Why is it that when we meet people, the first (or close to the first) thing they ask is "what do you do for a living?" or, on occasion, "What do your parents do for a living?" When we introduce ourselves to people and they ask the horrid question of "tell me a little about yourself" why is the answer always "I'm a (fill in the blank with job title here)"?
This societal ritual makes me very uncomfortable, especially because I have what people perceive to be a 'boring' job. There are disinterested nods and glazed-over expressions. The image that pops into their head is inevitably this or something very much like it:
(source)
The thing is, I love my job and I get very tired of defending it. I'm even abused for my job by OTHER ACCOUNTANTS because I chose tax as my specialty. I considered not even putting my actual job in the profile of this blog for fear of losing readers.
Should I stop introducing myself as an accountant so I don't have to deal with this problem?
"Hi, I'm Jen. I enjoy photography in all forms, decoupage, science fiction and drama shows, cult movies, indie and punk music, museums, and my newest passion, blogging. Also, I work at a Big 4 CPA firm." and then segue into a discussion of how I made my coffee table, brilliant!
... that sounds infinitely better than "I'm Jen, a tax accountant...(blank stares)... but I really love my job! It's so interesting! Really!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!"
Does anyone else have this or a similar problem? What do you do when faced with job judgmentalists?