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When I did my PhD I hated it when (most) people asked about my research. It's not because I wasn't interested, it's because I'm really interested and was (still

When I did my PhD I hated it when (most) people asked about my research. It's not because I wasn't interested, it's because I'm really interested and was (still am) bad at giving concise summaries, so I felt like people who really didn't care and wouldn't listen to the answer were asking me to embark on a long explanation that required a bunch of preamble etc, just in order to make conversation. Anyway, I feel largely the same about work. I love talking about what I do, but not with people who aren't listening and who are just asking to form an opinion of my social status. So 9 times out of 10 I just sort of mumble something and talk about something else, just like in grad school.

chakintosh 4y ago
I'm in the same boat. But I usually just say I draw rectangles on a screen.
- johndunne 4y ago
  Tell me more…
  - chakintosh 4y ago
    Well, I'm a UX Designer.
- dspillett 4y ago
  My go-to answer for “what do you do for a living?” is “as little as I can get away with”.
  - icedchai 4y ago
    "I'm a professional Zoom meeting attender. Occasionally I write code."
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    To this day, my wife reminds me that was the first question her mother ever asked me and my answer was "as little as possible."
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  "boring IT guy stuff. how about them Jets, tho, amiright?"
darkerside 4y ago
> bad at giving concise summaries This seems like something you could work on instead of implying it's other people's fault for asking you about a topic that they don't know they aren't interested in yet. If you have a punchy 20 second description, and then ask what they do, you'll have pivoted away unless they want to bring it back.
- jraph 4y ago
  To be fair, I think the parent commenter is aware this is not the fault of the one who asked. Though when doing a PhD, it's a worthy goal to be able do give a quick description. It also forces you to think about the goal / meaning of your work. Some topics are more easily summarized, but still. We do science for people, it's only fair to be able to present them your work more or less roughly. I had something for people not into computers, like: "I work on a method to find and understand computer bugs quicker and better." (Familiar with bugs? you don't like them? So you know it's useful!) And then I could develop for the curious. "Programs are written with code that tells the computer what to do, step by step. Like a cooking recipe. There are tools to see programs do things step by step so you can notice some step is wrong. On big programs this gets tedious. My approach helps starting this step by step investigation closer to the problematic step." If still curious: "How? There's another method that looks at the step that looks at these steps and check they are correct with respect to some given rule. For instance, if you have a bag of objects, no step should try to remove an object if the bag is empty. This technique usually tells you something is wrong but does not tell you why it happen. I combine the first method with the second one: when some rule is broken, you are left exploring the program step by step at the point the rule broke, which is way better than doing it from the beginning". And go further / present the caveats if I feel whoever is listening is still curious. For the people who already actually interacted with some code, I would also drop the technical words that are probably familiar to them. If you don't know whether they already actually know some stuff, they usually say the technical words themselves, to clarify. For people who asked politely, they would receive the one sentence summary but often they want to know more if you piqued their curiosity. I had something like a progressive image of the thing that gets more and more precise to stop at the right time. By the way you probably started skipping paragraphs in my comment at the point yours was satisfied. I made several paragraphs to allow you to do so.
verelo 4y ago
I try play a game when i meet a new person: see how long i can go without discussing work with them. The best new connections tend to take the longest to reach work, it’s often a signal of a lazy conversation starter and like you said just an attempt to size up our social status.
- throwaway290 4y ago
  Same here but with "where are you from".
- plagiarist 4y ago
  I have some anxiety so I recognize it as people looking for a safe topic in hopes of striking some common ground. It is still lazy conversation skills and boring for everyone involved. I wish I wasn't like that, but inferring from past events I won't change any time soon.
- jraph 4y ago
  > it’s often a signal of a lazy conversation starter But this is fine, no? If it helps start a more enjoyable discussion afterwards. When you don't know the ones you are speaking with at all. Though I indeed avoid focusing on work when starting a conversation. I usually try to phrase the question as "What do you do in your life?", which is more general and allows answering hobbies. I'm more interested in what people like than what they are possibly forced to do to fund it, or their opinions. Usually people will answer their what they do for a living but they will get another, more explicit question. I'm interested in knowing whether they will indeed answer by what they do for a living though. And if they do something meaningful or enjoying for their living, it's actually interesting.
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    I don't see a point of any questions like that, and somehow I always find things to talk about in a social setting. Stuff they do, place they were born etc can always enter a conversation if relevant, or not if they don't want to talk about that. Asking these is always intrusive, you might not think so if you are fully comfortable talking about what you do or where you're from etc, but that's not all people.
donatj 4y ago
You can really just give your title and a little flavor. I generally say “Oh, I’m a software developer for an educational company. I work on a reading app.” and that’s usually all there is to that unless they ask follow-up questions; I would say that’s less than a third of the time. Every once in a while you get the hyper-interested person who asks a ton of follow-ups but they’re at least usually actually listening.
- dTal 4y ago
  That doesn't work if your field is super weird and niche. You end up giving the same elevator pitch over, and over, and over... I suppose it's a "nice problem to have".
  - donatj 4y ago
    I'd be very curious to hear an example that couldn't be summarized as "I am a <blank> doing <blank>". Of people I know, the most niche I can think of is doing work with programming mitochondrial DNA and my answer for her job would simply be "I'm a scientist studying cells for <insert-medical-company>."
    - version_five 4y ago
      Being able to summarize is one thing, conveying any information is another. There are definitely jobs where giving even a remote sense of what you do takes more than a pithy statement. People either come up with a technically correct bromide like you suggest or some silly pithy "I help teams collaborate better" thing that sounds silly. Unless you're like a doctor or a fireman, it's not so easy to convey real information.
      - donatj 4y ago
        Here's the stumbling block - people aren't looking for "real information" when they ask what you do at a party, they're just looking to get a rough idea of who you are so they can find common ground to continue the conversation.
david38 4y ago
This is a lost opportunity to gain some valuable communication skills
- LoganDark 4y ago
  So what? I lose opportunities to gain "valuable skills" all the time. There are better ways to acquire those skills than this, especially since it's a huge mood drain
gnutrino 4y ago
I was at a dinner party and asked someone what they do. They ran a research lab, and I was really interested, and asked questions. He was surprised I actually liked chemistry and was interested in his research. He said normally people just joke about how they hated chemistry in high school, so he normally avoided talking about it. He said people don't realize it's really rude to basically tell someone that their life's work is boring and they hated it when they were 16. I'm now much more careful about how I respond to what people do for a living, even if it's not something that I'm interested in.
- devilbunny 4y ago
  > people don't realize it's really rude to basically tell someone that their life's work is boring and they hated it when they were 16 They generally do, but when you drop something like "I'm a research chemist" on them, they freeze up. In most jobs, there's a certain commonality of experiences. Oh, tell me about your craziest customer stories, or the worst meeting you ever flew across the country for, or whatever. When you have a job that doesn't fall into an "office work" category... that isn't going to work out. Since most people aren't great or even good conversationalists, they're going to fire off a lame joke and hope it's not a total disaster. I'm an anesthesiologist. If I never hear another family member say "you're going to need a really big hammer to knock him/her out", I'll join the church of whatever god made that happen. In purely social situations, though, I know it's a conversation-killer, because most doctors don't know much about what I do, let alone laymen. So I have a small repertoire of ways to redirect the conversation back to "let's get to know each other a bit" topics. I think anyone in an unusual (but not, on its face, fascinating) job does.
JohnFen 4y ago
This. I enjoy talking shop a great deal -- but I absolutely hate it when I've been going on about something that has caught my fancy and then notice that I've been boring the person I'm talking to to tears. So I mostly don't talk about my work unless I'm just with other software people.

