What I do for work
July 10th, 2006
You know what it is like when you go to a party and someone asks what it is that you do, as a way of starting a conversation. It happens to everyone. I really hate getting asked that question most of the time, because unlike being able to say something like “I’m a carpenter”, or “I’m an accountant”, or “I’m an international celebrity chef” which are all pretty straight to the point, I always end up having to give some long explanation.
You see, I work in sales. It is my profession, and I’m a professional. My area of expertise is I.T. However I hate having to say that I’m in I.T. sales because all of a sudden people want to buy video cards off me. I’m not that kind of salesperson. So instead I try saying something like “I provide high availability and scalable network solutions to results-orientated business”. And that just sounds terrible; I mean, it just oozes sleaziness.
Of course, I could just try giving a straightforward, no-frills explanation of what I do. The problem with that is that after about 30 seconds the unfortunate wretch who asked me the question starts to lose consciousness because, frankly, the answer is dreadfully boring to people not in the industry.
Anyway, the point of this is that I think I found something that could lead to a better way of answering the question, “So, what do you do for work?”
In an interview with Claire Swaffield, the CIO for the Sydney Opera House, on ZDNet she states:
“What I bring is not a technical head — couldn’t tell you a server spec if it came up and hit me in the face — but I can translate what a business problem is, and work with organisations like HP to come up with a solution to solve the business problem.”
In a nutshell, I do something similar. I’m on the other side of the fence i.e. the supplier/vendor, but the gist is the same. I help to translate business problems into a meaningful technical solution.
Yes, I help to translate business problems into a meaningful technical solution.
At least its better then what I’ve been using so far.
I find it much more entertaining to make up a profession
My two favorites are “I’m an embalmer” and “I work for Nestle as a food technology consultant (ie. I make chocolate bars)”
The Nestle one interesting cause it sometimes brings up the whole human rights thing. If it does, then I often break the news that I’m in IT cause the fact that they are switched on enough about Nestle and their human rights record might indicate that they might actually be capable of carrying on a conversation about tech.
-dg
I know what you mean DG. I’ve often told people I work on a shrimp trawler in the Gulf of Carpenteria, which can have some funny results.
However, my recent favourite is telling people I’m a Phrenologist. I’m I’m in a particularly wicked mood, I tell people I travel the world giving lectures on the subject. It gets some very interesting reactions.