Ask Lemmy

I don't have a job, so no trouble at all.

Depends on wether I want them to understand. If I just say we are the ISP for universities and other schools of higher education then they mostly go, "Ah okay", but it seems like no one has any idea what that means. I feel like despite using them daily people don't even know what a network is sometimes.

No. I do not.

My friend had this problem, I knew him for a while and couldn't figure it out. I believe he was a "Transpondster".

Yes, definitely. It's easier now that I'm part of operational support and can oversimplify it by referring to myself as an IT dude, but back when I was part of the field rotation, when I tried to sum up what "offshore seismic survey technician" is, I was sometimes asked "so, how's it like working on an oil rig?".
I wouldn't know, I've never been on one. I've been on ships around them, but never on the rigs themselves.

My job title is an acronym, inside the company no one seems to agree on what this acronym stands for. So yes, I just say I work in the Automotive industry.

Game Dev here. More specifically, audio director. Used to be tech sound designer and composer. I find it hard to explain even over here, among the geeks like me.

Yes, I do. I'm a devops engineer and even "coding camp devs" have problems understanding what I do for a living.

No.
"I keep the computer systems running at the local newspaper, and prevent it from getting hacked" is pretty straightforward.
It provides enough to latch on to for normie small talk.
And I can dose the tech talk based on what questions I get back.

It's not so much I would say I have trouble explaining it but rather I don't have a single way to explain it since the occupation doesn't have a name, at least in the English language, so I end up having a bajillion equally valid ways of crash coursing about it.

Yes, if they are really interested and don't have IT background. My mother once thought I look up codes in books and type it into the computer.

I have two ways of explaining. The first one is just saying “I work with data” followed by some hand waving and shrugging.
The other is where I really go into detail and explain everything. Going gaga over some minute aspect that I find awesome but couldn’t even interest one of my coworkers.
Neither seems to really work, but I don’t get follow up questions which suits me just fine :)

Not really. I tell them it's like a Black Mirror episode and they give me a sympathetic grimace. Then we talk about something else.

i have problems explaining my job to myself. As I sit on the floor, painting a wall or scrubbing the floor or as I'm trying to repair a door... yeah that's not my job description

yes and no.

I work as an it support in a small software company, so i do lots of stuff:
data integration / migration, fixes in our legacy products & websites, and of course fixing printers.

thats way to complicated explain in detail,
but just saying IT support doesn't do it justice (people just think im the guy that tells people to "turn it of and on again" if i leave it at that)

Instead of telling people directly what i do,
i just tell them i work in IT, this is what my company does, and i work on these products.

i build websites

Nope, building prototypes, running experiments and develop stuff is rather easy to explain.

Explaining where i work is the harder part.

Oh yes, I usually end up saying "I work in insurance" because any more specific than that and people look at me with question marks in their faces

AFTN/AMHS expert at an ANSP so definitely yes.

When people understand that it is about air traffic control and say "Oh so you work in the airport tower" you just answer yes.

Explaining that I'm a systems and infrastructure admin is actually easier for me than explaining my organization to people lol. Because it's a local government agency that provides services to school districts, and people don't really know we exist if they aren't a district staff member themselves (and even then sometimes they don't know!), and we're a bit niche in our specific services, I usually just end up saying "school ISP" despite that only being a small part of it. 😂

I'm a public servant, so while it's easy to tell people I work for The Government, it's a lot harder to explain what I do. My job is a mish-mash of like three different roles in one of the least popular departments. When people ask, I say I work for (our version of) the DMV, and that's usually good enough.