Comment by dmitrygr
2 days ago
> When people asked "what do you do?"
I found that outside of CA, this is asked a lot less often. In CA people ask that so they can mentally rank you as worth their time or not. Elsewhere, people ask you how your weekend went, or how your family is. One of the awesome parts of moving to Austin was not hearing that as the first question as much.
It’s so commonly asked in DC that it’s been a meme in dating circles there for decades.
> I found that outside of CA, this is asked a lot less often.
I moved to California a few years ago from the Least Coast (insert shaka, surfer, wave emojis here) and had multiple other out-of-towners in the same situation as me say the exact opposite at a party. They all were adamant that they had yet to hear "what do you do [for a living]?" since they'd moved as they did ad nauseum when they lived on the other side of the country.
I've not noticed either way. My pet theory is that people hear this frequently if their social and professional lives bleed into each other which they do if one lives in a town dominated by a specific industry or profession. Those moving westward during COVID and remote work suddenly had to contend with this much less.
Never hear that question either. I don’t ask it either. I’ve actually been pretty successful but asking that question seems to rank someone on a scale that does not reflect their amazing contributions to society.
I ask because a) I'm interested in the same way that a child is in what people's jobs are and b) it gives me a frame of reference for interacting with them conversationally vis a vis common ground.
Wealth signaling still seems to me to be done primarily by conspicuous consumption and expensive hobbies.