What Is Your Job?

Some people say it is rude or a bit intrusive to ask what a person does for a living. One reason I agree with is when the question then leads to asking how much that person earns, which I agree is private to him/her. Unless you are very close, question about salary seems sensitive.

But to simply ask what a person does, is I think quite harmless. I would even argue that it can be very insightful, because what a person work as, can tell a lot about that person. It can be a generalization, saying for example people who work as doctors are caring, which can be untrue as there might be doctors who don’t really care for their patient (although unlikely). Still it can be said that what a person does day in and day out, becomes a habit. And a habit becomes character, over time.

So if someone works for a job for more than a few years, some generalization about the occupation bound to be applicable to the person. Hence I don’t think it is a problem to ask what a person does for a living, as it sheds some light on his/her character. But there comes another question, as jobs nowadays are becoming more complex. And it doesn’t help that some jobs have been ‘rebranded’ with unclear names. There’s also the case of new jobs, where previously it doesn’t exist. I’m not talking about influencers, but more like cyber security and AI related job. Also with more stringent standards in technology, more job positions exist where their tasks are not as simple to explain as before.

Thank you for reading.