I think you know where this is headed. Someone who knows jack about what you do has a pretty much off-base concept of your job, work, career, whatever you wish to call it.
My contributions:
PT college English professor. What I hear a lot is some variation on this: “Oh, you only have to work in your classroom a few hours a day? And you don’t have to be there every day? How lucky!”
The reality: Yes, those are factual statements as far as they go…but those hours in the classroom can be quite intense, with a lot to keep track of, get done, get handed out, coordinated; answer questions, collect or give things back, and so on. It increases if the class is 3-4 hours long.
Between classes, I have things to grade or other paperwork to take care of, emails and voicemails to respond to, a snack or meal to get at some point so I don’t get woozy, a mailbox to visit which is halfway across a very large campus, etc. And then there is all the work I do at home which is not necessarily compensated. These are not intended as complaints, just clarifications for the most part.
Assessment specialist, reading and scoring essays/placement tests from incoming students.
The usual comments: “Just a few hours per session? Cushy job!”
Okay, it’s not as much work as the teaching gig, and I don’t have to take it home. Cushy? Not quite. A few hours of reading dozens upon dozens of essays indicating all possible ages, learning disorders, concretized errors, varying levels of literacy, and possible psychoses does a number on the ol’ brain after a while. That’s why they limit each session to 3.25 hours.
And how about you? What do people assume about your profession which is not quite accurate or pretty far from it, or what have you?
Working in a bookshop isn’t all that interesting or fun. I haven’t read ALL the books and we don’t serve coffee and sit around discussing books and relationships like in US tv shows/bookstores. No, I don’t know where everyone and everything is in this town either.
Yes, I work at a ski resort. No, I do not ski. Maybe next winter I’ll find the time and money and inclination to take a lesson or three, but ski lessons aren’t exactly cheap, nor is living here. (I looooove living here. But it’s pricey.)
I don’t know if anybody in my office skis, actually. We’re a pretty sedate bunch.
(I know how hard English professors work, vivalostwages. You should whack those morons upside the head with a pile of exam books!)
To the rest of the world this means I never have to work when I don’t “feel” like it, I must take a lot of extended vacations, if I’m really busy it means I have a ton of extra money, and I don’t have to “answer” to anyone.
I’m a 5th Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo; SWMBO is a 4th Degree. We are both very highly trained, professional martial artists.
And I hate the living hell out of it when people find out we are martial artists and promptly think they are being funny by cringing and saying, “Oh, don’t hit me!” or “Oh, I better not piss you off!”
To my friends this means I am a Scientist, and can explain everything from astrophysics to biophysics to them. Well, if the equation has a Greek letter in it, we are all SOL.
To my friends this means I should be a better cook than database administrator; 90% of my lab work is dealing with shockingly poorly designed interfaces to shockingly fragile databases.
To my friends this means I have abandoned my earlier education in the humanities. [Insert howl of frustration]
Writing: Have you ever read an intelligible technical manual? Probably not. Mine are. Mine are great. My greatest frustration is that no-one reads my instructions because they just assume they will be intelligible.
History: Never mind that the history of science is the history of human advancement [remember Guttenberg?]; what about how ‘natural philosophy’ was used to inhibit social and economic advancement?
I work retail
Not Wally Mart or some such, fairly technical stuff…
It amazes me that people think I have memorized every specification on every product, all possible replacement values, voltages, etc.
I love it when they bark out a 10 digit manufacturer’s number… no “Hello” or anything, just walk up to me and say “756-76-2n35B?”. I smile and look at them and reply… “Hello… and what sort of beast is that?”
Worse yet are the people who don’t know what they want, and assume that I am the amazing Kreskin in my other job. “Hi… 6 yrs ago, you guys had a thing… you know, like a transformer, but with out the big heavy thing with the wires?”
Oh, yes, its right over there behind the invisible pink unicorn, under the sign that says “Free previous day delivery”
sheesh
I’m a Registered Nurse. I don’t wear the sexy white hat. I don’t give sponge baths. I’ve never dated a doctor. I don’t pass out bedpans. I’m not an endless. self-less source of compassion and patience.
I have college degrees. I took chemistry and microbiology and anatomy. I see your doc for 3 minutes a day. I don’t work for him/her. I don’t know how good your insurance is. I prioritize and re-prioritize 12 and a half hours a day. I don’t blindly follow anyone’s orders; I know what’s what and will challenge a surgeon, anesthesiologist, pharmacist and/or Chief of Staff to get you what’s right. While you are my responsibility, I’m your Mom AND your sister but I’m not your waitress. I’m a RN and I chose OB/GYN. My cardiac (unless it’s fetal/ newborn) isn’t good and my ortho is worse. I don’t do ER. I do laboring women and post partum women and babies up to 2 days old. I rarely get to “play with the babies”. I deal in blood and vomit and all the other bodily fluids there are. I make good money for what I do. It’s hard, physical work. It’s mentally and emotional tiring.
I love being a nurse. It’s not just what I do, it’s what I am.
