Keeping The Topic of “Work” Out of Conversations

I don’t care what your job is. I don’t care what your job title is. I really don’t care to know much about your day-to-day existence at work.

Well, I actually do care… I just don’t want the topic of work to ever dominate our conversation. (Plus, it feels way more dramatic & edgy to say the words “I don’t care”).

The Strange Obsession With Work

For some reason, at least here in American culture, everyone seems to be fixated on work. When we hang out with coworkers at lunch or happy hour, much of the conversation turns to office politics or discussing the status of current projects. When we see family & friends, they typically ask how work is going. Whenever we meet someone new, one of the first questions out of their mouth is typically “What do you do (for a living)?”

In response to each of these situations I always think to myself “who cares?”, “why does it matter?”, and most importantly “what’s the deal with this strange obsession with work?”

I think many of us have a habit of discussing work for a few reasons:

Work is already at the center of our lives. Unfortunately we can’t escape the reality that almost half (and usually many more) of our waking hours each week are spent on work itself or work-related activities. So it’s understandable if this topic is always on our mind and if we have an innate tendency to talk about it even if we don’t choose to do it consciously.

Job titles are a big part of many people’s identities. While it’s true that most people climb the corporate ladder seeking higher & higher wages, some people climb the corporate ladder in search of more & more important-sounding job titles. “Intern” or “Individual Contributor” doesn’t quite sound as good as “Manager”, “Vice President” or even “CEO”. Holding distinguished job titles is important to some people because their self-worth & identity is so intertwined with what they do for a living.

To compare ourselves to others. Nobody will openly admit this, but let’s be honest… various job titles or career fields come with specific connotations. For example most people have reverence for doctors or tech workers and believe these jobs come with prestige and a high salary, while those who work retail or in a blue collar job are oftentimes perceived as having less education and/or lower pay. Whether true or not, these perceptions give us one way to compare ourselves apples-to-apples to others, so we can determine whether we’re doing “better” or “worse” in our own lives.

“Happy Hours” Turned Out To Be “Boring Hours”

While I completely understand why work may be at the forefront of so many people’s minds, I still don’t like it. In fact, I think it’s rather boring.

I attended a few happy hours with old co-workers in the months after I retired, hoping to catch up and see how everyone was doing. I quickly realized that most of the conversations we were having were centered around work. While I wanted to discuss upcoming summer plans and what new things were going on in their lives, all these people wanted to talk about was how the business was doing, complain about upcoming deadlines, etc. When there was so much else going on in the world, I could care less about these work-related topics, especially since they were no longer relevant to me anymore. I was sorely disappointed to say the least.

Things got busy and I didn’t attend another happy hour for quite a while. During that time I had traveled internationally, spent time with my family, attended many FI events, and experimented with various hobbies & interests. When I met up with my co-workers 9 months later, I was excited to catch up once again and share all of my adventures. However, just like the previous time I was disheartened when they could still only talk about work. I kept trying to steer the conversation to other topics, but that only deterred them momentarily before veering back towards work-related content. Comically, I met a new-hire who joined the company after I left and although he was a complete stranger to me, I actually enjoyed talking to him the most because we were able to have a great conversation about many things besides work.

What Else Lies Beyond Work

Should talking about work be strictly forbidden? Not necessarily. For those who have a true passion & dedication to their careers it’s actually quite refreshing since their enthusiasm genuinely shows. In these instances it can be quite fun to hear about what someone is up to in the world.

Unfortunately, the number of people who love their jobs is quite rare. So that leaves the majority of people with jobs that they don’t really care for; some of these jobs are neutral (take-it-or-leave-it), but in other cases these are jobs that are tolerated just for a paycheck. It’s really these types of work-related conversations to steer clear of – nobody wants to hear complaining or negativity.

So what other topics are there to talk about? Pretty much anything under the sun including hobbies, community involvement, volunteering, travel, spending time with family or a significant other, etc. Obviously we all have different tastes & interests that may not appeal to everyone, however if someone has enough passion about a specific topic, more often than not it usually lends to an engaging conversation.

I’m Not The Only One

Sometimes I feel like the only person who has these sorts of thoughts and that perhaps I’m the crazy one. But there are actually others with similar views such as Ric Edelman. On a recent episode of his podcast, Ric discusses how to respond if asked the question “What do you do?”. He suggests thinking about what makes you happy – is this being a spouse, a parent, a hobbyist or volunteering or sitting on boards? Another suggestion is to reframe the answer – instead of referring to a job, refer to other aspects of life or different skill sets such as “I play guitar”, “I volunteer”, “I love doing puzzles”… or perhaps the mic-drop response “I rediscover and reinvent myself every day”.

My Own Changing Views

I’ll admit that during my career I too fell into the trap of talking to others about work fairly often. For the longest time, work was such a big part of my life that it was all I really knew. Sadly, because of this, it ended up being all I could talk about as well. My identity was tied to my job and my job became a big part of my self-worth.

This started to change slowly as my life changed – getting married, having kids, finding new hobbies & interests, then ultimately pursuing Financial Independence. Over time I realized that there was so much more to life than work. I wanted to explore these other things on my own, as well as talk to others about them to share my enthusiasm. I no longer wanted my identity to be tied solely to my career, but rather I wanted my job to be nothing more than a minor talking point that provided a tiny bit of information and context about my life.

Recent Success

Aside from the dreadful experiences with my old co-workers, I’ve had better success recently keeping the topic of work out of conversations. When meeting new people at any sort of event, I’ve tried to purposely focus the discussion on either event-related topics or simply whatever else was on my mind at the time.

I’ve met many new people recently at FI events, particularly in my ChooseFI Local Group, and I’m proud to say that in most cases I only know what their jobs are/were at a very high-level – we talk about so many other things such as travel, financial literacy, hobbies, etc.

When I’ve met other parents while attending or coaching my kids’ sports teams we end up talking about everything but the kitchen sink. In fact, there has only been one parent that has ever asked me about my job; otherwise it was never even a relevant topic in our conversations.

Reach Out And Touch Someone

Whether or not you love your job, I encourage you to break the lazy habit of defaulting to work-related discussions. Think about what lights you up and what other interesting things are going on in your life and talk about these topics instead. Hopefully your conversations will become more fun & engaging and may even lead to deeper connections with others.

And although you may want to change, I acknowledge that most others will still fall into the trap of talking about work. If that’s the case, just remember that you’ll always have a friend here at Epic Financial Journey to talk to. By now, I hope you know that I’m down for almost any type of conversation, as long as it doesn’t include the topic of work. Don’t be afraid to reach out and say hi.

Links/Resources

Reader Questions

Have you ever fallen into the trap of unnecessarily talking to others about work? If so, did you even realize it at the time?
When meeting someone new, what sorts of conversation topics do you prefer to help get to know someone better?

Leave your answers or comments below – or email us directly at info@epicfinancialjourney.com