I can do nothing more than laugh when I get asked this. Now for those of you who know me personally, you already understand why this is fun to me, and maybe it is something that is just a simple communication problem that everyone experiences. My guess is the latter simply because of the way the economy is going and the way several people are responding to it. The other night at a Church function I was sitting next to a couple that I did not know very well when they asked this very question “So, what do you do?”. Sure if I was to be all literal about that, it would go a whole different direction but, even being that I understood what they were asking, I was still at a loss of how to answer. Shall I list out what I do ( for income)?
At the time this was asked, I could have simply responded “my Full time job, I am an Engineer”. the sad part is that really says nothing. I was not a licensed Engineer but my employment position was the responsibilities of a Manufacturing engineer. Even this position was very limited sighting because not even my employee was able to give me an official title with limited grasp of all of the things I was doing for the company at that time.
Even at that, I know that often when that question is asked, it is in an attempt to get to know someone and, with their employment occupying most of their time, it tends to be a good description of who that person is and an easy way to open the door to conversation. For some reason, that has not been the case with me and has made it difficult to answer without killing the conversation altogether. Tips? let me know..