chakintosh 4y ago

I'm in the same boat. But I usually just say I draw rectangles on a screen.

johndunne 4y ago
Tell me more…
- chakintosh 4y ago
  Well, I'm a UX Designer.
dspillett 4y ago
My go-to answer for “what do you do for a living?” is “as little as I can get away with”.
- icedchai 4y ago
  "I'm a professional Zoom meeting attender. Occasionally I write code."
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  To this day, my wife reminds me that was the first question her mother ever asked me and my answer was "as little as possible."
red-iron-pine 4y ago
"boring IT guy stuff. how about them Jets, tho, amiright?"

darkerside 4y ago

> bad at giving concise summaries This seems like something you could work on instead of implying it's other people's fault for asking you about a topic that they don't know they aren't interested in yet. If you have a punchy 20 second description, and then ask what they do, you'll have pivoted away unless they want to bring it back.

jraph 4y ago
To be fair, I think the parent commenter is aware this is not the fault of the one who asked. Though when doing a PhD, it's a worthy goal to be able do give a quick description. It also forces you to think about the goal / meaning of your work. Some topics are more easily summarized, but still. We do science for people, it's only fair to be able to present them your work more or less roughly. I had something for people not into computers, like: "I work on a method to find and understand computer bugs quicker and better." (Familiar with bugs? you don't like them? So you know it's useful!) And then I could develop for the curious. "Programs are written with code that tells the computer what to do, step by step. Like a cooking recipe. There are tools to see programs do things step by step so you can notice some step is wrong. On big programs this gets tedious. My approach helps starting this step by step investigation closer to the problematic step." If still curious: "How? There's another method that looks at the step that looks at these steps and check they are correct with respect to some given rule. For instance, if you have a bag of objects, no step should try to remove an object if the bag is empty. This technique usually tells you something is wrong but does not tell you why it happen. I combine the first method with the second one: when some rule is broken, you are left exploring the program step by step at the point the rule broke, which is way better than doing it from the beginning". And go further / present the caveats if I feel whoever is listening is still curious. For the people who already actually interacted with some code, I would also drop the technical words that are probably familiar to them. If you don't know whether they already actually know some stuff, they usually say the technical words themselves, to clarify. For people who asked politely, they would receive the one sentence summary but often they want to know more if you piqued their curiosity. I had something like a progressive image of the thing that gets more and more precise to stop at the right time. By the way you probably started skipping paragraphs in my comment at the point yours was satisfied. I made several paragraphs to allow you to do so.

