I had been running my own business for about five years by then so my friends and family knew but outside of that, the question hadn’t come up and I hadn’t needed to explain it to anyone. I hesitated for a moment. I didn’t want to say ‘web site design’, ‘hosting’ or ‘I run some online stores’. Partly because I did all of those but the question required a quick answer, not a list of things. There was also the risk that by listing everything I either sounded like I was bragging (wow look at me, I can do all of those things) or equally concerning but on the other end of the scale, working online can often be looked down on and people assume that you’re not doing very well, and I didn’t want that either.
I think I fumbled an answer about ‘working from home, making web sites mainly’ and then my daughter chipped in ‘yes, he also sells mattresses online’. My heart sank.
I had recently set up a drop-shipping business selling mattresses which was reasonably successful. The college tutor replied ‘well, we all need to do something extra to earn what we can’. My fears were justified. My daughter was telling him because she was proud of me but he took it as a sign of desperation, as if we were struggling for money and I had this crappy side hustle to help get some extra money coming in.
I needed a better answer to the question, ‘what do you do?’
I have tried the answer ‘I run my own business’ but inevitably that leads on to their next question, ‘doing what?’ – people want an answer that is short and that they can understand. I need an answer that doesn’t sound like I am showing off or one that makes me sound pathetic.
The truth then as it is now, is that there is no easy answer. I run a number of different businesses that do a variety of things. I’m very fortunate that I earn a good living, have lots of free time outside of work and I can work anywhere.
In my previous life I worked in schools and that was easy to explain to people. I had a job title, a list of responsibilities, people who I reported to and people who reported to me. Very easy to understand and explain to others. One of my old bosses provided me with half an answer to the ‘what do you do?’ question that I now faced.
He started his career as a music teacher but in 30 years of working in schools he had numerous jobs, leading eventually to becoming a headteacher of a medium-sized secondary school. In this position he was responsible for over 200 staff, 1,000 students and a three-million pound budget. What also impressed me though was when he met someone new, outside of work and they asked him what he did, he would always simply reply ‘teacher’.
To him, and I completely understand why, saying anything else would seem like he was showing off.
That helped me realise that remaining humble is important but to fully answer the question of what do I do, I turned to the world of espionage. This sounds a lot sexier than it is but trust me, stick with it…
From my very limited knowledge of spy fiction, it appears that when people do actually work for the security services, obviously they can’t tell people that so they have a made up job title. Something that is bland so people aren’t really interested but also generic enough that people have a vague idea of what they do. That’s what I needed, something boring enough that people wouldn’t ask any follow-up questions but also something that is near universal so that everyone would have a basic idea of what it entails.
This is the perfect way to avoid any further questions and takes away the need for me to fumble an answer so now if I am asked what I do, I simply say that I work in I.T.
This has an element of truth and so I am not misleading anyone but allows me to give a vague idea of what I do to anyone that is interested without having to give the full details.
I’m much more comfortable with this response as well because it is a humble answer. I don’t want to show off by listing all of the different things I do and I also don’t want people, like the college tutor, to look down on me because they assume I’m not doing very well. It’s vague enough that people can’t guess what I really do or how much I earn.
