Oh My God, Stop Asking What I Do For Work! – Absurd Pirate's Internet Blog

Oh My God, Stop Asking What I Do For Work!

22 Jul, 2026

"So what do you do for work", is a question I get asked constantly by people who I'm first meeting. Dentists, doctors, random people at parties, all ask this same question. I know it's people trying to make small talk or whatever, but sweet merciful Buddha do I fucking hate this question.

I feel like most people don't really give two shits about their job. I'd wager even more people don't actually care about what your job is unless it's something like a stunt double, neurosurgeon, skydiving instructor, or whatever. Y'know something cool? I work a silly little office job, for a silly little paycheck. That's. About. It. Half the time I have to explain what my job actually even is because most people who aren't in tech don't know what it is.

"What do you do for work?", oh you mean the most boring aspect of my life that I do for 8 hours a day? I feel like no matter what job you say, if it's a relatively normal job, you'll always get the reply of "what is that?" if it's obscure or "that's cool".

"Oh, that's cool." No, it isn't. You know it isn't. In fact, it's the least interesting thing about me. For an icebreaker, it's a shit fucking icebreaker, the conversation line ends in like 4 sentences.

"What do you do for work?" I'm a(n) [insert job here], what about you? "I'm a plumber" oh... uh... see any cool shit? Maybe this is my autism talking, but I have no fucking clue where to go with these conversations. Half the time I get asked it, I KNOW what the motherfucker does for work, because I'm there to see them. Kinda pointless to ask your doctor what he does for work isn't it? You'd look like a complete jackass.

I know we're kinda in the age of nobody having any fucking hobbies, but Christ on a popsicle would it KILL people to ask what people do for fun at the very least? THAT is more of a conversation starter. Hell, people are often WAY more passionate about their hobbies than they are their J-O-B. There's like a million ways to go with a conversation about hobbies, even if their hobby is just watching TV.

I read this post by RNOTTE (sorry I don't have the little accent over the E, American keyboards would explode if they had those) about not wanting to be defined by one thing. It seems like work is that one thing that everyone gets often defined by.

I think the issue is twofold, our jobs become part of our identity to an extent. How could it not? You spend most of your waking life doing that one thing. Which exposes the 2nd problem, our lives often revolve around work. So much of our lives is taken up by this parasite on our living existence that it's all a lot of us can seem to even talk about. Most of us just tolerate our job, we're not passionate about it.

This could all just be me projecting my yearning to be something other than a desk jockey; something that actually contributes to society in some way. Hell, it's why I'm attending university now.

I think people are generally more interesting than what they would see in themselves. Everyone has hopes, ambitions, hobbies, struggles, stories, rumors.

We just gotta ask.

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as of writing this...<br>I'm writing this early in my work day. Just trying to survive until my weeklong vacation next week. I'm ready. I wanna do nothing but chill at the beach with my family. Been doing some more work on my neocities, I was actually surprised to see the new messages that were left in the chat box. It warmed my heart to see people actually like the new layout. Sorry mobile users, I haven't really made it super accessible for you yet. I'll get there though... eventually.

#2026

#personal

#socialcommentary