Occupying Occupations

I love meeting new people. Usually, it presents an opportunity to explore others’ ideals and listen to alternative perspectives.

Oftentimes, it’s a great way to see how people embellish on their occupation.

“I work in financial matters” I was told yesterday by a bloke I met at the Bay to Birdwood Classic event.

I thought, that’s a pretty cool way to say that you process accounts, and you enter data on a spreadsheet.

“I’m a project officer” another said, which I thought was one of the most important sounding ambiguities I’ve ever heard. What kind of projects, I pondered. Infrastructure? Employment?

“Just projects”

Ah… an officer gopher, I thought to myself, love your work.

However, for all my hoity-toitiness I present here, I must confess to being guilty. Hell, I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite.

I’ve often informed people that I “assisted in the production of ESL materials and [that] I moonlight as a freelance contributor to magazines”

Truth be known, I proofread and drafted a little, and my “moonlighting” consisted of the odd article here and there… when I found the motivation.

These days, I’m of the impression that when a person is describing their occupation, you can sum up its importance by how few words are used to describe it.

If someone tells you that their job is “being a key asset in the development and drafting of company policy”, it says that they fetch coffee for a policy writer.

If they are a “personal assistant to the Director”, they basically are the Director… but they don’t get paid for it (the Director usually says that they “Are responsible for operation and management of a unit that [benefits society in some way]”).

However when they use single words like “Lawyer”, “Architect”, or “CEO” you simply don’t fuck with them.

Unless they say “prostitute”… in which case it’s your call.

However, please note there are a couple of exceptions to this rule: Breakfast Radio Announcer, News Corp Journalist and Candidate For Presidency. If someone tells you that they do either of these jobs, they’re lying.

Everyone knows those jobs are done by robots.