RE: A Bird's Eye View from A Laptop Warrior - Meet Sam Billingham
Your talk about having a spiel ready brought back a fun memory of mine.
Many years ago, I went to meet my wife's sister for the first time. I'd been told she seemed to be very opinionated about what kinds of jobs were "valuable" in her eyes and to expect her to ask what I did for a living.
Hearing that, I couldn't help but give her some answers she wouldn't expect. "So what do you do?" she asked within the first 5 minutes of meeting me, I replied "I work as a rodeo clown", she had a shocked look on her face when I followed up with "my previous career as a professional break-dancer had to end, I couldn't hold a good head spin anymore".
By that time she was started to catch on, but my point was made. I don't appreciate people who judge others based on some arbitrary ideas on which professions are valuable and which aren't. She didn't quite know how to react to me, but the look on her face was priceless.
I still keep that story handy to tell people who are obviously just wanting to validate their lofty job by comparing it to mine.
@dnic I love your story! 😂
In fact, people who quickly judge others feel undervalued. That's why I think they need our compassion the most.
There may be some truth to what you say. She sacrificed a lot of her family time (which she valued) for years and years to get her doctorate to be sure she met her own standards, maybe some of that was because of feeling undervalued. We moved past the initial first meeting and she was able to laugh about it so I think it worked out well.
haha that's a brilliant story. It's pretty fun to mess with people when you know they arrive with too many preconceived notions of how it should be. That look must have been great! Glad you're not pinned down by other peoples perceptions, I feel some people never get past that.
I do not believe that a person's value comes from what they do for a living or their level of education. I guess it's a pet peeve of mine when I meet people who do.
Jobs and education are great, but it doesn't make someone "better" than someone else.
I think it's fine to talk about what you do, but typically you can tell when someone is judging you.