When people hear I’m a phlebotomist, they either say “don’t stick me” and look at me in fear and cringe back, or call me a “vampire”. Really, at that point, you’re just tempting me.
When people SEE I’m a redhead, they assume I’m feisty and have a temper/ am bitchy. So I tend to oblige them. Less bitchy, more feisty. Unless you annoy me. Then double the bitchy, and ignore the feisty.
When people find out I’m a linguist, they ask me how many languages I speak.
When people find out I’m a linguist, they tell me how only a certain langauge is good for a certain thing. Usually, it’s “Did you know that French is the only language that’s good for love?” No, actually I didn’t. If that were true, I’d think there’d be more French people than Chinese!
When people find out I speak a particular foreign language, they tell me how much easier that is to learn than some other language even though they can’t speak either language.
When people find out I’m a Mormon, they ask me how many wives I have. And they’re not joking either. They really are that clueless.
When people back in the US find out I work in Korea, they ask me why I’m working in a communist country.
When people back in the US find out I work in Korea, they ask me if I work in North Korea or South Korea. (At least this group knows there’s a difference, although they don’t know what the difference is.)
When people hear I’m dating a Korean woman (go figure, I live in Korea), they tell me “Did you know they are {insert asinine racist comment here}?” Usually, I respond with, “No, I didn’t know that. But I now know something about you.” Sometimes, rarely, the person gets the hint.
Hi, hi! My posting has been sporadic because I still do not have internet service at home. The Dutch phone company is a disaster. Which reminds me of something I’ve experienced since moving to Europe:
When people hear I’m a dude without a cellphone, they immediately go wide-eyed with surprise and ask me to confirm this again.
Cite?
Funny. How exactly do they think Google Earth (Maps, etc.) came into being?
Here’s a new one: So far, when people hear that I handed out ballots on Super Tuesday, they immediately want to know how many blacks, non-English-speakers and/or illegal immigrants voted. I gotta admit, I didn’t see that coming.
I don’t mind being asked how many languages I speak, since it gives me a chance to loudly speculate on which language I want to learn next. Sometimes I take the opportunity to correct them too, but generally I leave that to the next hapless linguistics student. They’re often disappointed that I only speak two right now, though. I find that the questions and the conversations get a lot more interesting if I tell them I’m a computational linguistics major instead.
When people hear I’m a therapist they A)jokingly ask me to make them an appointment or B) say “don’t analyze me!”.
I wonder what that says about them.
Are there really that many serial killer linguists?
When people hear that I work in government they assume that I come into work at 10 every day, have a two hour lunch break, leave at 4 and spend the rest of the time in between organising paper clips and drinking tea. They also assume that I make no money as government is a “low paying” job. Well compared to other white collar professions yes, but not in absolute terms (I’m very comfortably over the national average).
When people hear that my field is education they either a) assume that I’m an ex or aspiring teacher (no and hell no) or b) try to hold me personally responsible for anything and everything that’s wrong with the education system. Don’t blame me, I just work there.
When people hear I’m a Satanist they assume I worship the devil.
:dubious:
When people hear that I’m in the military (back when I was), they tell me I don’t pay taxes.
NajaHusband, too. Or else they’ll get all wide-eyed as though I’d just said he’s an astrophysicist in his day-job and a cardiac surgeon on the weekends.
Actually, the “eh?” response is so common I just started adding “he studies yeast genetics” since they’re about to ask, anyway.
When people hear I own my own business and am largely self-employed, they always get envious over having “such a flexible schedule, and all that free time you must have!” Right. Employment laws probably work to prevent you from working an 83 hour week. Me? Not so much. It is rather nice to be my own boss, though.
When people hear I am an English professor, they immmediately say “oh, then I need to watch my grammar around you.”
Sigh
Well, you can’t really blame someone who grew up in (say) Pennsylvania or Arizona for thinking that, can you?
Are you a recent graduate? People stopped asking me that when I was about 30.
Now, when people hear I’m a Quality Specialist, they, well, blank.
Also, when people hear I’m a falconer, they immediately ask eight thousand questions. This mostly is not a bad thing, it’s my hobby and I like to talk about it. 
It’s only a bad thing when they catch you flying your bird and you really need to get on with it and hunt your hawk.
When people hear that I teach the violin, they tell me how they played the violin/flute/piano for a couple of years when they were at school, but weren’t very good at it, that they never practised anyone spot the connection?, and now they wish they’d stuck with it.
Yet so many parents don’t encourage their children to work hard enough :rolleyes:
I tell them the truth, which is that I’m glad that I mostly teach in high schools, because while I really enjoy working with younger kids, it’s too exhausting to do all day!
There’s also the people who for some reason think it must be incredibly difficult to teach a primary-school child to play. I find it much easier than with older beginners, because a seven-year-old is far less inhibited by self-conciousness than somebody a few years older.
It depends on what I say, I suppose.
When people hear that I study computer science, they start talking to me about, well, computers. About which I must say, I don’t really know much more than anyone else; computer science (or at least my corner of it) is no more the study of computers than astronomy is the study of telescopes. If the conversation is around people who do know things about computers, this can be particularly embarrassing.
When people hear that I study math, they often say something like “Oh, I can’t do math”, possibly accompanied by “You must be smart then”. This irks me greatly. Do you ever hear anyone say “Oh, I’m not smart enough for linguistics/geology/music theory/journalism/…”? Barring medical tragedy, people, as a general lot, are capable of doing whatever it is their interests drive them to spend time learning to do.
When people hear that I study logic, they also say “You must be smart then”, though probably for different reasons, reasons elucidated by the other response, “I didn’t know there was any such thing. What is there to study in logic?”. Which is actually a fair question; I have no reason to dislike this except my own shameful inability to usefully communicate the answer.
All these are but minor statistical flukes, though, in comparison to the following law of physics:
When people hear I’m from New Jersey, they always, always ask “Which part?”. I slowly run through in various levels of specificity from “North Jersey” down through to the corner of the county, waiting for a response, till finally they say “Oh. I have a friend/cousin/pen pal/family pet from New Jersey, but they live in [some place as unfamiliar to me as North Dakota]”.
When people hear I work for an antivirus company, they:
I’m an editor\ translator\ general dogsbody. People who ask these questions know what I do. So why do they think I can do any of the above?
My name is Indistinguishable and I approve this message.
When people see that I’m an artist (on a really good day, when the portraits that I’m drawing are rockin’) they get this kind of amazed tone, as though I’m some kind of superhuman being. “Wow, I always wished I could do that.”
It’s not insulting or annoying or anything, but it always cracks me up – do you have any idea how many things I can’t do?
When people hear I’m a defense attorney, they immediately ask me if I’ve ever defended anyone who I knew was guilty.
I find that funny since the vast majority of my clients are guilty and fully admit that. They just need someone to help them navigate the system and preserve their rights. The best part of my job is getting a dismissal for someone who did it because the police did something wrong. You can’t pick and choose who gets the protection of the Bill of Rights.