So, what do you do?

Yesterday I attended a “weekend with your novel” workshop at UW, and met tons and tons of new people who asked me the standard question, “So what do you do?”

I figured I wouldn’t have to prepare to answer this question as I assumed everyone in attendance there were writers, and that I’d be faced with more of the “what genre” type questions. Unfortunately, after the 5^th person asked me “what do you do?” I realized that there are probably only a handful of novelists earning an income at it, so all of these writers have to additionally have more traditional ‘jobs’.

Sure words like tangential and hyperbolic were thrown around like the everyday monosyllabic grunts that are exchanged in most of my dialogues, but this didn’t preclude these literary folks from asking the age, old question:

“So, what do you do?”

I hate this question. It was easy breezy 10 years ago, because my answer fit into a nice, clean, expected, and impressive check box.

Here’s how I answered this question this week:

“So what do you do?”

At the doctor: “unemployed”

At the poker tables: “ retired” , “former business owner”, “former corporate exec”

At the dentist: “writing a novel”

At the fashion boutique: “poker player”

And at the writer’s workshop: “I just recently worked in the corporate world” (that was the lamest of all, would have been better off saying unemployed)

Who am I La Femme Nikita? The reality is I do lots of stuff, but I think what people mean to ask is “what do you do for a living that actually provides income?”

So again, I do a lot of stuff but I’m not actually making a ton of dinero doing any of the above at this point. However I feel like if I don’t have an easy answer, then people become uncomfortable and judgmental. I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it.  Twelve years ago when I was a Vice President for a telecomm company and answered the question, people would say “Oh!”, with a crescendo in their voice and smile and raise their brow and ask more probing questions to gage my success.

Now if I answer “I’m a poker player”, the response is met in one of two ways with either “oh” with kind of the you are a degenerate gambler stink face, or the “Oh, are you on TV?”, holy shit that’s so cool face.

Saying “I’m retired” makes people feel bad about themselves like,”hey she’s younger than me and must be loaded, so therefore I’m a loser”.

If I say “I’m unemployed” it has the inverse effect, people might feel better about themselves because they certainly must be more successful then me like it’s a competition, and maybe they’ll feel sorry for me a little bit, but then, how do you move forward from that answer? It’s all kinds of awkward. Most of the time my answer depends on who’s asking or depending on my environment. I mean it’s ridiculous.

I remember years ago when I was visiting one of my best friends and her family in Atlanta, her husband (who by the way is one of the nicest, hardest working, super successful, all around awesome guys) he said to me, ”you know if I want to go open a fly fishing shop at this stage in my life, well, I can and I can just say ‘fuck it, and fuck ‘em’, been there, done that, worked my ass off, don’t have anything to prove or to explain.” Period.

That’s so true, and same with me, I have worked my ass off my whole life and provided for myself, so why should I feel insecure and feel like I need to justify my current existence or my identity with my past career?  It’s kind of absurd when you think about it isn’t it?

So should the question be answered with what occupies most of our time? For me the answer would be poker and writing. If I win millions at poker I’ll give the money away to charity, and the same goes for writing a best selling novel, but the reality is this; I spend most of my time with these two things and I do not make a lot of money with either.

What about stay at home moms? Shouldn’t they be equally if not more valued and praised than their highly successful lawyer husbands? Why do we praise financial success and not our community efforts or family involvement or volunteer time for the needy with a higher value? Shouldn’t we?

For some of us ‘what we do’ is a means to an end or to be able to do the things we really want to be doing. They work so that they can do good things, spend time with their family and enjoy their lives passions. For some lucky people they have both in one shot. Their career is their passion and all fulfilling and they make money doing it. And for some people they are doing what they love, or following their calling and money has zero relevancy. Like school teachers. Why do we pay them so little? It makes no sense.

Many swami’s and gurus teach out of pure love and joy for no money at all and place their faith that they will be provided for. And they have zero stress about it, completely detached from materialism and worry.  I work hard each day towards enlightenment but I’ll be honest, this would stress me out, in fact it stresses me out thinking about it. It’s mind-boggling when you think about it all.

I also ask the stupid question and cringe at myself when I do so when I meet someone new. I’m sincerely interested in meeting new people and getting to know them but I need to figure out how to do that without putting them in the box with “So what do you do?”

Maybe I need to try out “So how do you spend most of you time?” for a while. See how that works.

If anyone has any better ideas I’d love to hear them.

Whatever it is that you do with your time, do it with heart and soul. And hopefully you are running good in the process! xo Pdub

Hey, if you have been following my blog, a couple of updates:

1.     I’ve been working out with a personal trainer and I am sore as hell. Feeling good, haven’t lost any weight yet

2.     I’m delighted with how my skin looks