The What Do You Do Game

How I feel about the question we're so commonly asked

When I knew I’d be meeting several people for the first time, I used to play this game. The goal of the game was simple — to let as much time to pass without one person asking the other: So… What do you do?

The Game was my little secret, requiring me to be poker-faced about the highs and lows. A few minutes was always good. A whole beverage of one-to-one conversation was better, but still nothing to celebrate. The perfect game, of course, was to get to the end of an evening of engaging conversations, without talking about work at all — I could then fist bump myself in the Uber ride home. 

I was single, thirty, and training to be a lawyer in Johannesburg, when I started playing The Game. Like many big financial centres, it’s quite common to be working in a professional services or corporate role. So it felt wasteful to spend Friday evening talking about which glass building you sent lots of emails from that week. 

“I enjoyed meeting you tonight, Nic. I can’t believe we didn’t talk about work once. Almost like it was your plan?” Dave, who I met at my friend Jeff’s dinner party, was onto my ploy. Should I retreat, feign ignorance and simply ask him what he did? Or, should I double down on my position. Several beers deep, I remained bullish.

“And I’m not going to ask, Dave. If we can go through whole evenings together without talking about our work, won’t that be something? See you at your mom’s book launch!” That last little bit I made up.  

At the time, I thought I was doing right by playing the entertaining guest. The friend who lightens the mood, more likely to create an impromptu board game from torn off slips of paper than discussing how he earns a crust.

It was a role I was happy to play, but looking back I feel sheepish by my lack of self awareness. Contriving situations that avoided serious conversations, was a mask for my imposter syndrome. I felt I should have been further along in my journey at the time, both personally and professionally, and wasn’t prepared to show such vulnerability from across the table. So I was more likely to be opening a discourse on why South Africans have bastardised every country's cuisine by adding avocado.

These days, I’m a lot happier about what I do, and I’m far more interested in asking or answering the question. In particular, I love conversations where it feels like we’re openly grappling with the idea of how much of our identity is wrapped up in what we do, and what we might do to find a deeper sense of meaning from it all.

About 18 months ago, I resigned from my role as an intellectual property lawyer to work on Julep Flowers with my wife, Jules. It’s an online store offering a fresh take on the flower delivery experience, and I love it. It’s grown nicely over the past couple of years, and we have big ambitions for it in the years to come.  

The flower business is a world apart from the legal profession on paper, but it’s not that different when you consider that we’re all problem solvers trying to find a way to contribute —  in exchange for a crust of bread, of course. There’s a lot I enjoy about law (and still do some lawyering on the side), but when Julep helps our customers show up for their loved ones at the most important times, I feel a sense of connection I didn’t get from the legal profession. 

I also love working with Jules. Her career as a management consultant sharpened her skill of finding common sense solutions for how we run our business. She’s also my favourite person to be around, and working together in a floral studio, stripping flowers with a great playlist on, often makes me think of Annie Dillard’s quote: "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

I still think that asking people what they do, straight-off-the-bat, can come across a bit insincere. Especially when there are no follow-up questions — which can make it feel as though the person seems to require your answer in order to peg you somewhere in their social hierarchy. However, taking a real interest in what people do can, admittedly, be a wonderful first domino for deeper conversations. 

A few weeks ago, we went for lunch in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley with an extended group of friends and their children. I don’t recall anyone talking about work that day, and I wouldn’t say that I had anything to do with contriving that outcome. We spoke about children a lot, though. We were even asked by a neighbouring table if we met in an ante-natal class. 

You’re more likely to find me these days with a baby carrier wrapped around my shoulders than a jacket. Our newborn son, Thomas, is as cute as all hell, and likely to soak up a lot more attention as we follow his every move. Perhaps, the day is not too far away when I meet a stranger, and after several minutes of conversation think to myself, when are they going to ask me: So… What do you do?