Hacker News Reader

Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

I’ve recently switched from asking people, “where do you work” to “what do you fill your time with each day?”

Most people just tell me where they work and what they do. Some people tell me about other things, and if they are retired or unemployed they don’t feel embarrassed.

Maybe if we all started doing this, people would feel less compelled to tie their job to their identity.

View on HN

I've tried exactly that. Most of what I got back was questioned looks followed by something like, "you mean where do I work?" Maybe I'm around different people.

I mostly get the same response. It’s a slow moving revolution. :)

> Maybe I'm around different people.

Unless you literally are jedberg but using an alternate HN account, I can assure you that you are around different people.

> I’ve recently switched from asking people, “where do you work” to “what do you fill your time with each day?”

Amazing how perfectly SV says and does the same thing. I literally overhead the exact statement in a cafe yesterday.

This is also a symptom of people in SV/SF having nothing but their careers to talk about, all day every day. It's so boring.

I do something similar, if someone asks "what do you do?" They usually mean "what is your job?" But, I will still ask in response, "do you mean what do I do for work?" Because there should be more to who we are and life I think, and I want to encourage others to think about that too. They may think I'm weird, that's fine.

I've started answering the question "What do you do?" With "I study primate behavior."

Mine is ‘Christmas tree measurer’, with a whole back story about how I have most of the year off and how to classify different types of tree.

I’ve just found the whole “tell me about your work” discussion tedious, it shouldn’t be what defines us.

I first ask people for their NAME. Then I inquire about their JOB, followed by HEALTH and QUEST.

Closely related, I ask "How do you spend your time during the week?"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com