What Do They Do?

Let's try this. Your five closest friends: do you really know what they do in their careers? (Family and spouses/partners excepted.) And I mean in more detail than Friends know their friends*:

Ross: What is Chandler Bing’s job?
Rachel: Oh gosh, it has something to do with numbers.
Monica: And processing.
Rachel: He carries a briefcase.
Monica: It’s umm, it has something to do with transponding.
Rachel: Oh-oh-oh, he’s a transponce—transpondster!
Monica: That’s not even a word!!

I mean, like do you know the industry, company (and company function), and his/her function in that company? One step further, do you know what their a-day-in-the-work-life-of is like?

Because I don't. And frankly, I'm kind of embarrassed by it, because I feel like I should. They are my five closest friends, after all.

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* Incidently, some people know the craziest Friends trivia.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow - my girlfriend and I JUST had this conversation the other day because to this day, I still have NO IDEA what she actually does all day.....

Anonymous said...

It's not that I do it out of disrespect, for I can selectively recall the tiniest details (dating years back) to the point of being freaky. I think I purposely have a mental block when it comes to remembering what it is that my friends do for a living.

It's never the job that defines who you are ...

Ben said...

True that it's not the job that defines a person, but people often link that to someone's "function" in society (whereas it's really more like what that person does so they can enjoy life in society).

I have a pretty good idea of my family's worklives, but only a good idea of what some people do. Like, programmers, for instance: they pretty much ... uh ... program all day long, no? But like a project manager, I can imagine what it's like (having done some of that in the past), but I think I take for granted that all such work resembled what I had done. And it's probably not the case.

Mike said...

Well.. I still have trouble understanding 100% of my job function as well.

And forget trying to explain what I do to my wife.. she just thinks I draw stick-man figures and draw arrows all day.

Ben said...

You do. But man, I think I'd like that too.