I must have to lie to get people to enlist, because everyone who enlists gets sent to Iraq (what we don’t have combat troops in Afghanistan anymore?) and dies there. All I offer enlistees is a lot of money in exchange for a life of abuse.
FTR, there are a more non combat arms positions than there are combat jobs. In fact last month, the Army had filled all of the required combat jobs and the people I was trying to put in Infantry had to pick another job or wait for an Infantry position to open.
I’m a reference and instruction librarian. You’d be amazed how many people think that anybody who works in a library- whether 18 or 81 and whether their job is to stamp the due date on the books or whatever else- is a librarian. A surprising number don’t know what a reference librarian’s job is, which is why whenever I give an orientation the first thing I say is that “My main job is to help you do research- if I look busy then I probably am but I mean it- interrupt me. I’ll take as long as you need to find whatever the best information available is.” A L-O-T of people honestly think that my main job is to put books back on the shelf and occasionally say “shhh” (though in actuality I’ve probably been shooshed more times than I’ve shooshed patrons) and memorize the Dewey Decimal System and, sadly, a great number honestly don’t know that if they have absolutely no clue where to start searching for info then they can ask.
I applied for a job last year, went on the interview, and found out that the library (an academic library/mid sized college/small town) was phasing out live instruction in favor of online only. It was a joint decision by the library and the English department. The people there were nice enough and the interview went well and I withdrew my application [courteously] when I returned home- I’m a HUGE believer that the most important aspect of bibliographic instruction (i.e. teaching people how to use a library) isn’t to teach them what buttons to push (which they’re never going to remember- thus hand-outs) but to teach them what librarians do (i.e. we’re here to help you), and that the value of putting a face/voice to the introduction is irreplaceable in making that known to them.
Anyway, biggest misconception is that the reference librarian’s duty is books and not students. Oh, and the “I should be a librarian… I’d love to read all day” thing, but I usually only get that from stupid people.
I’m a technical writer. My specialty is software documentation for developers.
No, I wasn’t a computer science major, failed or otherwise. I graduated with a BA in English.
No, I don’t just write what the developers tell me to. It requires knowing your audience and your tools before you even pick up your keyboard. And an awareness that you may be writing for international audiences who don’t know an idiom from Adam’s off ox.
No, I don’t write code although I can create API documentation given code comments and access to the people who wrote the APIs.
I work for a bank as an information security analyst.
No, I don’t carry a gun. The servers have not attempted an armed revolt just yet.
No, I can’t get ‘samples’ of cash.
No, I can’t make your overdrafts disappear.
No, I don’t have the combination for the vault. I work for a bank, not at a bank. This is a normal office building with no vault.
No, I said security. Securities are things like stocks and bonds. Call your broker.
See? Just like my humdrum daily work, I say “no” an awful lot:
No, you can’t have root access.
No, I don’t know why your printer isn’t working.
No, you can’t have unlimited dollar amount bank wire initiation privileges.
No, you can’t have root access. (I get asked for that a lot…)
There are six thousand DVDs in this building, and just because I haven’t watched the two “selections” that comprise the Matthew McConaughey Video Library in your head doesn’t mean I haven’t seen any of the others. It just means I have taste. And since you mention it, no, in fact I do not get to sit around watching movies all day; please direct your attention to the overhead monitors and note that they play the same three commercials all day long. I’ll watch your shitty movie when you pay me two hours’ wages to do it, and then you can have this complete stranger’s opinion on it for all the good that will do.
Sigh. It’s only one night a week, but still… I’m starting to think the free rentals just aren’t worth it.
People assume because I work in electronics retail that:
A) I have access to all sorts of cool, Hi-Tech, James Bond-eque gadgetry (Which I don’t).
B) That I can fix electronics, especially of the “You know the box that the cable from the thing goes into? It doesn’t work” variety. (Which I can’t).
C) That I’ve memorised the product specifications of the approximately 3 million different products in the store. (Which I haven’t- If we don’t sell much of it, we don’t tend to keep a mental comprehensive product feature on it.)
D) That I actually know a lot about electronics. I don’t. I know enough about the products to sell them, but as to how they actually worked… well, if I knew that, I’d be an engineer and I wouldn’t spend my days explaining to people the difference between “iPod” and “Mp3 player”. :smack:
I do not secretly try out medications on patients. We take the concept of informed consent seriously. I cannot and do not do anything research related without first having a discussion with the patient about the study, giving them a copy of the consent form to read, and giving them a photocopy if they agree and sign. If the patient is unsure I’ve even just given them a blank consent form and told them to bring it home, read, and think about it.
I do not lie about known side effects - there are stories of that going on in the military or elsewhere but these are rare incidents. Covering up risks would be a huge ethical (not to mention moral) violation - I’d lose my job, I could be prosecuted. Plus I like our patients - well, most of them - and wouldn’t betray their confidence.
I get a bonus for recruiting more patients. No. Any extra bonuses for recruiting more patients are usually limited to small things that don’t really affect me (a little extra money for our department) or maybe going out to dinner. Nothing that’d tangibly make a difference in my efforts to recruit above and beyond my usual.