8 ms·
I've found it's best to explain my job using unintelligible jargon. There are three choices, really: You can give a quick explanation in terms they understand
by dkarl 1y ago
I've found it's best to explain my job using unintelligible jargon.
There are three choices, really:
You can give a quick explanation in terms they understand, which makes your job sound easy and makes them wonder how anybody gets paid to do it.
You can explain what you do and why it's important in terms they understand, but it'll take so long they'll get bored and wish they hadn't asked.
Or you can give a quick explanation using jargon that they don't understand, which will leave them bored but impressed, which is the best of the bad options.
- tomrod 1y agoI choose the worst of all options and go into excruciating detail.
- bell-cot 1y agoThereby minimizing how often anyone asks you - which makes that the best long-term option?
- EvanAnderson 1y agoThat would only work if you were getting repeat inquiries from the same person. Otherwise it's just the longest possible option for each new inquiry. I always opt for excruciating detail because it's what I enjoy the most.
- bell-cot 1y ago> That would only work if ... Sounds like none of the people you answered, in excruciating detail, cared to warn other people about what would happen if they asked you.
- EvanAnderson 1y agoAhh! I didn't think about the word-of-mouth. Good call.
- baobun 1y agoIt really can go both ways. Was told that "Ask baobun about hacking when you're high" came recommended.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 1y agoMy wife's eyes just gloss over. Maybe I should try with some other test subjects.
- tomrod 1y agoOne of the classical assessments in strategic behavior is "be worse than your roommates at chores so they do them, but not so bad they kick you to the curb."
- doubledamio 1y agoIf you can't explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it well enough
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- thorum 1y agoSome ideas are too complex to explain accurately in simple terms. You can give someone a simple explanation of quantum chromodynamics and have them walk away feeling like they learned something, but only by glossing over or misrepresenting critical details. You’d basically just be lying to them.
- ars 1y agoThere's nothing wrong with that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children
- pests 1y agoReminds me of the old videos on the Mill CPU architecture. There is multi hour long video about “the belt”, a primary concept in understanding the Mill architecture and instruction scheduling. It’s portrayed in the slides as an actual belt with a queue of items about to be processed, etc. Only in the end to reveal the belt is truely conceptualized and does not formally exist. The belt is an accurate visual representation and teaching tool, but the actual mechanics emerge from data latches and the timing of releasing the data, etc. I thought it was helpful.
- watersb 1y agohttps://youtu.be/QGw-cy0ylCc https://youtu.be/QGw-cy0ylCc Is this an asynchronous architecture CPU?
- 1y ago
- sdenton4 1y agoI kinda love doing the quick+easy explanation... And especially in professional contexts. "I teach computers what sounds different aminals make."
- imoreno 1y ago>You can give a quick explanation in terms they understand, which makes your job sound easy and makes them wonder how anybody gets paid to do it. What is the problem with this? Most jobs, when simplified, sound like "anybody can do it". I think it's generally understood among adults who have been in the workforce that, no, in fact anybody cannot do it.
- pcthrowaway 1y agoThere is no problem with it, but I assume there are many people who will look upon you favourably if they think you do a highly skilled job. While many of us may not care to impress those people, there are certainly those who do (possibly people with similar attitudes who care more about validation from people who think like them) A somewhat ungenerous characterization of the attitude may be something like the Rocket Scientist vs Brain Surgeon sketch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I But we should also acknowledge that there's an entire culture built around valuing people and their time relative to one's perception of their "importance", that this culture can influence one's earning potential and acquisition of material possessions, and that many people do care about things like "seeming important" or moving upwards in this hierarchy as a result.
- Geezus_42 1y agoI think which direction you choose is about knowing your audience. As you mentioned, different people value different things and humans often want to present a different view of ourselves to different people at different times.
- bravesoul2 1y agoOr tell them about the bit of the job they understand. "I teach maths to adults".
- pseudocomposer 1y agoWhen I meet people who immediately use hyper-specific jargon with strangers, I either distrust them, or assume they’re not emotionally intelligent (because it’s a choice demonstrates little respect for the person they’re addressing). It also projects that they may be compensating for some emotional insecurity on their own end, trying to assert intellectual “superiority” in some way. The first option (explaining things simply) might make your job sound easy to a very small minority of extremely uneducated, under-stimulated people, who also have unaddressed insecurities around their own intelligence. But that’s not most humans. Moderately-to-very intelligent people appreciate how difficult (and useful) it is to explain complex things simply. Hell, most “dumb” people understand, recognize, and appreciate this ability. Honestly, I think not appreciating simple explanations indicates both low mathematical/logical and social/emotional intelligence. Which makes explaining things simply a useful filter for, well… people that I wouldn’t get along with anyway. With all that said, I prefer to first explain my job in an “explain like I’m 5” style and, if the other party indicates interest, add detail and jargon, taking into account related concepts that may already be familiar to them. If you take them into account, they won’t get bored when you go into detail.
- Miraste 1y ago>extremely uneducated, under-stimulated people, who also have unaddressed insecurities around their own intelligence. But that’s not most humans. This isn't going to be most humans you encounter if you're in the HN demographic, but that's a bubble. It does describe most people in the world.
- dgfitz 1y agoThis is, in a word, nonsense.
