When people find out about your job...

[Sierra_Indigo]

@Mama Tiger

When people find out about my job (transcribing for court reporting firms at home), the first thing they ask me is how can they do it. So I start listing the requirements: self-discipline, typing faster than the wind, great spelling, no homonym errors, minimum six-month learning curve, etc., but I usually don’t get beyond self-discipline before they give up.

Why do they think that just because I get to do it at home means that it’s so easy anybody could do it?

I’d actually really like to do that job, it sounds like something I could do

Internet helpdesk technician. Some people think it automatically means I know everything that’s wrong with their computer. Others will throw out a vague “My internet’s not working, what’s wrong with it?” and expect me to diagnose and fix it there. Sometimes I’ll get a taxi to or from work, and invariably the questions about “What do you do for [Company]” will come up. And no matter what I answer, I’m boned. If I say I’m an internet helpdesk rep, I’ll get a rant about how high our prices are, and the problem they had with their internet last week. If I say I work for the phone or mobile depts, then I get lectured about phone bills, how their friend was a few weeks late paying and their phone got cut off and their dog died and came back as a zombie…

I’ve taken to saying “I answer phones”.

[silenus]

People rarely ask me to teach them European History.

[aruvqan]

@Snowboarder Bo

When people find out about my job, they usually look confused and then change the subject. Very few people do what I do for a living. (Most of the time I build lighting rigs for production events, usually for trade shows & conventions. Occassionally I do the same for TV or film work.)

oOOoo, techies=) did i mention I lurves techies=) they make life interesting [am i the only one who loves sitting down with special effects people and pyros and discussing effects they have worked on? I spent 2 hours with a make up genius about 17 years ago and we watched test footage and discussed how he did all the neatest stuff=) everybody else he had ever met wanted to know if he knew different stars, and if he could get them autographs/tickets/jobs… and I got great ideas on doing halloween fx for my goddaughters parties that i could even manage to do myself…and i got to teach him a few fun with food tricks that ended up getting used in a movie=)]

[Audrey_Levins]

@FairyChatMom

If you’re a bartender, do they ask you to give them free drinks?

Pretty much.

Random people at the bar will ask me for heavy pours/extra liquor/free shots, etc., particularly on their birthday. I don’t know where this Urban Legend got started, but it is NOT true that bartenders give you free shots for your freakin’ birthday. If you’re out with five of your buddies and THEY won’t buy you a shot for your birthday, why the hell should I? And even on the few occasions when I have, just as a social experiment, they don’t even tip me for it.

Most friends of mine kind of expect me to “hook them up” to some extent when they come to my bar, and usually I do, b/c most of my friends are either current or ex-bartenders and I expect them to do the same when I go to their bar.

[mhendo]

I’m studying for a PhD in History. If non-historians ask me questions related to my field, it’s often not because they want advice or information, but because they want to see if they can trip me up. Apparently, some people assume that because i study history, i must know the date of everything that has ever happened anywhere. :rolleyes:

In social situations, i try not to badger people about their professions, or ask them for professional advice. Although i have, on one occasion, sought advice (off the Boards) from a fellow-Doper based on that person’s profession. I won’t say who, in case that person gets inundated with requests. By they know who they are, and that i was most grateful for the advice.

[Cartooniverse]

@jimpatro

I work in television and film prdoduction. So naturally I get asked a lot to program VCRs
And why is it that a $70,000 camera is less complicated than a $200 dollar consumer VCR?

Heh heh. Yo, Bro. I’m a professional cameraman. First I have to explain why I cannot shoot stills of their daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. I shoot moving pictures. Then I have to explain why, even though it’s a respectable way to make a buck, I don’t shoot videos of their daughter’s Bat Mitzvah either.

The 70k DigiBeta is made for us in mind. ( LOL. Well. Shit MOST of the time. The audio guys at Sony need to be taken out behind the anodizing building and beaten senseless, but I digress. :D ). The 200 dollar VCR was designed to get work for " In-Home Video Technicians". See?

Then I get asked who I’ve met. Then I am asked if I can get autographs. ( If I’m dimwitted enough to talk about an upcoming gig involving someone notorious ). I don’t shoot those jobs anymore, but for quite a few years it was both a fun source of namedropping and a hassle in the extreme to tell people the kinds of jobs I shot.