verelo 4y ago

I try play a game when i meet a new person: see how long i can go without discussing work with them. The best new connections tend to take the longest to reach work, it’s often a signal of a lazy conversation starter and like you said just an attempt to size up our social status.

throwaway290 4y ago
Same here but with "where are you from".
plagiarist 4y ago
I have some anxiety so I recognize it as people looking for a safe topic in hopes of striking some common ground. It is still lazy conversation skills and boring for everyone involved. I wish I wasn't like that, but inferring from past events I won't change any time soon.
jraph 4y ago
> it’s often a signal of a lazy conversation starter But this is fine, no? If it helps start a more enjoyable discussion afterwards. When you don't know the ones you are speaking with at all. Though I indeed avoid focusing on work when starting a conversation. I usually try to phrase the question as "What do you do in your life?", which is more general and allows answering hobbies. I'm more interested in what people like than what they are possibly forced to do to fund it, or their opinions. Usually people will answer their what they do for a living but they will get another, more explicit question. I'm interested in knowing whether they will indeed answer by what they do for a living though. And if they do something meaningful or enjoying for their living, it's actually interesting.
- throwaway290 4y ago
  I don't see a point of any questions like that, and somehow I always find things to talk about in a social setting. Stuff they do, place they were born etc can always enter a conversation if relevant, or not if they don't want to talk about that. Asking these is always intrusive, you might not think so if you are fully comfortable talking about what you do or where you're from etc, but that's not all people.

donatj 4y ago

You can really just give your title and a little flavor. I generally say “Oh, I’m a software developer for an educational company. I work on a reading app.” and that’s usually all there is to that unless they ask follow-up questions; I would say that’s less than a third of the time. Every once in a while you get the hyper-interested person who asks a ton of follow-ups but they’re at least usually actually listening.

dTal 4y ago
That doesn't work if your field is super weird and niche. You end up giving the same elevator pitch over, and over, and over... I suppose it's a "nice problem to have".
- donatj 4y ago
  I'd be very curious to hear an example that couldn't be summarized as "I am a <blank> doing <blank>". Of people I know, the most niche I can think of is doing work with programming mitochondrial DNA and my answer for her job would simply be "I'm a scientist studying cells for <insert-medical-company>."
  - version_five 4y ago
    Being able to summarize is one thing, conveying any information is another. There are definitely jobs where giving even a remote sense of what you do takes more than a pithy statement. People either come up with a technically correct bromide like you suggest or some silly pithy "I help teams collaborate better" thing that sounds silly. Unless you're like a doctor or a fireman, it's not so easy to convey real information.
    - donatj 4y ago
      Here's the stumbling block - people aren't looking for "real information" when they ask what you do at a party, they're just looking to get a rough idea of who you are so they can find common ground to continue the conversation.

david38 4y ago

This is a lost opportunity to gain some valuable communication skills

LoganDark 4y ago
So what? I lose opportunities to gain "valuable skills" all the time. There are better ways to acquire those skills than this, especially since it's a huge mood drain

gnutrino 4y ago

I was at a dinner party and asked someone what they do. They ran a research lab, and I was really interested, and asked questions. He was surprised I actually liked chemistry and was interested in his research. He said normally people just joke about how they hated chemistry in high school, so he normally avoided talking about it. He said people don't realize it's really rude to basically tell someone that their life's work is boring and they hated it when they were 16. I'm now much more careful about how I respond to what people do for a living, even if it's not something that I'm interested in.

devilbunny 4y ago
> people don't realize it's really rude to basically tell someone that their life's work is boring and they hated it when they were 16 They generally do, but when you drop something like "I'm a research chemist" on them, they freeze up. In most jobs, there's a certain commonality of experiences. Oh, tell me about your craziest customer stories, or the worst meeting you ever flew across the country for, or whatever. When you have a job that doesn't fall into an "office work" category... that isn't going to work out. Since most people aren't great or even good conversationalists, they're going to fire off a lame joke and hope it's not a total disaster. I'm an anesthesiologist. If I never hear another family member say "you're going to need a really big hammer to knock him/her out", I'll join the church of whatever god made that happen. In purely social situations, though, I know it's a conversation-killer, because most doctors don't know much about what I do, let alone laymen. So I have a small repertoire of ways to redirect the conversation back to "let's get to know each other a bit" topics. I think anyone in an unusual (but not, on its face, fascinating) job does.

JohnFen 4y ago

This. I enjoy talking shop a great deal -- but I absolutely hate it when I've been going on about something that has caught my fancy and then notice that I've been boring the person I'm talking to to tears. So I mostly don't talk about my work unless I'm just with other software people.