Now contains nuts.

Monday, September 26, 2005

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.

12 files below

Blogger Unknown said...

I really need to be more creative when someone asks me what I do.

9:59 AM

 
Blogger Ms Smack said...

Officially, I'm a "Program Coordinator"

which is pretty accurate. I juggle shit (coordinate) and hope for the best.

Great post !

10:27 AM

 
Blogger Lia said...

That was unbelievably profound. Sometimes the simple truths get overlooked.

What if you work multiple jobs, so you have to use many words when asked what you do? Or what if you've trained in a profession, so you can fairly say you're a doctor/lawyer/indian chief, but really you just make photocopies, a position which you can't get without a technical degree?

10:51 PM

 
Blogger Kenneth said...

I dont know if this is related : Women usually have to be impressed by the guy's job to like him. That's wat probably makes guys invent the "occupations" and then becoz it sounds cool and it remotely fits to wat they actually do, they stick with it, for the general world too

P.S - I don't know why women do it though

1:58 AM

 
Blogger Ms Smack said...

I think the women that are impressed by the standard of occupation are the same women that are impressed by the car he drives. I've always been happy that he's gainfully employed, and short of pimp, or hustler, porn star, I dont mind what he does, or what car he drives.

12:11 PM

 
Blogger Samantha Regione said...

Whatever could you .... whatever could you ..... whatever could you ... [*greases rotors and reinserts microchip*]... whatever could you mean?

7:05 PM

 
Blogger cadiz12 said...

what do you say to people who tell you, 'slave'?

8:04 AM

 
Blogger Andy said...

Cadiz: Don't fuck with them :)

mscynic: 11010010 10001010 10010101 00101001 10010100 ;)

Oh, and I mean't "commercial (ie MMM, Austereo, Nova etc) breakfast radio announcer"... but it didn't have the same panache.

Ms Smack: car is often mistakenly attributed to success... rather than debt. Also, it's an image thing... to be seen in a nice car. Like it or not, nice cars do turn heads.

Kenneth: I think you're right. In this competition to be as appealing to other people as possible, it is often practice to sound as important as possible.

Lia: I'd amalgamate all my professions into one: "I'm a Docyerief". For the other thing, you say you're a consultant and charge $250 per hour.

Mel: Just say you work on "projects". It could mean anything...

12:07 PM

 
Blogger mj said...

Does that make my landscape architect less impressive than architect? (always a sore point...)

10:01 AM

 
Blogger ChickyBabe said...

What about Consultant? Apart from how much we charge per hour...

8:34 PM

 
Blogger Kaufman said...

You were being extremely kind with your parting thought. I would have used a different noun, especially seeing as News Corp Journalists were mentioned.

;)

6:13 PM

 
Blogger reverendtimothy said...

Well, I call myself an IT Project Management Consultant, which basically means I don't know what I do for a living. But that's cool, since people hire project managers because theydon't know what is needed either.

Generally, if people ask what I do, though, I just tell them "Information Technology", since it's usually too hard to describe to non-geeks anyway.

But yes, you're right with the elaborate description compensations ;-) Hahaha great post.

2:48 PM

 

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