I’ve seen a few people complain about the question “what do you do?” over the years, and I think it’s pretty telling that most people seem to interpret that as “what is your job?”
For me, my job is a footnote to my life, it’s not something I’m overly proud of, if I woke up rich tomorrow I’d never go back to work, it’s just how I fund the rest of my lifestyle.
I tend to answer that question with my hobbies, things I’m working on, trips I’m planning, etc
Sort of a double-edged sword is that I do actually work a pretty interesting job that people really want to hear about when they find out what I do, and I’d really rather talk about the other things I do. Probably the one thing I miss about when I was a random schmuck working a shitty warehouse job, I didn’t have to talk about work outside of work as much
Sort of a double-edged sword is that I do actually work a pretty interesting job that people really want to hear about when they find out what I do, and I’d really rather talk about the other things I do.
Right? Don’t get me wrong, I have some cool stories, and I don’t blame people for being more interested in those than tales from my hiking trips or D&D game or hearing about my latest attempt at woodworking or whatever, but I’d rather talk about those.
Oof, I feel that, my group hasn’t been able to get our shit together to have a proper session in months.
A while back I played in my friend’s home-brew setting as Lotor the All-Beard, a raccoon pirate, known as the All-beard because he was covered in fur, so he was all beard.
Lotor was a dirty, chaotic, moron, and throughout the entire campaign the dice gods smiled upon him, and nearly every harebrained scheme he came up with somehow managed to work out somehow.
He did not speak the common tongue, and was also illiterate (but a master of forgery somehow, he couldn’t read the documents he forged, but with a handwriting sample and someone else to put the words together for him he made it work) so the main way he communicated with the rest of the world was with the aid of his talking parrot, Polly, acting as a translator (and also his accountant, secretary, and numerous other roles that Lotor lacked the smarts to do himself.) Polly was a very intelligent bird who didn’t much care for his idiot master, and although it was brought up numerous times, it never stuck Lotor as strange that polly could actually talk and not just mimic speech, he always just shrugged it off as “parrots can talk.” Many hints were dropped over the course of the game that there was more to Polly than met the eye, like a magic lantern that made Polly cast a human-shaped shadow, and every last hint went straight over Lotor’s head. At the end of the campaign it was revealed that Polly was a long-missing archmage who’s absence was fairly central to the overarching lore of the world, he’d had his memories erased and transformed into a parrot by the big bad, and through a series of unlikely events had eventually found his way to a curio shop where Lotor purchased him because he thought it was neat.
Fantastic. That had to be so painful for the rest of the party to watch.
May I also have a D&D story and/or perhaps a picture of some woodworking about which you are proud? Or one which you have at least failed at hard enough to be funny?
I love listening to people talk about their hobbies. I may not understand a third of it, but the passionate energy someone gets when they’re all excited is contagious
Here’s 2 thing im particularly proud of, even if they’re a bit simple. My wife took up book binding during the pandemic (who didn’t pick up some new hobbies then?) And she needed a book press and sewing frame, so I made them for her
I apologize for the janky image host, imgur didn’t want to work for me today and this was my first Google result for free image hosting.
Ignore the trash and such scattered around on the desk in the background.
I learned a lot making the sewing frame in particular, mostly how much I suck at using a router, and after botching it a couple times I actually ended up chiseling out that slot in the front by hand.
I’d do some things differently if I were remaking them today, I’d probably make the press shorter, it doesn’t really need to be as tall as it is, and I had some big ideas for the sewing frame like some moveable fences to make sure the book is square that I ended up abandoning
How people make money is often the most boring thing about them. A whole lot of the prestigious jobs that make big bucks that people like to brag about boil down to a whole lot of paperwork, emails, and phone calls, I don’t want to hear about that, that’s the kind of stuff I make any excuse I can to avoid thinking about.
If they’re making big bucks though, hopefully they’re doing something cool with it, they can tell me about their ski trips, or yacht trips to private islands or whatever rich people do these days, that’s what I want to hear about it. If the only thing they can come up with to say that they “do” is a job doing the boring shit I try to avoid, that’s their own fault. They’re free to judge me, I’m judging them right back, they’re wasting their lives.
And most of the time my current job is far more interesting than theirs anyway even if it’s not as prestigious.
It sounds like you’re hanging out with the wrong kind of people if they are asking that question to judge you. I find most people ask that question as its a baseline question on getting to know someone, so hobbies would be a perfectly acceptable response
I’ve seen a few people complain about the question “what do you do?” over the years, and I think it’s pretty telling that most people seem to interpret that as “what is your job?”
