That question is the favorite conversation starter in America, where identity and career (or mere job function) are deeply tangled in each other, where “you are what you do”. Almost without fail, the answer to what we do (a verb) is usually replied to with a noun: “I am a ____.” No one “polices” or “administers” or “politics”, we are all “Police Officers” and “Administrators” and “Politicians”. The more evasive, who are usually those low enough on the job totem-pole to be ashamed of their function, say that they are “in the ___ industry.”
These issues are weighing on my mind recently, since I am no longer traditionally employed and am attempting to make a go of writing and otherwise creating beauty, and the question of whether or not I am self-employed or unemployed is a matter of perspective, personally decided by my position on the Pessimism-Optimism scale on any particular day. Technically, I am “freelancing”, though on some days it feels like I am freeloading instead of freelancing.
Many of the traditionally (read gainfully) employed people around me have wondered, subtly and not so subtly, occasionally enviously, but mostly disdainfully, how it is that I have been spending my days exactly. Most of the time, that query comes in some variation on “So, what do you do?” I have developed a standard, knee-jerk response of “I’m freelancing right now” but the question always makes me very aware of how difficult, if not pointless, it is to honestly answer the question. I occasionally answer in a snarky tone:
“I do the same thing as everyone else on the planet; I get up every morning and try to figure out what I need to do during the day in order to feel like I can sleep easily tonight.”
I am pretty sure that in all but the most extreme and pathetic cases, no one is accurately portrayed by their answer to that question, since in America, we all snap answer with our job function. Those snap answers, and the (lack of) thinking behind them, ignore the fact that people are not easily categorized or pigeon-holed, and that attempting to do so by job function is probably one of the most error-prone ways of going about it. A job is but one of the things that we do in a day, let alone a lifetime, and in a lot of cases, has not much to do with the true, authentic us other than as a way to fund our lifestyles.
We are so much more than our jobs, even those of us, like all of us “freelancers” who are living our dream of redefinig our job function from day to day and minute to minute. No answer to the question “So, what do you do?” is ever going to convey a true or authentic picture of anyone. As Robert Heinlien said “specialization is for insects” so let’s stop asking each other such a dumb question.