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Agreed that non-work stuff is usually better for casual discussion, but I really dislike this position of "work? surely you can talk about something more interesting!" because for some people that is all they want to talk about, and everyone's definition of "work" is different. It's more important to listen to people than criticize their general topic of conversation, imo. Based on personal experience this is probably nicer in theory than practice, but it's still what I tend to work toward these days.

> "You Americans! That's all you ever talk about is work!"

What do they talk about instead?

Instead of "So what do you do" you can always ask "So what do you like doing" ... that might give the person the chance to still talk about work if he/she/they/it/es want to :)