What is it that we do?
When people ask you what you do, they’re expecting a clear, short answer. The one thing you do, which somehow defines you. But not a hobby. Not your passion. They want to know the source of your income.
I was a freelancer for about three years, which is a fancy way of saying unemployed. I did graphic design, blogging, youtube videos, stand up comedy and writing, which are five fancy ways of saying unemployed. But, still, I had a social life, so I would constantly meet new people, who would then ask what it was that I did. The answer was always some variation of “oh you know, this and that” or “I do graphic design mostly, but also other things” or whatever. I felt awkward and I could see that people were unsatisfied with the answer.
When people ask you what you do, they’re expecting a clear, short answer. The one thing you do, which somehow defines you. But not a hobby. Not your passion. Most people couldn’t care less about how you paint with finger paints, clean and restore old electronics, go hiking, play basketball, spend time with your family or post dank memes on Instagram. They want to know the source of your income. And hey, maybe your source of income is also the main thing you’re passionate about and how you define yourself. But for most of us, you know, it’s not.
Within the question about one’s primary source of income is also the size of that income. Even if you don’t tell anyone how much you make, they’re going to draw conclusions about it based on what it is you do for a living. Back when I was freelancing, I was lucky enough to live in a relatively nice apartment in a relatively nice area, because for unrelated reasons my rent was pretty low. Someone who visited my place actually said out loud what many must have thought before, that I must be making good money if I’m a graphic designer and I live in an apartment like that. In reality, I was flat broke and mostly unemployed, just with a nice title and an okay apartment.
Without a simple job title or a degree you’re working on, this question can be a source of some anxiety.
I had answered the “what do you do” question to many as being a graphic designer, because that was the source of at least some of my income and it was less embarrassing to say than “I do all sorts of things for some money but mostly live on unemployment benefits.” Without a simple job title or a degree you’re working on, this question can be a source of some anxiety.
Even before, when I had a pretty straight forward job with a simple title, it wasn’t something I identified with. So when someone asked me what I did, I said something along the lines of “well, my day job is a salesperson in a mobile operator’s shop, but I also do graphic design and stand up comedy, among other things” which must’ve sounded like such a “loser” thing to say. And don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing wrong on a personal level with just doing whatever job to pay the bills and using your free time to do what makes you happy. But explaining your situation to someone like that can and will cause people to think that you’re either not good enough at the things you like to do, ashamed of your job or just generally directionless. All of which I was, but I didn’t enjoy telling strangers that.
“What do you do” is such a loaded question. For most of us, the answer says nothing about who we are as people. But whatever your answer to this question is, it will invariably create a bunch of different assumptions in the mind of whoever is asking. Assumptions about your social standing, income level and where you are in your career or in your life in general, but also assumptions about your personality, ethics and beliefs.
You’re an accountant? You must be pedantic, maybe even obsessively so, and probably antisocial or at the very least introverted. You work in sales? You must be greedy, always after some form of personal gain. Probably a smooth talker, too. You work in an art gallery? You’re probably an art snob, do a lot of day drinking and wear only black. You work in customer service? You probably can’t get a better job. Maybe you’re one of those people everyone else walks all over. Or maybe you’re just doing that for now and can’t wait to get out. We all make those kinds of generalizations sometimes. We can’t help it. Someone names a job and a picture pops up in your head.
It can also create a kind of micro social hierarchy. Maybe not on purpose, but when someone with a high-paying, traditionally highly respected job asks someone else what they do, the person answering the question might feel like they’re suddenly below the other person in a social hierarchy. The “I’m just a so and so” answer feels like shit to give and it’s also difficult to respond to. How do you tell a new acquaintance that their job isn’t worthless without sounding patronizing? You can’t, so you just stand there, trying to smile like an idiot.
There’s also a big discrepancy between trusted and well paid jobs. According to a 2015 study by GfK, people seemed to trust most in firefighters, nurses, teachers and doctors. Mostly low-wage jobs with a focus on public safety and health, doctors being the only profession with traditionally higher pay. These jobs are crucial for society to function and for people to live healthy and safe lives. They require rigorous training and risking one’s life for others or years of education and enormous responsibility over people’s lives. Yet even doctors, the highest paid people in the group, only land them securely in the middle class.
