By Gayatri Singh Dahiya
Hipster, Corporate Yuppie, Eclectic NGO Worker, Ballsy Entrepreneur, Perpetually Stoned Arty-Type Ad Agency Guy, Schmoozing Restaurant Owner, Overworked-Jet setting Consultant, Broke and Romantic Writer/Blogger type…
Ironically, the more we consciously move away from being slotted under a “type” so lovingly prefixed with a set of adjectives, or struggle to retain a sense of being highly individualistic by means of what we do – the more we get sucked in to being classified under these very labels.
Just the other day, I was watching one of the first few episodes of ‘Girls’ {yes, some of us did see that show!}, where Jessa, the eternal boho, is babysitting and ends up chilling with the kids’ father when he gets home. A drink or two later, she asks what he does for a living, and he quips, “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s rude to ask someone that?”
That got me thinking: Is ‘what do you do?’ the new ‘what’s your sign?’ or is it more? {Forgive the analogy, I found no better.} Is it what will colour your entire impression on who asked? Or is it, in fact, your passport to ready acceptance in a world that is increasingly obsessed with easy-to-identify labels? Especially, in a city that boasts of power, money, family legacies, and the “right” addresses, it’s hard to not want to stand out on the basis of what you earn, where you earn it, and just how.
While work is truly the defining factor for a lot of us {if not all of us}, I fear we’ve been drawn into believing there can be nothing else to need or want to know about someone beyond the purview of what he/she does for a living.
If you find yourself disagreeing, allow me to take you through this long winding thought process I find myself in, and I should clarify at the onset that this stems entirely from my own realization that I ought to have stopped asking people what they do.
I was at a party recently, and I couldn’t help but notice how every conversation was struck up with the perennial favourite – “So what do you do? Where do you work?”
In the 50 odd minutes I spent there, all I discussed or saw being discussed around me went something like “Oh you’re a blogger? That’s awesome! So do you get paid for it? Oh you worked with a wine magazine? That’s so cool! Yeah, I’m a consultant/lawyer/running my family business/Trainee; that’s all I do. No free time. Yeah, I know someone who blogs too. {!!} That’s so cool. So you must go to fancy wine events? Your life is like Sex and the City! {WTF?!!} I wish I could do {insert cool job here} too but I just crunch numbers/do research/file drafts/slave in office/make presentations/make X amount of insane money a month.”
This wasn’t a single conversation, but the gist of many that I had that night. It all sounded the same, and it was fairly apparent by the end of the night that it seems we are only as good or worthy of someone’s attention as what we do between the hours of 9-5 {or 9-3 am in the world of an “overworked” corporate employee, or 24/7 for someone running their own business}.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against people who take their careers seriously, and can spend every waking minute being devoted to it. Kudos to you and it is a matter of pride to be successful in one’s own way and be willing to share that story. But the point to ponder is somewhere between the lines, much like where our true personalities lie when we’re busy discussing jobs—are we coming to be defined by what we do for a living? Are we, as educated adults, born and raised in cities, incapable of going beyond the leanings of what one does for work? Has the rat race consumed each of us in a way that it’s downright unthinkable and impossible to actually know someone closely and yet not know what job they hold?
Not that I’m one to sit on a moral high ground- I’ve been there, and done that too. I spent a larger part of my {really} early 20s attempting to hash and rehash every aspect of what it is they do for a living. Today, there are definitely some people I may have had the lengthiest conversations with, but beyond their name, number, job profile, employer, and FB profile {in some cases}, I know nothing substantial about them. I didn’t care to ask what excited them, their favourite food in the world, whether they’d pick NYC or Mumbai, or what they aspire to do with their lives. What a waste! Here’s when I realised the futility of it all..