I don’t get autographs. It’s pretty tacky if you are in the biz to ask for them. Some guys do anyway. I don’t know any camerapeople who do. I broke this serious hard and fast rule once. I was shooting at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. My childhood best pal is a baseball fanatic. ( Yes, we’re from Philly so I should have said Phanatic… ). I decided to go for a huge surprise for him, and get autographs from the 4 or 5 Hall of Famers who were there. Can’t remember any of em. One was a really famous knuckleballer and I shot him throwing a knuckleball right towards the camera. Damned…if it didn’t just sit there, moving at me at prolly 50 mph. Anyway, I asked Production first. They said sure, just be cool about it. Then I asked H.O.F’er #1. He was wary, but I said " Look, I am NOT going to sell this. Autograph it as " To Mitch, Best Wishes"- that’s my pal’s name and these really are for HIM." As soon as they realized it was a gift and not a free autograph to sell off, each and every one was game and glad to do it. I got I dunno, 4 or 5 signed to Mitch. Bought a plastic holder for each one, sent them to him for his birthday. Haven’t asked since that day. As I said, you really don’t do that.

Then they ask me " How’d they do that?? " and I typically tell them to go and find a good Lighting Technician who designs rigging, he’ll be able to answer their questions.

Cartooniverse

[Waenara]

@ladyfoxfyre

“Whoa, you’re a pharmacy tech?”
Yes.
“So you can like, get me drugs and stuff, right?”
No, I would lose my job and go to jail.
“Well, I have this really bad headache and last time I took a Vicodin it really helped…”
Then go to your doctor. Vicodin is probably a little overkill for a headache.
“Okay, what if you just tell me how to get into the pharmacy and tell me where the Oxycontin is…”
No. Again.

-foxy

Similar to my current job. I don’t work in a pharmacy, but I work for my province’s (in Canada) Triplicate Prescription Program, which tracks usage of certain potentially-addictive drugs (e.g. Oxycontin, morphine, Ritalin, methadone and others).

When I tell people where I work they are either:

[ul]
[li]freak out, and think I work in some high-security hush-hush position and are too frightened to say/ask me anything further[/li][li]assume I must be a doctor or hold some really high position (but about 60% of my job is just data entry). Although this sometimes has the benefit of people taking me more seriously - I’m in my 26, but I only look about 20 or 21.[/li][*]start to ask very detailed questions about drugs, scams people pull to get drugs, and how people double-doctor to get extra drugs. Perhaps these are just innocent questions asked out of curiosity, but people! do you honestly expect me to tell you how other people have successfully scammed the system? WTF ?![/ul]

[Waenara]

Gah! please ignore the various grammar errors - I edited it a few times and forgot to proof-read before submitting.

[Buckler_of_Swashing]

Originally Posted by FairyChatMom
A question for stay-at-home moms and dads - do “friends” and neighbors assume you have nothing better to do all day than to do them favors?

Yeah my mum works (very hard) from home, and people seem to have this filter in their ears that lets ‘work from home’ through as ‘bored housewife’. So of course, she’d love you to ask her to babysit your terrors, walk your dogs, do drive-to-the shops-day with all the elderly of the district, chat meaninglessly in the street, go wait for the item repairman at your house on Tuesday because you have to go to work (read ‘your REAL job’ )and he can only call then or next month.

Growl.
Anyway, I buy/sell second hand and antiquarian books. Most of my friends are my age and at University, which as my parents will tell you is ‘where I should be!!!’ . Anyway as a consequence most of the people I meet socially are through them, and are thus also at Uni.

I’m introduced, they’re told what I do, and it’s ‘Ooooooh, say, do you have a copy of… ?’ and off we go. They’re nearly all got their pet subjects to delve into and the texts they’re supposed to acquire anyway, as well their favourite ‘leisure-time’ books.

Which is fine until I have to tell someone they’re not going to get it for free like they seem to think (Huh? But you’ve got THOUSANDS of books…!). I’m happy to give some pretty heavy discounts to my close friends, and I usually do take a bit off for the ‘friends of friends’. But you can see why I can’t give the stuff away.

That or they want money and want to sell me all the books relating to the course they’ve dropped for the most lucratively unreasonable price they can think of . ‘I’ve got these…holds out 3 battered out-of-date agriculture texts… yeah, I need a hundred to catch up with my rent…’. Uh-huh. Sure, I’m gonna do that. A lot.

