Monday, October 03, 2005
Job Descriptions
I could reference this to Tom Kyte's 4 years to get experienced thread (haven't these guys heard of Hendrix) but I won't. Peter Scott has a blog entry on describing one's job to one's children. I'm afraid it rather reminded me of an experience I had a while back at my sister in-law's wedding. I am married to a patent agent (that's patent attorney for all you American's - or evil incarnate for open source advocates). Laura is a female electronic engineer who having mastered that subject, to the extent of gaining a first in it, then mastered the law relating to intellectual property in the EU specifically and also world-wide. In other words she's the clever one.
Anyway now you know what she does. Back to the wedding.
We go back to my sister-in-law's; Laura is at one end of the sofa, I am at the other. In between sits the Vicar who conducted the blessing. He asks laura what she does. She explains. He asks me what I do. I say "I manage business critical databases for a large public sector regulator". Without a blink he turns his back and continues "So Laura, intellectual property - that must be interesting - tell me all about it". He never spoke to me again.
Note Added Oct 3.
The phantom nitpicker is correct. American's should read Americans. That is so annoying.
10 Comments
Anyway now you know what she does. Back to the wedding.
We go back to my sister-in-law's; Laura is at one end of the sofa, I am at the other. In between sits the Vicar who conducted the blessing. He asks laura what she does. She explains. He asks me what I do. I say "I manage business critical databases for a large public sector regulator". Without a blink he turns his back and continues "So Laura, intellectual property - that must be interesting - tell me all about it". He never spoke to me again.
Note Added Oct 3.
The phantom nitpicker is correct. American's should read Americans. That is so annoying.
10 Comments:
If you say that you are a computer scientist, nobody goes into ecstasies
But if you say that you are an IT researcher, everybody is fascinated.
who understands...
But if you say that you are an IT researcher, everybody is fascinated.
who understands...
# posted by 
: 7:55 PM, October 03, 2005
: 7:55 PM, October 03, 2005
My solution to this problem involves a certain amount of analysis of the person who has asked... "So, what do you do?"
Cheers
Cheers
Similar situation, but my wife's aunt asks me what I do.
"I manage the data that gets generated during stock trades.", I say.
"Oh, do you have any good stock tips for me?"
I reply, "I don't pick the stocks, I just manage the data."
"Oh. You must bee a good typist."
"Um...yeah. Was that bar over there?"
"I manage the data that gets generated during stock trades.", I say.
"Oh, do you have any good stock tips for me?"
I reply, "I don't pick the stocks, I just manage the data."
"Oh. You must bee a good typist."
"Um...yeah. Was that bar over there?"
How about:
"I make computers act smarter than they actually are."
hehe
"I make computers act smarter than they actually are."
hehe
# posted by : 6:02 PM, October 04, 2005
: 6:02 PM, October 04, 2005
My favourite is where people say "And what do you do?" and I respond "I'm a database administrator" and they say "And what do you do?"
# posted by : 9:37 AM, October 05, 2005
: 9:37 AM, October 05, 2005
I tend to say I'm a programmer (no-one knows what a developer is ;) ) leading often to 'Oh, so you work with computers? Well I keep having this problem with my PC at home...' I have a lot of sympathy with doctors now :)
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# posted by : 7:17 AM, October 07, 2005
: 7:17 AM, October 07, 2005
