How do you describe yourself - in retirement or with a portfolio career?

[PinkDalek]

Historically I used to answer those boring questions with ‘Male Gigolo in Blackpool’. Now I’ve changed to being a ‘Designer of filing systems for Lever Arch files’.

The latter doesn’t appear to gain much interest nowadays.

[Howard]

Perhaps I should have put the question a different way. For example, if you're at a social function and someone asks "what do you do?" how would you respond. That is just another example but you can discuss your own.

If you want to be unpretentious, just buy a new Porsche 911 and apply your own personalised number plate.

Then you don't have to admit to working with boring actuaries! People ask about your car.

regards

Howard

[bungeejumper]

Average mileage for year, full service history, recent MOT.

One careful owner. None of the others could give a damn.

BJ

[tjh290633]

When asked I usually say "chicken sexer" that usually shuts them up.

R6

Having seen chicken sexing done by a professional, it's a job that I would happily leave to them. Much easier on hatching days to concentrate on the Rhode-Sussex, where the cocks were yellow and the pullets brown. Back in the 1940s the farm where I spent my holidays hatched something like half a million each week, Tuesdays and Fridays. Then you buried the cocks the next day.

TJH

[jackdaww]

When asked I usually say "chicken sexer" that usually shuts them up.

R6

Having seen chicken sexing done by a professional, it's a job that I would happily leave to them. Much easier on hatching days to concentrate on the Rhode-Sussex, where the cocks were yellow and the pullets brown. Back in the 1940s the farm where I spent my holidays hatched something like half a million each week, Tuesdays and Fridays. Then you buried the cocks the next day.

TJH

==================

sadly , males are unwanted.

[bungeejumper]

sadly , males are unwanted.

Yes, but burying the cocks is going a bit far, don't you think?

BJ

[UncleEbenezer]

When asked I usually say "chicken sexer" that usually shuts them up.

R6

Do you cross paths with pheasant pluckers?

[UncleEbenezer]

If you want to be unpretentious, just buy a new Porsche 911 and apply your own personalised number plate.

Then you don't have to admit to working with boring actuaries! People ask about your car.

Speak for yourself. Some of us do our best to avoid contact with the perpetrator of such a wankmobile.

[Mike4]

Delete LinkedIn profile. Problem solved.

RVF

If only that were possible.

My details were leaked in the huge data leak that LinkedIn suffered a few years ago. I requested LinkedIn delete my account and remove all details. Of course, I have no way of knowing if they did so.

RVF - Retired.

I never thought of doing that.

Have you ever searched for yourself on LinkedIn to see if your request was successful?

I tried to find a way on the website of of deleting my profile which I naïvely set up before the term "social media" was even invented, but never used. There was none last time I checked, probably ten years ago.

The only downside seems to be the odd email from people wanting to 'connect' with me on there, despite me never having accepted any request to create a connection, ever!

[brightncheerful]

This morning, I was skimming through the several notebooks of poems that I wrote in the mid 1960s/1970s. I was searching for one poem in particular.

Amongst the pages, in legible handwriting that my current style wouldn't be able to match, I came across a note I'd made regarding criticism from someone whom I vaguely remember had come along to a poetry group that I used to go to who'd told me in no uncertain terms that what I wrote wasn't poetry. The person as I recall wasn't complimentary about some of the other attendees either. According to the note, I decided thenceforth I would call myself a "creative inspirator".

Not being retired and with no plans or desire to become so, I have always had difficulty in describing myself work-wise as it is. I guess that if I were retired then I'd think of something suitable, for example, "job done".

[brightncheerful]

Perhaps I should have put the question a different way. For example, if you're at a social function and someone asks "what do you do?" how would you respond.

At a social function, my late father introduced me to a friend of his. Friend asked me what I do. i was thinking about how best to answer when my father interjected and said to his friend "good question, I've often wondered".

[bungeejumper]

At a social function, my late father introduced me to a friend of his. Friend asked me what I do. i was thinking about how best to answer when my father interjected and said to his friend "good question, I've often wondered".

Families can be like that. My father, who was a works manager in a large engineering business, worked for the same employer for nearly forty years, by which time they'd exhausted him so completely that his health never really recovered. But he would always say that he was proud that nobody in the family had ever been made redundant.

Nobody except me, that was. The 1980s were simply a different employment scene from the paternalistic 1950s and 1960s, where jobs had often been for life. So when my employer closed down the office where I worked - and after I told them where to stick the miserable job I was being offered in faraway Harlow - my parents were absolutely mortified at what I'd done to the family name.

Five years on - having fluked a long stint at the most prestigious corporation in my particular sector, and having then left to go freelance on the back of it - I was earning more than anyone in my family, with more autonomy and my own choice of where to live. But my dad still said he wished I'd get a "proper job". To his dying day, he still did. But then,I suppose I'd feel the same way if my son-in-law told me tomorrow that he was ditching the nine to five to become a social media influencer?

