For me, the job title is pretty much sufficient for me to say I know what someone does. For example, 1 nephew is an MD. Now I happen to know how is a pathologist - which is quite different from a GP or a brain surgeon. I like him enough and am interested enough to know which he is. But even if I didn’t, and just knew he was an MD, I’d think it disingenuous for me to claim I didn’t know what he did just because I didn’t know whether he reported to a clinic, a hospital, a lab…
Same for a good friend of mine. I know she works for a contractor/consultancy that’s under contract with the Department of Homeland Security. Beyond that, she can’t tell me anything.
Heh. My sister is a kindergarten teacher. My brother is a financial officer - I think that’s like accounting. My brother in law does something with the transit system.
My friends? One runs a mail center. No clue. One does policy for farm bureaus. No clue. One manages… army stuff. No clue.
For the family members I’m in touch with, I think I know what their jobs are. I also know most of my friends’ jobs, but some of them I really couldn’t state definitively because it’s like when Monica and Rachel were trying to remember Chandler’s job in Friends and it turned out nobody could actually say what he did. “Works in an office in some way” is as close I can get with them, and even if they explain what it actually is I’m unlikely to remember. They don’t expect anyone to either.
I knew what my parents did in detail and for whom they worked before they retired and later died. Same for my sibs & their spouses and adult kids who are all still alive. Same for my wife and her parents and sibs and their spouses and adult kids.
As we get further afield to aunts, uncles, and cousins from my Dad’s side who live far away it gets more vague, but I have good idea about most of them. My Mom’s many sibs are all deceased and I don’t know anything, not even names, of any of the probably large following generations on that side. That’s a total black hole.
Most of my friend-level neighbors are retired, but I know what many of them did, at least in generalities. And for those few who still work, I know what they do and roughly for who/where.
I know what my sister and brother-in-law do on my side. I also know what my wife’s sister, brother and their spouses do. “What they do” defined as descriptions like “He’s in sales for ACME” or “She’s a grant-writer for Organization”.
Yeah I’d be pretty amazed if anyone I knew said that. Even if you have a lot of siblings, not knowing what they and their spouses did for a living is pretty incredible IMO. Similarly for close friends, I’d say they aren’t really close friends if you have no idea what they do for a living.
I would say that asking people you don’t know very well what they do is touchy subject. I believe its a quirk of California (I spent most of the last 20 years in SF Bay area) that asking someone you’ve literally just met what they do for a living is the norm, and would upset some people (one of my friends would just come up with a completely made up careers, like Rodeo Clown Instructor, when someone did this).
But to answer question 1: generally pretty vague (e.g. “a doctor”.) For my sibilings and their spouses I know a lot more than that, but I have some close friends who i could just say “software engineer at company X”.
My GF didn’t really understand what I did for a living until I started working from home (I’m an automotive project engineer). Then she understood what I meant when I told her I was the Wolf, I’m here to solve problems.
I’m horrible with titles even at my own company. So while I know what my sister does, I always forget what her title is, but I could explain her basic job to you. The same is true for most of my friends who don’t have easy jobs like “attorney” or “doctor” or “accountant.” There are a few people, though, who for whatever reason I just don’t know or can’t figure out what they do for a living.
I’m not trying to make this sound more serious than it is, and by necessity, I am being vague.
However, for about a decade, I worked a few jobs that required significant security clearance. I did not tell anybody what I did. Thus, by extension, none of my inlaws, siblings, relatives, what-have-yous, Straight Dope readers, or my wife for that matter, knew precisely what I did for a living.
This all makes it sound way more exciting than it really was.
Yeah, I think there might be somewhat of a different level of “knowing” that’s being applied here. On the thread this is an offshoot of, the guy who doesn’t know what his brother does does know that his brother is in academia. To me, that’s knowing what he does - he’s an academic (and presumably he knows in which field). Not knowing his specific role in the organisation is a different matter.
I know my wife is some sort of middle manager in a ratings agency that deals with those financial instruments that destroyed the economy in 2007. I don’t know the specifics of what she does day to day in her job, other than review models and talk to bankers.
She vaguely knows that I do something in “technology” consulting.
I had a close friend in a similar position actually. I just knew he was doing secret maths-heavy defense-related computing stuff near Baltimore MD. Years later I mentioned that to another friend and said “Oh he’s working at the NSA then”.
I drive program management for global strategic customers that have a significant cross-cloud workload engagements running concurrently. What’s so hard to understand about that?
I’m kind of an odd “man” out in my mostly-immediate family – who all but one work in the health care field in hospitals. When we get together as a family, I get to hear all their stories, so I have a good idea what most of them do. None of them really knew what I did in any kind of detail (I’m retired now).
Not if they worked in Bell Labs. Everyone who isn’t a manager or distinguished was a Member of Technical Staff. They could be doing semiconductor research, or chemistry, or software design, or hardware design, or listening for cosmic noise like Arno Penzias. Knowing their laboratory number might give you a clue. Area 11 was research, area 52 was chips, for instance.
A lot of tech companies followed this pattern. I don’t think I ever had a descriptive job title in 35 years.