I took a gap year after completing college to see the world {well, sort of}, explore interests, chill out, grow up, and learn a few hard lessons that the books couldn’t manage and the job won’t get to soon enough. By the age of 20, I had: climbed Everest Base Camp with two other sprightly, awesome women; gotten drunk in a shady bar in Thamel and won a free Carlsberg tee {for being Indian and a woman, I’d reckon?!}; shed a silent tear in the gas chamber of a concentration camp in Germany; tried to steal a piece of the Berlin wall before I got yelled at in Deutsch by a security guard nearby; taken a wine tour after drinking wine the entire night before, getting hungover, and then remarked how every wine tasted “rich and fruity, with balanced bouquets” at a vineyard in Nashik; heard an old, proud woman’s tale of how she lost her mountaineer daughter at K2; danced along at the Nepalese equivalent of the Hemis festival up at 11,000 feet; met some of the most interesting people, who’ve left everlasting impressions on my mind, and yet, till this day I haven’t the slightest clue what any of them did/do for a living; visited Goa for the first time, polished off bottles of tequila each night, and fallen head over heels in love with a man, and 3 years down – I know that’s the best thing I ever did.
But the beauty in all of this is – anyone I met at the time would only ask me what I did/was doing, and once I ran out of witty, colourful responses and regaling people with the what/how/where of my travels and conquests {as modest as they were, but seemed awfully brag-worthy at the time}, I resorted to just shrugging my shoulders and auto-answering such queries with a disinterested “Nothing much, I’m taking a gap year..what about you?.” Somehow, that seemed to satisfy their curiosity just fine, and often even elicited a few jokes of their own along the lines of “Doing absolutely nothing myself, I just twiddle my thumbs!* sheepish laughter*
Today though, most people have me reduced to the easy-fit-labels of freelance writer/”wine-something..sommelier”{??!}/unemployed {yes, I’ve had people judge me endlessly for not having a ‘real’ job}/great marketing person/PR person.
I’m none of these things, really. They may be a minute part of what I do, or have done for a certain fraction of my time, but this is NOT what defines me or will ever give you a much clearer insight into what makes me tick.
From this point on, I wish NO ONE ever asks me what I do, unless they’re offering me an alternate job within the first 15 minutes of posing that query. Instead, feel free to ask me if I think the British Monarchy ought to lighten up and release a once-in-a-lifetime edition flipbook of all the nude and controversial shots of the family over the years, or if I believe green tea flavoured yogurt is a waste of good yogurt {I do}, or if I’ve read an interesting book recently that I might recommend {the Jaya Illustrated Mahabharata by Devdutt Patnaik}, or if I prefer a Merlot to a beer {both}, or where I’d live if given a choice to relocate, or what language I’d speak if I could be perfectly fluent at it in no time, or just about anything under the sun.
Try and know someone by what they want to do, what they like, where they’ve been, what they aspire to, or what they would do if it weren’t for the money. If you really must—judge ambition, not a job.
“It is a convention among travellers that you tend not to ask each other what you do for a living. As a result you become extremely curious, trying to extrapolate back from how they are now to what they do or did back home.” – Geoff Dyer, ‘Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.’
Really enjoyed your thoughts on this. And love all the amazing stuff you’ve done with your life!
I agree that we must not be defined by what we do for work…or by any one aspect of our lives.
Couple of reactions:
What if what you do is the essence of who you are, really? Not in a restrictive, fencing in sort of way. If for instance, you’re a travel writer (lucky you) or an inventor or something?
Also, isn’t the ‘what do you do’ question just a starting point, an ice breaker, if you will? Because its something most people can talk about easily, people who otherwise faced with “what’s your take on Baba Ramdev’s cross dressing” might just clam up?
Hey Ruchika!
Thanks so much for your feedback; I’m so glad to hear that you agree with my thoughts.
Some brilliant questions you’ve raised there, so I’m going to try and answer these as succinctly as I possibly can:
Yes, it’s entirely possible and acceptable (if not, commendable) for one’s work to be the essence of who one is..and I mean that in a non-restrictive, non fencing sort of way. But even the travel writers (lucky them, I am not one!), or inventors, or something equally ‘interesting’, are in my most humble opinion – a lot, lot more beyond the spheres of their jobs, that might I add, just happen to be a very important part of who they are as individuals.
