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Top 10 Ways to Answer the Question: What Do You Do?

Around this time last year, I wrote a post about how hard it was to answer the dreaded questions about what I do for a living when talking to family and friends during the holidays. It didn’t take long to realize that I wasn’t the only who dreads this question, based on the many comments.

To provide you with some holiday ammunition or just a little holiday humor, here are a few of my favorite stories from the comments last year.

Deanna Zandt:

“I often try to make a joke first, it takes the weird edge off for some reason.

Them: So what do you do?
Me: I don’t know…
Them: What?
Me: I don’t know. I get up in the morning, and there’s a laptop there, and I sit at it and type things… [drift off]
Them: Um…
Me: I’m just kidding. I’m a consultant who does online strategy and builds web sites. It’s a weird job and it’s a blast.”

Steve Robillard:

“Me: ‘I am a consultant, I work mostly with higher ed.’

them: ‘Oh, so you work for yourself, I wish I could do that. I would work so much less. It must be great.’

Me: ‘Yeah except every time I try to call in sick I get a busy signal.’”

Julie:

“‘Must be nice to get to sit in front of a computer all day and surf the web.’

‘Yeah, I used to have to commute to an office to do that, but it’s much better now.’”

Travis Chillemi:

My least favorite goes like this:

Them: ‘What do you do?’
Me: ‘I am a web designer.’
Them: ‘Oh! My dentist also does web design. He/She is really good with Frontpage and stuff. He/She even has their own web site. It has something to do with Geocities…’
Me: ‘Yeah. I do dental work on the side, too. I even have my own drill and chair.’
Them: ‘Huh?’”

Taylor Brooks:

“Knowing that the conversation is probably doomed for awkwardness from the jump, I just tell people I’m in the adult film business or a drug dealer. At least you can control (or attempt) to control the awkwardness.”

Jason Glaspey:

“I just tell people that I make the internets.”

Amber Case:

“My entire family asks me to teach them search engine optimization. I want to wear a T-shirt that says ‘No, I will not optimize your web site!’”

Desirea:

“I usually just say ‘I’m a computer programmer.’ It usually scares them off of any other questions. If I get too deep, their eyes glaze over.”

John:

“I do the internets voodoo!”

cbright:

“When I get the glazed-over look, I just say I’m a part-time rodeo clown/psychologist. I’m in marketing, so I’m not actually lyin’…”

What are your favorite answers to the question: What do you do?

Photo by Flickr user Ed Yourdon used under Creative Commons

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TripIt Adds Facebook Support

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Blogging With OneNote 2010 Beta

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Deposit Checks Without Leaving Your Office

Image by sxc.hu user muresan113

New Productivity Study Suggests Ditching Visual Alerts

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Google Apps Adds Groups

Google Apps, the suite of productivity applications that’s a favorite of WWD, has had Groups, a discussion group application, added to its array of tools. In addition to providing email using your own domain, Google Apps offers a number of ways for businesses and organizations to collaborate, including Docs, Spreadsheets, Calendars and over 20 other applications. But competitors like Zoho have had discussion groups for some time, so Google definitely needed to catch up.

The New Lazyfeed Adds Real-time Updates to Your News Feeds

Lazyfeed has relaunched itself with an emphasis on making things even easier for you and, thus, making you even lazier (to use its own terminology). Topic-based readers (a subject we’ve written about before) have become popular of late, but Lazyfeed appears to be gaining the most attention. This latest update improves its real-time results.

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Gist Public Profiles Help You Get Found

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Touchscreen Devices and Gloves Don’t Mix — or Do They?

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Coworking News: A New Space in the Twin Cities

It seems like coworking spaces are popping up all over at the moment. I’ve just spotted this post from Don Ball announcing an interesting coworking venture/small business incubator/meeting space in downtown St. Paul, Minn. — and it could be open as soon as January. Ball’s looking for input on how to shape the space and naming suggestions, so if you’re from the Twin Cities area, head over to his post and get involved.

Does Medium Affect Behavior?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how people behave in different environments. It first crossed my mind a month or so ago, while out shopping with one of my sisters. She was driving, someone cut her off, and she commented on the person’s rude behavior. I said that I wondered if the person would act the same in person.

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The holidays are a time for giving. I remember when, during my days as an office worker, the Unicef box would travel between cubicles, or if the organization was larger, sometimes management would ask that a portion of your paycheck go to such-and-such charity.

Should You Hire a “Certified” Social Media Consultant?

I recently got up on my soapbox on my personal blog and ranted about a new, pricey certification program that is being offered by a social media association that has recently cropped up, one of many that are claiming to be able to certify social media expertise.

Web Worker Gift Guide: 6 Ultimate Gifts

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Desktop Twitter app TweetDeck (previously covered on WWD) was updated today with some pretty major changes. Version 0.32 of the client comes with built-in support for Twitter Lists (a new way of organizing the people you follow on Twitter), the new retweet functionality, geolocation and LinkedIn.

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