“So, what do you do?”
The classic question. It doesn’t matter whether you’re at a barbeque, networking event, dinner party, wedding or wake, this question will continue to dog you through most of your adult life. It’s the conversational lifeline we all reach for when an awkward silence threatens to engulf ourselves and whatever random acquaintance we find ourselves engaged in good old fashioned British small talk with. [Delete as appropriate: Friends’ new boyfriend, next door neighbour, the perv at the bus stop.]
As a twenty-something-year-old woman who, quite honestly, doesn’t have a clue what she wants to do with her life, I find this question tantamount to a character assassination. It’s a question almost as painful to answer as the dreaded, “so, how’s your love life?” (which is usually pronounced by a drunk uncle across a crowded dinner table at a family get together).
I have a theory that the world is divided into (a) people who don’t care much about the, “so, what do you do?” question and (b) people who actively despise this question. And yes, you guessed it, I fall into the latter. As someone who has lived in London their whole life, I just see London as well, home. I forget that for others this is the city people come to forge a career; make it in the big smoke; climb the greasy pole and all the rest of it.
Don’t get me wrong – that’s great. I don’t inherently have anything against people who are career-focused and passionate about their work, nor do I have anything against people who ask me that question. What bugs me is the ever-growing feeling that the ‘what do you do?’ question is a loaded one. It feels like what we’re really asking is “who are you?”.
You are what you do?
With so much of our life spent at work it’s easy to see why our identity can and has become so entwined with our occupations. We’ve all heard the old adage, ‘you are what you eat’. Does this mean we are also what we do? And if I don’t like what I do, does that by default mean that I don’t like myself? And, here. Come. The. Questions… Yikes [steps away from laptop to hyperventilate into paper bag].
Cultivating creativity into a career AKA the struggle is real
I’ve noticed within my spread of twenty-something-year-old friends, there seems to be a rough 50/50 divide. Those who are now somewhat settled into their careers and those who are still figuring out what the hell they’d like to do. Incidentally, most of my friends who fall into the latter have chosen to pursue creative interests.
Of course, these occupations don’t usually lead to a clear-cut job title complete with obvious career progressions, paid holiday leave and a kushy annual salary. What adds more strain to deciding on your career path these days is the relatively recent millennial phenomenon that you should ‘love what you do’. We’ve all seen those Instagram posts that lowkey make us want to throw our phones at the wall… #lovemyjob. Blergh, get out of here.
The high cost of big city living perpetuates ‘rise and grind’ culture
In a recent phone call with a friend who lives in Glasgow, I discussed my gripes on the ‘what do you do?’ obsession. Interestingly, she told me that she didn’t get asked that question nearly as much as she did when she lived in London.
“People here only have to work three days a week to make rent which leaves them with way more time to pursue their own interests, so I find people just don’t really care about what you do as much.” For my friend, this meant getting back into drawing and volunteering at the local food bank.
All this was quite the revelation to me. Is the ‘rise and grind’ culture more of a regional than national characteristic largely influenced by the cost of living? It would certainly seem so. Maybe if I was living somewhere like Glasgow I wouldn’t be in the midst of an internal identity/ career crisis going into near melt down any time someone enquired about my line of work.
An ode to embracing confusion
All in all, it seems that if you’re twenty-something in London, who is either still at a loss about what to do with their life or trying to pursue a creative career whilst also needing to make the astronomical rent prices, then the ‘what do you do’ question is triggering as fuck. I don’t think there’s any getting around the fact that I will continue to be asked that question but what I can do is accept that I’m a little bit lost and that’s just fine, despite what big city work culture would have us believe.
I hope going forward that a new culture can spring up in the place of our slightly grim ‘rise and grind’ dogma that doesn’t take the measure of a person by what they do but by what they like, how they take their tea or what they do on the weekend. Next time I find myself about to utter those four little words maybe instead I’ll ask:
“What did you last read?”
“Do you believe that the perfect bacon sandwich is complete with ketchup or brown sauce?”
“Do you think that the Duke from Bridgerton actually is in fact the most gorgeous man on the planet?”
Now that’s a conversation starter I can get on board with.
P.S. Here’s to all the confused twenty-somethings out there. May we blunder through these baffling years with all the elegance of a drunk rhinoceros in rollerblades.
Find more lifestyle articles here >
Written by Issy McIndoe
Illustrated by Francesca Mariama