For me, my job is a footnote to my life, it’s not something I’m overly proud of, if I woke up rich tomorrow I’d never go back to work, it’s just how I fund the rest of my lifestyle.
I tend to answer that question with my hobbies, things I’m working on, trips I’m planning, etc
Sort of a double-edged sword is that I do actually work a pretty interesting job that people really want to hear about when they find out what I do, and I’d really rather talk about the other things I do. Probably the one thing I miss about when I was a random schmuck working a shitty warehouse job, I didn’t have to talk about work outside of work as much
Yeah but what do you do for work doe?
911 dispatch
That is pretty interesting!
Right? Don’t get me wrong, I have some cool stories, and I don’t blame people for being more interested in those than tales from my hiking trips or D&D game or hearing about my latest attempt at woodworking or whatever, but I’d rather talk about those.
Well, I’ll take a D&D story too if you don’t mind.
My current group is playing Schedules & Conflicts so, got an itch u noe?
Oof, I feel that, my group hasn’t been able to get our shit together to have a proper session in months.
A while back I played in my friend’s home-brew setting as Lotor the All-Beard, a raccoon pirate, known as the All-beard because he was covered in fur, so he was all beard.
Lotor was a dirty, chaotic, moron, and throughout the entire campaign the dice gods smiled upon him, and nearly every harebrained scheme he came up with somehow managed to work out somehow.
He did not speak the common tongue, and was also illiterate (but a master of forgery somehow, he couldn’t read the documents he forged, but with a handwriting sample and someone else to put the words together for him he made it work) so the main way he communicated with the rest of the world was with the aid of his talking parrot, Polly, acting as a translator (and also his accountant, secretary, and numerous other roles that Lotor lacked the smarts to do himself.) Polly was a very intelligent bird who didn’t much care for his idiot master, and although it was brought up numerous times, it never stuck Lotor as strange that polly could actually talk and not just mimic speech, he always just shrugged it off as “parrots can talk.” Many hints were dropped over the course of the game that there was more to Polly than met the eye, like a magic lantern that made Polly cast a human-shaped shadow, and every last hint went straight over Lotor’s head. At the end of the campaign it was revealed that Polly was a long-missing archmage who’s absence was fairly central to the overarching lore of the world, he’d had his memories erased and transformed into a parrot by the big bad, and through a series of unlikely events had eventually found his way to a curio shop where Lotor purchased him because he thought it was neat.
Fantastic. That had to be so painful for the rest of the party to watch.
May I also have a D&D story and/or perhaps a picture of some woodworking about which you are proud? Or one which you have at least failed at hard enough to be funny?
I love listening to people talk about their hobbies. I may not understand a third of it, but the passionate energy someone gets when they’re all excited is contagious
Here’s 2 thing im particularly proud of, even if they’re a bit simple. My wife took up book binding during the pandemic (who didn’t pick up some new hobbies then?) And she needed a book press and sewing frame, so I made them for her
https://ibb.co/3WqKJw2 https://ibb.co/Sy9fBrZ
I apologize for the janky image host, imgur didn’t want to work for me today and this was my first Google result for free image hosting.
Ignore the trash and such scattered around on the desk in the background.
I learned a lot making the sewing frame in particular, mostly how much I suck at using a router, and after botching it a couple times I actually ended up chiseling out that slot in the front by hand.
I’d do some things differently if I were remaking them today, I’d probably make the press shorter, it doesn’t really need to be as tall as it is, and I had some big ideas for the sewing frame like some moveable fences to make sure the book is square that I ended up abandoning
That’s awesome! Did Polly ever get unpolymorphed and his memories restored?
He did, and I believe he ended up gifting Lotor some magic doodad to translate for him in the future
Mix it up sometimes!
“HELP I’m being robbed!”
“Roll for initiative.”
Insight check!
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How people make money is often the most boring thing about them. A whole lot of the prestigious jobs that make big bucks that people like to brag about boil down to a whole lot of paperwork, emails, and phone calls, I don’t want to hear about that, that’s the kind of stuff I make any excuse I can to avoid thinking about.
If they’re making big bucks though, hopefully they’re doing something cool with it, they can tell me about their ski trips, or yacht trips to private islands or whatever rich people do these days, that’s what I want to hear about it. If the only thing they can come up with to say that they “do” is a job doing the boring shit I try to avoid, that’s their own fault. They’re free to judge me, I’m judging them right back, they’re wasting their lives.
And most of the time my current job is far more interesting than theirs anyway even if it’s not as prestigious.
It sounds like you’re hanging out with the wrong kind of people if they are asking that question to judge you. I find most people ask that question as its a baseline question on getting to know someone, so hobbies would be a perfectly acceptable response
deleted by creator