You Are What You Do

Scary picture, but scarily appropriate
http://collegemedia.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/screen-shot-2012-05-14-at-2-56-48-am.png?w=500&h=366

Throughout the first twenty-something-or-so years of our lives, we recent post-grads have identified as a "student," or, at best, a "student of (insert focus of study here)." It was easy. From kindergarten until the end of our years in higher education, our identity was inextricably linked to our education and what it was we wanted to do with that education. We were never plagued with the ominous question of "so, what do you do?" because it was self-explanatory: we went to class, we learned, we were working towards a degree. The majority of our life was consumed by academics to that point. No pressure, no worry about what it is we were going to do with that accumulation of knowledge, simply that we were immersed in it, and far too inundated with schoolwork to really broach any silly questions of the practical implications of our degrees and what that meant about us.

But when the tassel inevitably moves to the other side of your mortarboard and your degree is hanging up on your wall in the same room you grew up in (and will now, again be living in), people are no longer satisfied with an answer filled with potentially lofty-goals or innocent dreams. The first thing they ask is: "what do you do" and, by golly, you better have a good answer.

We have abandoned the security blanket of answering with "I'm a student," and forced to identify ourselves in terms of our current job. While answering as a student may have allowed you to be associated with all sorts of grand aspirations, answering "what do you do" with your current entry-level job leaves much to be desired. Instead of being able to cling to the things I love to do and want to do when coupled with my academic path, I have to identify with the ugly reality that is: I work at an entry-level job, I don't get to do all of the things I love to do (nor pursue any of my interests) and I am more interesting than my job lets on. (I swear!) 

And yet, when someone asks me what I do, that's the starting point. The conversation builds upon what it is that I do and if first impressions are important, then what sort of impression am I making in the first five minutes of conversation by having to identify with a job I really can't identify with?

Such a simple question, and yet, I can never answer the same way twice. I immediately find myself trying to explain it in the simplest terms and then adding a precusory, "Oh, I know, it's boring" in an attempt to separate who I am from my job. I don't want my answer, or more specifically, my job (at this early point in my career), to equate to who I am, what I care about, and what I want to do with my life. For those who know me, it's obvious that there is far more to me than the office job and cubicle I frequent 40-hours a week. But I just cannot escape the question and the inevitable bridge it forms to who I am. I may spend five days a week in my cubicle, but who I am is not what I do, certainly not in my current position. I might be working towards a better job or career path that would be more cohesive with my personality and my values, but I'm just not there yet and it's sometimes defeating when that is one of the first questions that I'm asked in order to help a new acquaintance assemble my identity.

I recognize this is something that is going to happen regardless of whether or not I cause a fuss about the question, ignore it, or create some public service announcement about the emotionally damaging side effects of being asked this question a few years post-grad. What can I do about it? Not much. But in the mean time, I'm trying to make it a point to steer conversations more towards those aspirations and goals I have. I still got 'em, folks, despite being the jaded working girl that I am these days, and I am going to make them happen.