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago> When I meet people who immediately use hyper-specific jargon with strangers, I either distrust them, or assume they’re not emotionally intelligent (because it’s a choice demonstrates little respect for the person they’re addressing). For me, it's quite the opposite: such a choice demonstrates that they their prior is that I'm sufficiently smart and knowledgable to be likely able to understand this explanation - which I rather consider to be a praise. :-)
- Angostura 1y agoThe latter option always comes across as rude. It's a very clear 'piss off you insect'
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago> The latter option always comes across as rude. It's a very clear 'piss off you insect' To me, it rather tells: "I consider you to be likely to be sufficiently smart and knowledgable to understand this topic if you put in some effort: do you want to learn some cool stuff which otherwise would demand a lot of literature research to learn? And since I already hinted that I consider you to be smart and knowledgable: would you like to teach me some cool, complicated stuff, too?"
- ted_dunning 1y agoThat would be nice. But it is by far more common that it means "piss off you insect".
- xorcist 1y ago> You can give a quick explanation in terms they understand, which makes your job sound easy This is always the right answer. It is the only answer that respects the listener and contains a seed to further conversation.
- jvanderbot 1y agoI don't see what's hard about threading the needle, or maybe I'm completely lacking in EQ "I'm a mathematician, I study how shapes fit together, which surprisingly, is being used for new methods of secure communication by so and so university, but I just love the math"
- jimbokun 1y agoOr “I’m a mathematician. I try really hard to find things I can prove that have no practical application. But frustratingly people keep finding important practical applications for my work.”
- ahazred8ta 1y ago> No one has yet found any war-like purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity or quantum mechanics, and it seems very unlikely that anybody will do so for many years. - G.H.Hardy, Jan 1940 > A few decades later, we stand waiting for nuclear bombs guided by GPS to be launched when the cryptographic auth certificate is verified. So it goes.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1y agoI once told my dad that if the subject of my thesis was something I could easily explain then it wouldn't be interesting enough to do a PhD in. I said it half-jokingly and he laughed about it, but he stopped asking me what I'm studying after that so maybe he did take it more seriously.
- lupire 1y agoHard to explain doesn't make it interesting either.
- guicen 1y agoThere’s something bittersweet about that moment when someone you love stops asking about your research. It’s a quiet kind of respect, but also a reminder of the communication gap academia often creates.
- ahazred8ta 1y agoIntroduce him to the annual Dance Your PhD contest: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dance+your+phd&ia=videos&iax=videos https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dance+your+phd&ia=videos&iax=video...
- coderatlarge 1y agoi once got excited to explain to my father what i did at a research lab after grad school. he listened patiently for about 30 minutes then he said “oh, so you build software for big business?”
- ted_dunning 1y agoOf course, there is the unstated second part that you really aren't qualified for a PhD until you can explain it simply.
- dsaalgo 1y ago> There are three choices There is another: Give away as little information as you can about it. Don’t say or agree that it’s secret or that you can’t talk about it- just be tight-lipped, and don’t divulge. If you do it right, you will seem mysterious. If you do it wrong, they probably won’t talk to you much again. Win-win.
- volemo 1y ago— Hi, and what do you do? — What’s your security clearance?
- eru 1y agoThere's more choices than three. Eg you can focus on what you actually do, or you can focus on the benefits you bring to other people.
- dietr1ch 1y ago> You can give a quick explanation in terms they understand, which makes your job sound easy and makes them wonder how anybody gets paid to do it. What's wrong with this? Making it look easy is why you get paid for it.
- johnfn 1y agoThe way I think about it is this. There are roughly two groups of people: - Some people will not care / be dismissive of what I have to say. I probably don't want to talk to these people much. - Some people will be interested! I probably will like these people. If I use technical jargon, I am optimizing to impress people I don't really care about impressing - and I will be pushing away the people that I would actually be interested to spend time with. If I speak respectfully, i.e. the simple explanation, it will resonate more with the people I like. I will push away the people who don't care, but I didn't really want to talk with them anyways.
- ykonstant 1y ago>You can explain what you do and why it's important in terms they understand, but it'll take so long they'll get bored and wish they hadn't asked. Yes, don't fall into this trap. The other two options are still better. Everyone says, "no, no, I really want to know" and then tunes out two minutes later; then four minutes later they start doing the George Carlin lean: "Surgery! I am having my ears sewn shut!".
- teiferer 1y agoI'll bite: What is your job?
- tengwar2 1y agoChief Dexitroboper.
- kristopolous 1y agoReally? When I see that all I think is it's one of "them" - the kind that takes some kind of perverse pleasure in needlessly mystifying, complicating, and obfuscating things as much as possible - especially the trivial. Blowing smoke around simple things to gatekeep them is not impressive and not cute.
- mkehrt 1y agoI think you can explain the product you work on rather the what you actually do. I personally say I work on Bluetooth support for Google Home assistant devices. "It's like Alexa, but Google. Even if you work on some absurdly down stack thing, this seems to work. You work on making sure the internet is as fast as possible, or files are stored in the cloud properly, or the graphics on your computer are displayed correctly.
- ericol 1y agoI don't have that problem ("I work with computers / I am a computer programmer") but I usually follow with "I'm a race driver. I drive the car as fast as I can, I don't change the tires nor the oil in it" when I get the usual "can you fix my computer?" request. For reasons that I care not to ask people get seriously annoyed by that.
- RugnirViking 1y agoI like that analogy for the simple reason that I imagine most race car drivers do in fact have opinions about tires and oil and know how to fix them. It's just not the main part of their job. Similarly, you probably would be a lot better at fixing computers than a layman.
- somethingsome 1y agoI work at many levels and on many different projects, so usually I give a very simple explanation of the most interesting one, in very simple terms, and add, 'that's a small part of my job'. People that are interested can ask either to give more details on what I have explained, or what about the rest. If they are not interested, they say something and I usually ask what about them, no hard feelings. It works smoothly for me.
- lanstin 1y agoI think about things and then type in stuff that makes them work better.