Why do people always ask about jobs rather than asking whether I am happy with my life?

Why do people always ask about jobs rather than asking whether I am happy with my life?

  • I do not like this.

    I do not believe that job title defines who one is over time.

  • Your job has come to define who you are over time, as that's the thing that we spend most of our time on during our working age. If you want to talk about your life and your happiness, you can bring that up :) 

  • It is a formalized conversational gambit. Like others have said, its an icebreaker. Truthfulness and depth of the response is dictated by the subjective familiarity with those asking.

  • This reminds me, when I was young, uncles and aunties always asked about school.  And I hated school. It's because they couldn't remember anything else about me.

    We tend to credit NT people with having good conversation skills, but the skill is often based on blagging, as many of them don't pay attention to details or remember much. 

  • People spend the vast majority of their waking hours working - it's their way of trying to measure you and find common ground for conversation.    Even if they hate their job, looking for a new one is still an acceptable conversation.        Lifestyles vary hugely so that's a less likely to score a hit that they can talk about.

    There's also the biggy - most people do not think about their life - and if they do, they are universally unhappy with it -  so that's going to be a hard conversation. 

  • I suppose it's just a good icebreaker but this also annoys me as I choose an unconvential way of making money it always seems not taken seriously like people are programmed to have to work work work hard