4 ms·

At the risk of unsolicited dating advice: is the reason one is embarassed to mention one's occupation to a woman at the bar caused by tech salaries being too hi

by patio11 13y ago

At the risk of unsolicited dating advice: is the reason one is embarassed to mention one's occupation to a woman at the bar caused by tech salaries being too high, or by years of social conditioning telling you that geeks are low status? (Or by learning that the way one signals high status is by constructing a low status outgroup and then explaining how you're unlike them?) An alternative: just pretend society really likes rich people who make things, and start talking about something more interesting than your work.

potatolicious 13y ago
Can't speak for OP, but for me it's much more of the former than the latter. When I lived in Seattle, and later SF, I loathed to tell someone my job. Firstly because in that city it automatically paints a "has a truckload of cash" target on one's head, regardless of whether or not it's true. Secondly because the tech folks in the city are blamed for basically all of the city's woes (this is true in both Seattle and SF). It has little to do with how "low status" software work is (because in those places, it's not really). Now that I'm in NYC I feel much more free about telling people my job. For one thing, the response is generally "oh that's cool, tell me more" instead of "[eyeroll] yet another one", and secondly I'm not the biggest species in the pond anymore. The response to "I'm a software engineer" isn't automatically "you must make a lot of money".
- patio11 13y ago
  Being blamed for things they self-evidently do not control? Eye rolls? These are classic markers of low status.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    It's tricky I think. There are really two orthogonal statuses at play. There's the status conferred by being far wealthier than typical for the area. There's also the status conferred by having a respected/liked job. In Seattle/SF your wealth status is high, but your interestingness status is low. Dirt low even. In NYC your wealth status is middling, but your interestingness status is relatively high. I prefer this setup far, far more. But I'm also not a sociologist - maybe we're defining status differently.
  - walshemj 13y ago
    well at least she didn't say "thats nice what sort of cars do you work on" when she found out that he was an engineer
thetrumanshow 13y ago
"...start talking about something more interesting than your work" Aaannd herein lies the second-order problem for many: that they aren't involved in anything interesting outside of work. This is, by the way, also a problem for us that have already acqui-hired Ms. Right.
ahh 13y ago
The second, and there's basically no solution for it. Other than lie about your job, I guess. I tend to tell girls I'm a "mathematician", which is sort of true, is about equally nerdy but doesn't instantly cue low-status associations, and doesn't lead to further questions. It works about as well as anything I could say would, but I'm still clearly low-status and it sucks. What's your proposed solution to dating as a low-status male? If it's the above "pretend society likes makers", well, uh, nice plan if you can convince everyone else to pretend it too, but until then, women will still want to know and shun you once you tell them.
- patio11 13y ago
  The last time a young lady asked me what I did for a living I did the Old Spice guy impersonation and mentioned I was getting flown abroad to do it for an audience. She married me, so I now have the luxury of not caring anymore what people think of my answers, but they're generally some flavor of "I run a company which does X", where X is one thing I think they'll find interesting. Possible Xes include "helped teach Y00,000 kids to read last year", "gets patients in to see their doctors", or "makes shedloads of money for software companies like Y" if they look like they swing that way. You'll note the pointed absence of "I am a poor peon working in the Ruby on Rails salt mines." (And heck, even when I was a Japanese salaryman, I got better results with "I am in charge of administration of X university's admissions exam" rather than "I write unit tests and XML files, please tune out of this conversation.")
  - ahh 13y ago
    Sadly, I don't run a company, and I'm not in charge of anything high status or visible. I do performance optimization and design threading infrastructure to dramatically improve the experience of writing high performance system software. I think this is pretty valuable, but there's no way to put it that seems high status to non-computer people. Should I just quit and start a company selling shit because that'll look better to everyone else?
    - patio11 13y ago
sshconnection 13y ago
There's been a lot of tech worker backlash in SF lately. Not to speak for Tom, but I've certainly been made uncomfortable after mentioning it to someone who then proceeded to bash "all these Google types" who are forcing out the "true San Franciscans" and "ruining the culture of the city".

by patio11 13y ago

potatolicious 13y ago

Can't speak for OP, but for me it's much more of the former than the latter. When I lived in Seattle, and later SF, I loathed to tell someone my job. Firstly because in that city it automatically paints a "has a truckload of cash" target on one's head, regardless of whether or not it's true. Secondly because the tech folks in the city are blamed for basically all of the city's woes (this is true in both Seattle and SF). It has little to do with how "low status" software work is (because in those places, it's not really). Now that I'm in NYC I feel much more free about telling people my job. For one thing, the response is generally "oh that's cool, tell me more" instead of "[eyeroll] yet another one", and secondly I'm not the biggest species in the pond anymore. The response to "I'm a software engineer" isn't automatically "you must make a lot of money".

patio11 13y ago
Being blamed for things they self-evidently do not control? Eye rolls? These are classic markers of low status.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  It's tricky I think. There are really two orthogonal statuses at play. There's the status conferred by being far wealthier than typical for the area. There's also the status conferred by having a respected/liked job. In Seattle/SF your wealth status is high, but your interestingness status is low. Dirt low even. In NYC your wealth status is middling, but your interestingness status is relatively high. I prefer this setup far, far more. But I'm also not a sociologist - maybe we're defining status differently.
- walshemj 13y ago
  well at least she didn't say "thats nice what sort of cars do you work on" when she found out that he was an engineer

thetrumanshow 13y ago

"...start talking about something more interesting than your work" Aaannd herein lies the second-order problem for many: that they aren't involved in anything interesting outside of work. This is, by the way, also a problem for us that have already acqui-hired Ms. Right.

ahh 13y ago

The second, and there's basically no solution for it. Other than lie about your job, I guess. I tend to tell girls I'm a "mathematician", which is sort of true, is about equally nerdy but doesn't instantly cue low-status associations, and doesn't lead to further questions. It works about as well as anything I could say would, but I'm still clearly low-status and it sucks. What's your proposed solution to dating as a low-status male? If it's the above "pretend society likes makers", well, uh, nice plan if you can convince everyone else to pretend it too, but until then, women will still want to know and shun you once you tell them.

patio11 13y ago
The last time a young lady asked me what I did for a living I did the Old Spice guy impersonation and mentioned I was getting flown abroad to do it for an audience. She married me, so I now have the luxury of not caring anymore what people think of my answers, but they're generally some flavor of "I run a company which does X", where X is one thing I think they'll find interesting. Possible Xes include "helped teach Y00,000 kids to read last year", "gets patients in to see their doctors", or "makes shedloads of money for software companies like Y" if they look like they swing that way. You'll note the pointed absence of "I am a poor peon working in the Ruby on Rails salt mines." (And heck, even when I was a Japanese salaryman, I got better results with "I am in charge of administration of X university's admissions exam" rather than "I write unit tests and XML files, please tune out of this conversation.")
- ahh 13y ago
  Sadly, I don't run a company, and I'm not in charge of anything high status or visible. I do performance optimization and design threading infrastructure to dramatically improve the experience of writing high performance system software. I think this is pretty valuable, but there's no way to put it that seems high status to non-computer people. Should I just quit and start a company selling shit because that'll look better to everyone else?
  - patio11 13y ago

sshconnection 13y ago

There's been a lot of tech worker backlash in SF lately. Not to speak for Tom, but I've certainly been made uncomfortable after mentioning it to someone who then proceeded to bash "all these Google types" who are forcing out the "true San Franciscans" and "ruining the culture of the city".