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Just wondering, how common is it to define yourself as your job? My job is as boring and globally pointless as making cars. I'm not going to be so presumptuous

by dfxm12 7y ago

Just wondering, how common is it to define yourself as your job? My job is as boring and globally pointless as making cars. I'm not going to be so presumptuous as to claim to have an answer to such a philosophical question of what it means to be a man, but I do know "having the same job in perpetuity" would be relatively low on the list. I might even think the reliance on politicians, or belief in their obvious lies about such situations as decidedly childish.

temp99990 7y ago
Increasingly very common? Without religion and people going unmarried/without kids, your career has become the thing that you pay more attention to. I don’t agree with it at all, mostly because too often a job looks like a toxic relationship more than anything else, meaning you as an employee are expected to be fully emotionally invested in your work, while at the same time your company can fire you in the blink of an eye and not think twice about it.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  I don't identify with my job, but absolutely with my profession. I'm a developer. Given the extreme level of specialization one needs to reach any heights in a profession, you kind of need to commit and go.
- manfredo 7y ago
  > Without religion and people going unmarried/without kids, your career has become the thing that you pay more attention to. Anecdotally, the young people I know treat employment as a transaction and recognize the lip-service to all the talk about how the company is like a family for what it is: lip-service. I associate this kind of emotional investment in employment with older workers, especially ones in union jobs where employment forms one's social and political community.
jasode 7y ago
>, how common is it to define yourself as your job? [...] philosophical question of what it means to be a man, The person who's quoted in the article isn't expounding on philosophy. He's just repeating a common phrase when someone loses the income to feed his family. The full quote is the last sentence of the article: >“Without the ability to feed my family and pay for my children and feed my children, what am I as a man?” He wasn't defining himself in terms of his job. I think we can presume he'd feel fine if he wins the lottery and quits his job because at that point, he's still be able to feed his family without any job.
dockd 7y ago
From my experience, I was much more defined by having a job than I realized. I quit a contracting job. It lead to awkward conversations with people ("What do you do for a living?") and some odd soul searching (what is my place in society?).
fwip 7y ago
It's pretty clearly based on American 20th century gender roles. The women takes care of the home and kids, the man goes to work and provides for the family. When a man can't fulfill his assigned role, he gets a crisis, because that's all he knows how to do and be valued for. It's what he prided himself on, providing for the family, and without that he's thrown into despair. This is like, textbook reaction of a white man who finds himself laid off or fired.

by dfxm12 7y ago

temp99990 7y ago

Increasingly very common? Without religion and people going unmarried/without kids, your career has become the thing that you pay more attention to. I don’t agree with it at all, mostly because too often a job looks like a toxic relationship more than anything else, meaning you as an employee are expected to be fully emotionally invested in your work, while at the same time your company can fire you in the blink of an eye and not think twice about it.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
I don't identify with my job, but absolutely with my profession. I'm a developer. Given the extreme level of specialization one needs to reach any heights in a profession, you kind of need to commit and go.
manfredo 7y ago
> Without religion and people going unmarried/without kids, your career has become the thing that you pay more attention to. Anecdotally, the young people I know treat employment as a transaction and recognize the lip-service to all the talk about how the company is like a family for what it is: lip-service. I associate this kind of emotional investment in employment with older workers, especially ones in union jobs where employment forms one's social and political community.

jasode 7y ago

>, how common is it to define yourself as your job? [...] philosophical question of what it means to be a man, The person who's quoted in the article isn't expounding on philosophy. He's just repeating a common phrase when someone loses the income to feed his family. The full quote is the last sentence of the article: >“Without the ability to feed my family and pay for my children and feed my children, what am I as a man?” He wasn't defining himself in terms of his job. I think we can presume he'd feel fine if he wins the lottery and quits his job because at that point, he's still be able to feed his family without any job.

dockd 7y ago

From my experience, I was much more defined by having a job than I realized. I quit a contracting job. It lead to awkward conversations with people ("What do you do for a living?") and some odd soul searching (what is my place in society?).

fwip 7y ago

It's pretty clearly based on American 20th century gender roles. The women takes care of the home and kids, the man goes to work and provides for the family. When a man can't fulfill his assigned role, he gets a crisis, because that's all he knows how to do and be valued for. It's what he prided himself on, providing for the family, and without that he's thrown into despair. This is like, textbook reaction of a white man who finds himself laid off or fired.