You see, nowhere have I suggested that you not have linkages between your personality and job. If anything, my career graph reads like an erratic heart rate monitor, owing to the several jobs I changed looking for that elusive “One” , wherein in a flash of blinding light, on the day I sign the acceptance of employment papers, me and my job will be fused as one complete entity..
Umm, the dramatics aside — If what you do is the essence of who you are, you’re clearly missing something. No one, in my opinion, can or should be perfectly defined by a job, no matter if they’re mountaineers, poets, actors, corporate employees, lawyers, doctors, or even Barack Obama. Would you agree, Ruchika?
To your second point: Yes, in fact, a friend who read this article after it was published, not-so-politely pointed out how she’d be sitting in a Manhattan penthouse if she had a penny for each time I asked this question of ‘what do you do?’ and then defended it for being a mere ice breaker. But you see, I want to introduce another dimension to this social norm. Let’s not ask the seemingly easiest ice breaker–it will honestly lead us to nothing as fascinating and important as we must know. And ask away, but let’s reserve the question for some other time, when you’ve hopefully run out of other things to talk about?
My counter question to your question stands the same as in the article–can we really not atleast try to know each other basis ANYTHING other than what we do?
As for clamming up on Ramdev’s sartorial choices – I believe no one in this country clams up on that account. But then again, hasn’t anyone ever told us it’s rude to discuss politics and religion in social gatherings and dinner tables?! ;)
Also, my apologies for responding to you at such leisure; you really made me think. So, thank you! :)
Love it. been through this phase too and after you get over the fact that no one is going to ‘get’ what you do, you just start having fun and making up things that you do!
Kartik – You hear me, man! I’ve been fantasizing about answering such a question, if asked, with a poker-straight face and a non chalant “Oh, I’m in the adult-film industry.”
(Hey, I could totally be an adult-film star in some Southern chubby-loving part of the country!)
loved the spirit of the whole piece!i am judgmental about a thousand professions n so i stopped asking people what they do..unless the silence is getting really awkward..and the person actually belongs to the category of people who “devote” themselves to their jobs! i hope i never reach a point where my day job defines who i am!
I, too, hope you don’t reach that day. Glad you liked the piece. Look forward to your feedback in the future too. :)
agree to the last word!What is “supposed” to be a conversation kickstarter becomes the focal point of the conversation. I might be biased in my dislike towards the phrase, cause i hate to talk about what i am doing (almost as much as i dislike what i do). And even then i could make it sound like the most interesting job
in the world. No matter what the answer to the question is, people
always have the “oh that’s sounds cool” reaction on their face.
Right now my job is definitely not the extension of or the essence of my personality in any way. I don’t think i’d feel any different even if it was!
Your comment nailed it. We only end up stereotyping ourselves and others by toeing that line.
I think that at some point all of us (myself included) thrived on that almost-rehearsed “oh that sounds cool” reaction..but after a while, you see the futility of it all. Glad to hear your thoughts. Keep ‘em comin. :)
Hi Gayatri!
Quite a relevant and contextual piece, got all the ‘keywords’ – type(cast); rat race; 9 – 3; which would easily define a typical human with a typical life. And I can so easily recall myself yelling something similar (to what you have written) in response to any dilettante among the crowd who asks me this question!
Though saddening that it makes you realise that ‘what do you do?’ automatically means ‘what do you do.. for living.’
I actually cant either agree or disagree with you because I believe the tendency is essentially an evolutionary consequence, social evolution in this case and not biological evolution, though humans have failed in both imho. The point being, humans now survive by consuming fruits not of nature but those created by humans themselves which gives us the concept, and the resultant importance, of “money”. This has placed each human in a vast web of inter-connected human network where each works for another with a defined role popularly called as ‘work’ or ‘what they do’. As this web becomes complicated by each passing day, the role of each individual and their commitment to it becomes even more important for comfort of the others. Therefore, as a system, we humans (ok a bulk of us) see another not as a person but by their designation in the system. Therefore, whether they wish or not, before they realise they are already defined as who they ‘would be’ depending upon where they are placed in the web. And by a chaos of randomness, each of us get placed in randomly chosen positions. Some get too proud of theirs for reasons which could be many, while some choose to just see it as a necessary compulsion of life but define themselves through other more important vocations. But in either case, they cannot elude the importance given to ‘what they do’ in other people’s attempt to ‘judge’ them.
