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I tend to say ‘work in a shop’, see if they think I’m worthy of their time.
It’s the shittest thing to ask.
Or the Frank Skinner reply
‘I just **** and watch the racing’
Maybe just try "I've been away for a while"?
I do get slightly bugged by the “I’m Brian, I’m 45 and I’m a gusset inspector” on TV game shows.
I get more bugged by the 'I'm a senior gusset inspector' reply, as if anyone cares that you're not the junior in your department any more.
I normally say I'm the company fairy
I do all the jobs that just happen without anyone noticing.
i have a neighbour who is a police detective. i have to avoid him because all i want to do is ask him about his job. all the questions i have from reading crime novels and watching the bill.
when asked and i tell people that i’m a house husband, they usually ask what i used to do. “computers”. they then ask if i miss it!
Heard a story (from an interviewer) of a candidate who’d put something on their CV about some extreme sport or other which was suitably niche. All went pear-shaped when the interviewer said “I see you’re into [sport], the best man at my wedding was [name], you must know him?”
“err…no”
“Oh, that’s unusual cos he’s [sport champion] and is very well known…”
And the lies quickly unravelled.
I resemble this remark...
Done almost exactly the same with the CV, except it wasn't a lie (obviously).
Interviewer asks if i know Mr X
"Errr, yeah, know him for years. I'm going to his 50th at the end of the month."
"Oh, small world, so am I."
"i'll see you there then."
Was a bit embarrassing in the end, as i turned the job down...
It always irritates me on guided riding holidays when some people do this on the first night.
I've gone on holiday to ride my bike and not think about work.
If you want to start up a conversation how about something we all have in common on a riding holiday 😉.
i have a neighbour who is a police detective. i have to avoid him because all i want to do is ask him about his job. all the questions i have from reading crime novels and watching the bill.
I ain't saying nuffink till I see Burnside!
It's just a lazy way of making dull conversation. I don't really care what other people do for a job, maybe after a few years I might ask.
Ironically, since I have stopped doing McJobs and got salaried employment in a FTSE company, nobody asks anymore!
If you want to start up a conversation how about something we all have in common on a riding holiday 😉.
Thing is, by the end of my one and only "riding holiday", I went to bed early 'cos if I heard one more conversation about tyre pressures I was going to chin someone 😉
Maybe riding holidays aren't for you then.😛
Asking what folks do is fine by the end of the holiday when you've got to know them but on the first night seems a little odd.
Most folks I stayed friends with that I've meet on holidays have never asked about anything to do with work.
how about something we all have in common on a riding holiday
How did you convince your better half to let you go on a biking holiday?
How did you convince your better half to let you go on a biking holiday?
She's the one that books them so neither of us have ever been asked that question.😎
"as little as i can get away with"
"what are you in to?" makes agreat, direct response though, i like that.
"what do you do"
"What are you in to?" 😉
She’s the one that books them
Ahhh, so that's who the lady undoing your stem bolts was!
I agree I hate all that willy-waving.
I usually just make something up on the spur of the moment, Test Pilot or Rocket Surgeon usually
When i had a real job, it was very much a 'city' thing. It always baffled me really. Out of all one is, people who have no originality seem to want to define one by a job role.
Just be glad you're not asking that question in the Welsh Valleys. Most of them reply with something like "I'm a builder, I am!". It's almost like they have to either confirm it to themselves at the end or are just shocked they actually have a job! I know it's just a local way if speaking but it always cracks me up at how it makes the person saying it look and sound like the village idiot.
Some once did ask me what I do for fun.
Same here. The look on their face when I replied "I arrange via social media to meet up with people in a designated place in the forest. Some of us will be prepared for the day's activity but others will have to get changed into appropriate clothing or adjust their equipment first. We then all go exploring the woods until we're all muddy, sweaty and tired then we go back to the meeting point, get changed our of our muddy, sweaty clothes and go home after agreeing to do it all again soon.". What I wasn't expecting was the reply back of "Me too, love a bit of re-enactment role play! What era do you prefer?" 🤣
Apparently the Queen was once, on a visit to a shipyard in Newcastle, overheard saying indignantly "Well I work very hard too!".
A loyal subject had just told her "I work for Cunard".
Well I mostly enjoy my job and others are interested in it (see other long thread). But for fun I ride fast bikes a long way and slow boats a lock way.