I do get to make some good deals with their parents though, when I meet them. They all seem to have a shedful of old books, and seem to have a less’ free-stuff-for-me!!’ approach to the whole affair. You’d be surprised how many of them have Super-Special-Books (!!!) TM hidden away.

( I also get 'ohmygoddoyouhavethenewharrypotterbook? all the time lately ) No, I don’t, people don’t usually start selling those until around the Christmas of the year they come out.

[Kiminy]

@FairyChatMom

Oh, I forgot about computer people.

As jrfranchi said, I don’t mind answering occasional questions, especially if I think I might be teaching someone so they don’t have to ask for help in the future.

However, I do know a lot of people who really only talk to me for computer advise. I give them a list of specs (which totally goes over their heads), then send them to a local computer store and tell them to talk to a sales person there. (Having worked at one of the local computer stores, I know that it’s not necessarily the best way to go, but at least the person has another local place to go if they need help with the computer later.)

My husband’s family is among the worst, though. My MIL used to call at least four or five times a year because her computer was having problems connecting to their ISP. After trying to do long-distance troubleshooting for an ISP I have no direct experience with, I finally just told her to please contact the ISP directly, because I really didn’t know what else to tell her to try. (On top of that, she went completely against my advice when she bought a new computer a couple of years ago.)

My husband also used to ask me periodically if I would consider building a computer for a friend of his, if said friend was willing to pay for all the parts. I kept telling him no, then finally had to explain that part of building a computer was providing tech support after the fact, and that if he wanted me to be 24/7 tech support for other people, I’d go get a third shift helpdesk job to supplement our income before I would start building computers for free.

He hasn’t asked me again…

[danceswithcats]

I get the usual “what do you think it could be” questions regarding problems people have with their homes, which in no way can be answered without visiting and performing a proper evaluation.

The OP brought to mind a cartoon from Playboy many years ago: a woman is seated on a dining room table while a fellow in a tuxedo has his arm underneath her dress. Another woman admonishes him, “George! Will you please stop giving gynecological advice to our dinner guests!”

[Incubus]

I talk about what I do around people all the time. Not neccessarily to brag, but to help myself jobwise. When people ask, “what do you do?” I reply, “I’m a piano teacher.” Often their next question is, “I know X who always wanted to learn piano, do you think you could teach him/her?” I’m gradually building up a reputation for being an after-school tutor/piano teacher and until I find steady full-time work, it has gotten progressively more and more lucrative.

[Ashes_Ashes]

After enthusiasm, there are those who tell me they can’t even draw a straight line or stick figure. I always joke that’s why we have rulers or there’s really not much need for stick figures past the age of eight anyway.

Then there are two main reactions upon hearing what I do for a living. Pity or hate. Pity because I’m an underpaid, disrespected teacher, slaving in horrible conditions with feral student-thugs, just because ‘Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach.’ Add the fact that I teach the utterly frivolous Fine Arts and they pat me on the head as they press a quarter in my palm.

And I’d like just five minutes alone with HL Mencken to show him how much I appreciate his unleashing that ‘law’ of his on teachers.

The hatred comes from anybody who ever had a run in with a teacher or administrator, or didn’t like art because it was too hard or stupid or the teacher was mean, etc. They’re forty-some years old and still carrying a grudge over something almost always revealed to be petty and usually deserved! Never mind how rude it is to say you hated art class because it was a waste of time, to an art teacher.

I’m proud to say I’ve managed to never even hint for anything from my massage therapist cousin. She appreciates this.

@mhendo

I’m studying for a PhD in History. If non-historians ask me questions related to my field, it’s often not because they want advice or information, but because they want to see if they can trip me up. Apparently, some people assume that because i study history, i must know the date of everything that has ever happened anywhere. :rolleyes:

My dad’s degree was in Early British History. He always told me needing exact dates were what books were for. He still knew the date of everything, along with fascinating backstories and such. History people are cool that way.

[mza662]

i work in computers and i sympathise with every other living soul that does the worst thing i find is that people assume you know everything there is to know about every piece of software ever made. sometimes i feel like ripping the persons arms off so they cant use a computer anymore.

[cornflakes]

I maintain equipment that is used to make semiconductors. To fix this stuff, I have a basic understanding of how to properly shoot what could be rat poison into what once was beach sand, bake the result, etch the whole mess with acids and/or print pictures on whatever is left. Some of the tools are bigger than the average bathroom, but they all break down to some sort of combination of plumbing and wiring, with each processing unit being some sort of kitchen oven, dishwasher, camera and/or television tube. Robots move the product from one point to another.