Acting as a Devil’s advocate, it may not be completely undeniable that, partially quoting late Mr. ‘Jobs’ (slight unintended pun there :), “your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work”, and thus, to a great extent it would define you as a person. However, one big reason for people not believing that they are defined by their job is that they don’t feel that they are not in the right one, either due to a misinformed career choice or for reasons of money or maybe even for other reasons. I can relate my case to fall in any of these reasons apart from the fact that no single thing can possibly define me, and if someone would ask me what I do, what I do for a living would come quite later than many other things in my order of priority.
How I would put my proposition is that “a person’s job ought to define them, that’s the natural process – as in case of I guess all other living objects. But due to evolutionary screw ups, a job is not necessarily what perfectly defines a person and therefore, the over-importance given to it is foolish; if you really want to know some one know them by those other things and especially what they would do if it weren’t for the money.”
Apologies for taking it too ‘emotionally’, but I came across your post as a matter of chance and my 1000cc brain up there just cudnt stop revving at its 6000 rpm mark!
Concludingly if I may also ask how you could get to spend such great time doing such great things.. I mean those things come with a ‘price tag’ right and someone ought to have been paying for it? Genuinely asked this, no offence meant in case I made it look like.
Just the Devil’s advocate arguing that not everyone would have the good-fortune to get to do those stuff and thus, them giving ‘what they do’ a little more importance.
- lbbd fan \m/
Shobhit, my apologies for the delayed response.
I think you sum up your thoughts by suggesting “a person’s job ought to define them, that’s the natural process – as in case of I guess all other living objects. But due to evolutionary screw ups, a job is not necessarily what perfectly defines a person and therefore, the over-importance given to it is foolish; if you really want to know some one know them by those other things and especially what they would do if it weren’t for the money.”, and correct me if I’ve misunderstood – but you finally seem in agreement with the general idea that I’ve presented in this article.
To your point of “who paid for these great things” I did – I don’t believe that at ANY point in my article, I have suggested that you (or any other reader) ought to go out and pursue similar activities. If you give it another read, you’ll realise I’m narrating an example from my own life that fits in to the context of the overall piece. You don’t need to do any of the things I did to be considered as spending your time well, beyond the purview of working in a ‘regular’ job. Having clarified that, does it still matter that I need to tell you who paid for my personal experiences?
Either way, I am always open (and love) a counter point of view. So thank you for taking the time to read this piece and for presenting your useful feedback. Please keep reading and posting. :)
Its really cool that you take out time to reply to (individual) comments!
Well Im certainly in agreement with the general idea highlighted, being in the same team as you :) – Quoting “If anything, my career graph reads like an erratic heart rate monitor, owing to the several jobs I changed looking for that elusive “One” , wherein in a flash of blinding light, on the day I sign the acceptance of employment papers, me and my job will be fused as one complete entity”
Regarding my asking ‘who paid for those thing’, I only asked it in a rhetoric sense with an attempt to illustrate the unfortunate interconnected-ness of ‘pay’ with most things in life… and the consequent over-importance of “the question”. I definitely dont ask you to specify the person here :)
Thanks for replying!
totally agree with you wen u say dat “so what do you do” is the starting point of conversations in most gatherings.. a very well written piece!! infact countries like australia have given up on this question at social gatherings.. what they ask is “so what game do you play??”! n i think that makes for a far more interesting conversation!!
Nupur, That’s an excellent suggestion. And considering the number of men I socialize with – that could be an excellent ice breaker. Also, out of curiosity – are you studying/working in Australia?