I actually find this thread fairly interesting.
I'm a musician. For the most part, I love it although being a self employed musician has historically been fairly high stress and low to medium financial reward endeavour...then Covid happened.
Whenever I get asked what I do for a living and respond with musician, I reckon that about 75% of people respond along the lines of 'oh wow that's so awesome'. For the most part, I still think that it's awesome myself. It's a major part of how I define myself I guess, and given that I come from a fairly underprivileged background I'm really proud of my admittedly fairly modest achievements.
During Covid I had to work part time as a supermarket delivery driver.... when they hear this, people seem to act as though I'd been struck down by a terminal illness! Increasingly in our weird little 'image is everything ' society that we've evolved, doing something like working in a supermarket seems to be something that people sneer at. I often find though that the people doing the sneering were probably earning the same if not less than I was at a supermarket when staff discount etc was taken into account....and they were themselves doing an admin based job 'in recruiting' or 'in sales' with a lifestyle based on unaffordable cheap finance and their 'quaification' for their job invariably being a 2:2 in some random shite combined with the ability to not really need more from life than a 9-5 to fund an Audi on lease.
For the most part I didn't mind work as a Supermarket delivery driver, it felt like 80% of the time that I was being paid to listen to 6 Music. I do however, much prefer having my career as a musician back (even in it's somewhat depleted post-covid state)
Standard barber question (pre covid and subsequently replaced by doing it myself):
Barber: so what do you do for work?
Me: office work
Barber: is that computers and stuff?
Me: yes
Barber: [cursory chit chat session has now concluded - silence commences until end of haircut]
< 10 minutes later >
Barber: there you go - would you like to see the back?
Hmmm. I usually apologise about what I do.
Due to working at height, I normally get responses of:
Oh I couldn't do that.
That sounds really exciting.
In reality it's just another job but hanging from a rope and invariably in discomfort. Sometimes coupled with crap weather, too hot or crap condition
‘Well, I like mountain biking but I found I wasn’t enjoying it much anymore since my fitness took such a huge nose dive after the kids were born so I started trying to train more so I could start enjoying it again. I found I never wanted to train in the evenings so I’ve started waking up at 4:30 to train before I have to get the kids to school. I really struggle to function if I don’t get 8 hours sleep so I basically go to bed when the kids go to bed which means all the cooking, cleaning, and general looking after the kids has to be done between getting home from work and going to bed.
At the weekends I try to get out on the mountain bike but I’m often pretty knackered and the kids always have somewhere to go and something to do which disrupts the whole weekend.
I know it sounds like I resent my kids and my entire life basically revolves around them while I try to cling onto a semblance of health with my finger tips but I really love them. Honestly, I do, they’re great….
Shit, we'd be discussing this for hours. Maybe we need a support group?
Whenever I've told people what I do for work they usually say "oh wow that's exciting" no, it's really not. It's dull and I want to ride my bike now.
I resemble this remark…
Done almost exactly the same with the CV, except it wasn’t a lie (obviously).
Interviewer asks if i know Mr X
Something sort of similar happened in an interview I had once. One of the panel saw i'd played football for my Uni. He'd played for a rival Uni 30 years before and could remember that they'd beaten us in a big game. I then had to tell him i'd scored the winner in extra time against his team the previous year. He thought it was pretty funny. I got the job... and even better they'd accidentally advertised it in two places at wildly different salaries so i got lots more money than i'd anticipated when applying!
Tell them that you work in Macro Data Refinement but you can't talk about work stuff outside of work.
I think this just needs to be filed in "necessary small-talk". The person asking the question could genuinely be interested in what you do for a living regardless of how much you get paid or they could be judging you. But that could be said of anybody asking any question, about anything.
Is use that question as a filter, if someone asks that question almost as an introduction it can be quite revealing, they tend to be very happy to talk about themselves so I just give a non answer and probe them.
I forgot the coolest answer I heard to this question. Back in the 90's I was a sailing instructor and bloke on the course asked another what he did. "I'm a shopkeeper" was the answer. The question asker's tone from then on was a bit condescending in a - my job (computers) means I'm probably brighter and wealthier than you, and how can you even afford to be here -kind of way. The delicious way over the next couple of days it came out (from others, not our 'shopkeeper') that this very modest man was CEO of the John Lewis partnership was lovely to watch.