BJ

[nimnarb]

Will never get used to this. In the States within 5 minutes they all ask, “what do you do” Retired I reply. Yes but What did you do?” Just don’t have it in me to say none of your business or actually tell them. I’m not the greatest socialite and feel it’s the height of rudeness anyway. I finally found a way to be left alone fairly quickly.

I’m a foodie and don’t mind what I pay as long as it’s good. Have a fav restaurant and usually start at the bar which is basically a network area for the locals and mostly listen to all the gossip and try to keep low profile. Happened to be in this place three times one week and noticed the same woman who was mouthy will all and sundry and later found out that she is the editor of the local paper.

Anyway on my third visit could see her staring at me and she lent across the bar and said you are always in here, what do you do? That was her first and only question to me. I looked her straight in the eye and said I’m a window cleaner. Fairly aghast and taken back, she replied well you must do fairly well as this place ain’t cheap and you have been here at least three times this week. I just couldn’t believe it and I don’t know where it came from but right out of my mouth I replied.....
Yes, I have the contract for the White House..
With that answer she moved away, and I noticed Fred my Barman whom I have known for 20 years fall over In hysterics behind the back of the bar..
So Window Cleaner it is from now on and I will state where my contract is located depending on the circumstances.

[Lootman]

Will never get used to this. In the States within 5 minutes they all ask, “what do you do” Retired I reply. Yes but What did you do?” Just don’t have it in me to say none of your business or actually tell them. I’m not the greatest socialite and feel it’s the height of rudeness anyway. I finally found a way to be left alone fairly quickly.

Yes, this really annoys me about being in America. It seems clear to me that Americans really do not know how to relate to someone unless they know what job they do. It quite literally defines you and your value. It's America's class system - the more prestigious your job is deemed to be, the more respect you will immediate;y qualify for in the mind of your new friend.

Contrast this with the UK where I have lifelong friends whose occupation I barely know nor care about.

So whereas in England I am happy to reply "retired" (and I should be having been retired for getting on for 20 years now), in the US I feel the need to conjure up some interesting vocation to ensure I am not persona non grata at the neighbourhood bar and grill. What I say will depend on where I am. "investment manager" sounds good and is suitably generic. But they are two a penny in New York or Chicago. So there i invent other jobs, As always with lying, it helps if what you say bears some resemblance to what you used to do, or at least what you are knowledgeable about. But I have also used "railroad engineer", "funeral consultant" and "chartered flaneur" (it helps that very few Americans know any French words.

The problem I have in the UK, having said "retired", is that there is often the inevitable follow-up question: "What do you do with all your time?" To which my stock answer is: "I pass time pleasurably".

[UncleEbenezer]

and said I’m a window cleaner.

On a point of idle curiosity, is George Formby well-liked/respected among 'merkins?

[Lootman]

and said I’m a window cleaner.

On a point of idle curiosity, is George Formby well-liked/respected among 'merkins?

Wigan's favourite son was so quintessentially English that my first reaction would be that few Americans would ever have heard of him. I don't believe he ever went there.

But some cursory research indicates that there is an American branch of the George Formby Society. And he was inducted in 2004 into the Ukulele Hall of Fame:

https://www.ukulele.org/?Inductees:2004 ... rge_Formby

[tikunetih]

"What do you do for a living?"

As little as possible.

"So what do you do with all that time on your hands?"

Whatever I please*.
--

Works for me.

* Walking the dog, riding a bike, taking a hike, cooking a meal, doing yard-work and reading a bunch of stuff doesn't leave that much spare time left...

[nimnarb]

They would think I was probably talking about George Foreman.
Most wouldn’t know who Formby was I believe but I still
listen to his songs.

[Mike4]

"What do you do for a living?"

As little as possible.

"So what do you do with all that time on your hands?"

Whatever I please*.
--

Works for me.

* Walking the dog, riding a bike, taking a hike, cooking a meal, doing yard-work and reading a bunch of stuff doesn't leave that much spare time left...

I meet a lot of new people all the time in my line of work, in their homes, and asking "What do you do for a living?" is a tool I used to use as a springboard for conversation. Once/if I discover their occupation I can make better conversation with someone I only met ten minutes ago, and it definitely oils the social wheels and puts them more at ease with having me me as a total stranger in their house. Almost regardless of their occupation, I can find something moderately intelligent to ask about it, which usually fires up some good and rewarding conversation where I get to learn a TONNE of interesting stuff.

A decade or so ago I hit on a slightly better question than "What do you do for a living?", which I suspect is what the yanks might really wanting to know. Nowadays I enquire about their field of expertise. Everybody has at least one, whether it be football, chemical engineering, playing the cello, cross stitch, bridge design or posting rubbish on discussion forums (my own speciality). Discussing their field of expertise in an interested manner definitely makes them feel more at ease having me around, in a most general and positive way.

Now, having said all that, I bet you are itching to ask me "What do you do for a living?"

[Lootman]

I meet a lot of new people all the time in my line of work, in their homes

Now, having said all that, I bet you are itching to ask me "What do you do for a living?"

Easy. You are either selling vacuum cleaners, tupperwarre or encyclopedias.