Naturally, I’m “good with computers.”

I do build my own computers but I’m by no means an expert. That doesn’t matter; I’m one of two people that everyone in my family asks for computer advice. Fortunately, the other relative has actually run a computer shop. He also lives closer to everyone else.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@aruvqan

oOOoo, techies=) did i mention I lurves techies=) they make life interesting

lol thanks aruvqan

@Cartooniverse

Then they ask me " How’d they do that?? " and I typically tell them to go and find a good Lighting Technician who designs rigging, he’ll be able to answer their questions.

Please don’t refer them to me unless there is a paycheck involved.

[aruvqan]

@Ashes

The hatred comes from anybody who ever had a run in with a teacher or administrator, or didn’t like art because it was too hard or stupid or the teacher was mean, etc. They’re forty-some years old and still carrying a grudge over something almost always revealed to be petty and usually deserved! Never mind how rude it is to say you hated art class because it was a waste of time, to an art teacher.
.

ROTFLMAO … I detested my HS art teacher with a passion. He considered my particular style revolting and a waste of time. i ‘do’ surealism. If it wasn’t his style, I am sorry, but it is my style. I was cery thankful that 10th grade when we got ‘evaluated’ on the basis of 9 projects he had a nasty attackl of appendicitis and was out the entire year. Instead of being forced to essentially do 9 whitebread typical over-the-couch paintings of forests, oceans, clipper ships and the like I did a mosaic top for a table [a sort of 50s modernistic black widow spider that looks nothing like a real spider, unless you happen to like funky 50s modern=)] I did a small ceramic tableau of a corner of a ruined peristyle [a few columns with capitols, some shattered columns, some intact amphora and potsherds. The whole shebang was 14 inches by 18 inches by about 9 inches tall.] I did an album cover that was reminiscent of Peter Max. I did a rendition of a Monet my parents have as if it were a Kodalith [all black or all white] I made a microminiature petitpoint oriental rug like many people make/buy for doll houses. I did a nice representational portrait of a Galle vase my mom owns. I did a great Van Gogh version of a raffia covered wine bottle. I did a mural in the niche of the water fountain in the form of a chinese waterfall and rock scroll, and my last project was a hand painted silk panel done in wax resist like those polish easter eggs [i had been given one of the eggs for easter by the grandmother of my then boyfriend, who was thrilled to show me how to make them=)]

And the teacher came back to visit in June, when all the art projects were on display for a parents night, and he told the sub that he thought she graded me too high, my stuff wasn’t worth selling at a garage sale. I overheard her telling him that just because he couldn’t make a go of art, he shouldn’t take it out on his students…and I had already sold the album cover, the greek ruins and the silk panel at the charity auction that was being held at the same time.

I have the greatest respect for a teacher that can help a student refine their abilities without forcing them into a mold.

[Small_Clanger]

Another computer guy here:

@mza662

. . .people assume you know everything there is to know about every piece of software ever made.

Tell me about it.

I mostly work writing code to run against honking Oracle databases on Unix boxes. A couple of weeks ago I went to an extended family get together. The host was trying to setup a game on a PC and couldn’t get it to run. So now I’m the designated computer guy. Did the game run on a database? Course not. Was it on a OS that I know? No (was XP). It used dedicated hardware (a Laser ‘gun’) a projector and a webcam, non of which I know anything about. FWIW the computer expertise I used to sort it out was knowing how to close a window without using the mouse :rolleyes:

[Dung_Beetle]

I work in the pathology department here (answering phones, for the most part.) If anyone around here gets a bit of themselves chopped, snipped, or sliced off, chances are I know what’s being done with it or what the doctors think about it. People sometimes ask if I can check on something for them. (“Gee, it looks like you have cancer! Try to look surprised when you get your results, okay?”) :rolleyes:

[Hypno-Toad]

As a planner, everybody thinks I have the inside scoop on future development and can tell them the surefire land purchases that will soon be worth 10 times their current value. Sorry, folks. The people who know that information (ie. the big developers) don’t reveal it until after they have the land in their own hands. THEN they tell the gub’mint that they want to build a shopping center or residential neighborhood on it.