At the bottom of the most trusted list were politicians, insurance brokers, ad executives and lawyers. All jobs that bring in the big bucks, often by destroying social value. In a 2009 report by the New Economics Foundation, there is a formula determining the social value of different professions, as in how many pounds worth of social value is created or destroyed for one pound of income. For example, hospital cleaners create ten pounds of social value for each pound they make and waste recycling workers create twelve. At the other end of the spectrum, for each pound they earn, bankers destroy seven, ad executives destroy eleven, and tax accountants destroy forty-fucking-seven pounds of social value.
Politicians aren’t even on that list, but, I mean, you know where they would land on that spectrum. I have no data on that, of course. Just like I have no data on where those numbers would be now, twelve years later, but something tells me that chasm has only gotten wider, especially with the pandemic, during which waste collectors and hospital cleaners have risked their lives by working as before, while the aforementioned value destroyers take Zoom meetings in their underwear and start drinking at two in the afternoon.
While professions like ad executives or insurance brokers aren’t very trusted for good reason, we shouldn’t be too quick to judge the individuals in those jobs. While the social value destroyers have their fair share of sociopaths in their ranks, most of them are just like everyone else. Trying to get ahead, to provide for their families and to succeed, according to the definition of success that has been hammered in their heads by our society. They might rather be teachers, but if they want to make sure their kids get the best education, a teacher’s salary can’t get them there in most countries.
It seems, then, that there is no good answer for “what do you do”. Our society assigns roles to us based on what we do for a living and pits people against one another by rewarding those who are willing to sell their souls for profit and abusing and discarding those whose desire to be useful or good outweighs their desire for economic security. The shortest straw gets pulled by those who don’t even have those options, and simply have to sell their labour to the rich for pennies and don’t even get the respect public servants do. Any answer to the question “what do you do” can, depending on the asker, lead to judgement, pity, or dismissal.
Should we just stop asking the question then? Well, maybe?
The real problem isn’t in the question itself. The problem is in the expectations people have when they ask it and in the attitudes people have towards different occupations, fields of study and especially non-traditional answers to the question. People get pretty thrown if they ask you what you do and you say that you’re just a dreamer, forging a path of love through the great greyness of modern life. Or if you say you’re unemployed. People get uncomfortable with that.
Our society places so much value on who you’re currently selling your labour to and how, that for many, that’s one of, if not the defining feature of who you are. You are your job. If you don’t have a job, a lot of people don’t know what box to put you in, and that confuses them. At the very least, if you can’t name a job, you should say that you’re a stay-at-home parent or a student. Because in capitalism, our value as human beings is inextricably linked to what value we produce for the economy.
If you work a job today, chances are you’ll be working a job ten years down the line. The horse doesn’t become the rider by winning the race, it just becomes a more valuable horse to ride.
“What do you do” is not really a question about who you are. It’s a question about what type of commodity you are. Your value as a person correlates with your value as a commodity. If you’re unemployed, our society sees you as a net loss. If you’re working class, like a server or a shop clerk, you’re a low-value commodity. If you’re middle class, like a middle management type or some kind of specialist, you’re a slightly higher-value commodity. You will remain a commodity, unless you become a capitalist, which you probably won’t. If you work a job today, chances are you’ll be working a job ten years down the line. The horse doesn’t become the rider by winning the race, it just becomes a more valuable horse to ride.
I don’t know about you, but I want to be valued, not evaluated.
Of course that’s not what people mean when they ask you what you do. But that’s what they’re going to think, even if they don’t mean to. They’re going to make assumptions about what kind of a person you are and place you somewhere in the social hierarchy in their head. And I don’t know about you, but I want to be valued, not evaluated. So what can we do about it?
Maybe start by asking people different kinds of questions, when trying to get to know them. Instead of asking someone what they do, ask them what they like to do. Come up with questions that are conversation starters, like hypotheticals. If you started a cult, what would the central tenets be? If you had to choose one and never have the other again, would you choose cough drops or chewing gum? Art museums or natural history museums? Bert or Ernie?
I don’t want this to turn into a guide for successful conversations with strangers by the least qualified person ever, so let me just end with this. It’s okay to ask a person what they do for a living, or whether they have a day job, or whatever. Just don’t open with it and don’t think that’s who they are. Our current society already reduces us into commodities. We really don’t need to do that to each other. We’re all so much more than what we have to do for money.
