
Yes, I know, there are other fields and jobs that also require “dumbing down” for the average person not in that field, but at least there’s usually some level of basic comprehension. For instance, if I said “I’m a medical doctor” or “I’m a lawyer” – the average person would nod and say “oh!! Okay!” and have at least a general idea of what that means. Yes, they might not know the difference between a Litigator and someone who works with Intellectual Property rights – or the difference between a GP and an Oncologist… but there’s no look of utter bafflement.
I attribute this to the fact that those professions have been around for a few centuries – whereas 99% of the jobs in technology field didn’t exist before the past one.
Granted, there are a few jobs in tech that people nod and ‘get’ – programmer, tech support – but they really have no idea what you do unless you care to get deeper into it. Ask any phone support guy how many times he has to deal with a customer who thinks he can “just go right in and change that” or any programmer how many times she’s had to explain to a relative that “no, she doesn’t know what’s wrong with that software, she’s never used it before.” It’s right up there with asking your podiatrist dentistry questions.
So when GeekDaddy recently accepted a Director position at his company – we both laughed at how much easier it would be for our extended families to answer what he does when asked now. Just around the same time that it got much, much harder to describe what I do for a living.
You see, before Buttercup was born, it was easy for friends & family to say that I was a “College Professor” as they didn’t have to really explain what I taught – just say “something to do with computers” and whomever was asking didn’t inquire further.
Today though? My “job description” is pretty much threefold. I’m a Blogger, I’m a Speaker, and I’m a Social Media Strategist.
Now, the odds are pretty good that if you’ve been coming here for any length of time you have a general idea about the first two, and a better understanding of the third one than most people.
But the odds are also pretty good that if your own job title has the phrase “Social Media” in it? You try to figure out ways around that when you’re talking to the average person as well.
Mostly, I find that when someone asks me what I do for a living any more, I usually just try to laugh it off and say “I play on the Internet for a living, and when I’m lucky, I get paid to write about it or to speak about how I do it for others.” This has actually, unfortunately, backfired more often than not and required a much lengthier explanation than if I said “I’m a Social Media Strategist, Blogger and Speaker.”
It turns out that there is no easy way to explain what I do, unless you work in the same field or have had to listen to the long version.* And usually, when I do go so far as to give someone the “long version” it’s met with “but why would anyone pay you to do that?”
It’s usually at that point that I try the old patented “well enough about me… Let’s talk about you. What do you do these days?”
But lately I’ve been thinking about just telling folks that I’m a wizard when asked. I think it’s a bit less mysterious. And maybe they’ll think twice about sitting around for the “long version.”
*trust me when I tell you that my “long version” is the edited version evenso… I could go on for days about Social Media – but it’s only really interesting to someone who works in the field or wants to. And they already get it.
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13 Responses to “What Do You Do For a Living Again?”
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Nice post! Most folks are pretty clueless about social media. But if you want to get really funny looks, tell them you write online dating profiles for a living. People look at me like I have 6 heads.
LOL at this! I totally get this when I tell people that I have a VA biz from home. But at least I can get around it buy saying I have a business providing admin/paralegal work from home! Explaining why I Twitter has been especially interesting. My grandmother asked me about it after I was on the local news for a Twitter segment – try explaining Twitter to an 86yr old not computer savvy woman, I dare you!
I am an artist.
“OH what do you paint?”
LOL
and here I always thought you were a writer!
~giggle~
Wiz was my nickname for all of my 20’s and 30’s — I just got tired of telling people I could do everything.
Just wrote my elevator speech for my blog:
Iowa based blogger writing interviews, strategies for network marketers, reviewing places and products, sharing what I’ve learned.
Out, standing in my field.
That should work for what I do, huh?
I’m a petroleum landman. We’ve been around for more than a hundred years. Being a petroleum landman is why I learned the word “hermeneutics.”
Yeah, mostly I just say, “I’m in the oil business.” Then, “Well, enough about me…”
I may not know exactly what you do, but I sympathise with you on this one.
@geek’s dream girl – you mean you don’t have 6 heads? I thought everyone online did… *cough* I mean, of course.
@Laurie – virtual assistant? Does that mean you are like a robot?
Seriously, yeah, I have a hard time explaining to folks how anyone can be an assistant if they aren’t in the same place – because you know, if you can’t holler to the next office for them, clearly, it’s impossible! heh
@Sorrow – yeah, you have it tougher than I do – I could just say writer, but then they’d ask if they’ve read any of my books!
@Deb – I can see why ‘Wiz’ was your nickname… I want to stand out in the field with you! Hey wait! Maybe we can just tell people we’re scarecrows!!
@Marin – oddly, I know exactly what that is – because my MIL has been one. We have a lot of oil folks here in Denver – which always surprises people. Apparently, you’re only supposed to work in the oil & gas industry if you live in TX or OK and have a cowboy hat and look like James Dean in Giant.
Great post! So true that the difficulty in explaining is that this is all so new. I still have trouble explaining coaching and that’s over a decade old as a profession. I have better luck with wisdom entrepreneur but only because I’ve worked on it for the last year and spent countless hours figuring out how to talk about it.
How about this for social media strategist: “I help companies and individuals grow their business using Internet tools that encourage conversation.”
Well, something to do with growing businesses and using Internet tools. I don’t market myself as a social media professional. But I’ve noticed friends and colleagues coming to ask me for help to figure out how to use “this stuff on the Internet” for building their businesses.
lol! I used to just say I worked for a telephone company instead of director of legal and regulatory for competitve telephone providers. Now I just say I have an Internet Business.
I love this. I just tell people I am a freelance writer. Blogger makes people IRL have one of two reactions:
1) blank stare
2)”oh isn’t that cute”
3)”do you make money at that?” Wait…makes people IRL have three reactions. THREE. I’ll come in again…
well-said.
T.
Want an amusing, but revealing description of what you do for a living, ask your kids. Yesterday my daughter told her doc that I worked on Twitter for a living. Well yes, kind of. No matter how many times I tell her I write the words on a web page, what she SEES me doing is playing on Twitter. How to explain to her that Twitter is something I can do while she’s around and writing isn’t? Anyway, one day I hope to help her see the connection between writing — speaking (which I also do) and tweeting. But until then, I guess I’ll have to make do with Twitter User as my job title, at least in my kid’s eyes!
Too funny. I was more excited about my title change at my last promotion than the salary change for the same reason. I’m now an IT Project Manager, rather than a Geographic Information Systems Analyst. It’s so, so much easier now, never mind that my job description changed very little.
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