[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What does your Mom tell people about your wo...
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Ask HN: What does your Mom tell people about your work or
employment?
Does she say, "My son created the color on the Start Button!" or,
"My Daughter created the button that opens the Beast Limo's
partition behind the driver!!!!" (The Beast is the US President's
vehicle.) Just what does she say? I imagine the answers can be
humorous! PS Take "Mom" to mean Mom, Nana, daughter, Son, or
whatever seems appropriate for the comment!
Author : IncRnd
Score : 29 points
Date : 2022-06-02 21:54 UTC (1 hours ago)
| coltoneakins wrote:
| Not exactly the same, but when I worked as an _intern_ for a
| program funded by NASA, my grandmother ("Nana") used to tell her
| friends I worked for NASA.
| bicx wrote:
| In that case, I also worked for NASA!
|
| ...as an intern for a computational engineering program in
| Chattanooga, TN, where I changed RAM in servers. We received
| like $10k in NASA funding.
| IncRnd wrote:
| It's impossible to say Nana shouldn't be in the comments! She
| is every bit as good as Mom for an HN comment!
| roflyear wrote:
| I don't know. But I recently asked a dad what his son did, and
| they said they don't know! That's really sad.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Sometimes depending on the context and the person it's just
| easier to say IDK.
|
| Our industry has lots parents that aren't really equipped in
| any way to really grock what we do outside of computers, I'd
| assume taking that limited knowledge and trying to answer with
| more than 'computers' might be more of a pain in the ass than
| saying 'IDK'
|
| Wouldn't be to hard on them, there's a lot of valid reasons to
| say IDK without being a bad parent.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| Seems to be more common with dads. My own has asked where I
| work probably a dozen times and likely couldn't have named more
| than one of my friends when I was younger.
| yabones wrote:
| "He's an internet plumber. He wrestles the big greaseballs
| clogging up the tubes to make it go faster"
| bicx wrote:
| "He's an internet gastroenterologist..."
| stevenisageek wrote:
| My Mom tells people I "work on the internet".
|
| She's not wrong... but it's kind of like saying construction
| laborers "work on the earth"
|
| Good chuckle regardless
| IncRnd wrote:
| Starting this off, StevePerkins just wrote on a different thread
| here: STILL, "my son built the Breaking News
| banner on cnn.com!" is the thing that my mom tells her
| friends. It's the only thing that my wife ever understood
| about what I do for a living.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31598324
| impoppy wrote:
| I don't know, but she's constantly pushing me, throwing me
| articles about huge companies hiring, about investments, savings,
| getting a mortgage. She constantly asks me if I got a job in that
| huge company I was applying to. It's a lot of pressure.
| netsharc wrote:
| I read this yesterday, the advice columnist wrecked (thanks
| Huffington Post) the advice asker:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/05/parent-ch...
|
| You could tell her to butt off, but only if you feel you need
| to...
| atonse wrote:
| "My son is in IT" (FWIW, we're of Indian origin, living in the DC
| metro area for 30 years)
|
| But I don't know what to tell my parents, saying "he builds
| software for a living" isn't really that much more specific, and
| they resort to "My son is in IT"
|
| I got slightly more curiosity with "I build Apps" when I used to
| build mobile apps. But not with my parents.
| jedberg wrote:
| My parents just say "he works for X" where X is the company I
| work for at the time, or "he has a startup". I've told them what
| I do, but they don't really grock it. If they get pressed, they
| say, "he does cloud computing stuff".
|
| This answer also applies to my wife, who knows what I do but
| doesn't care to explain it to anyone for fear of more questions.
| :). Also she mostly just cares that the bill get paid.
| alexoro412 wrote:
| When I worked in networking, my brother told my mom that I'm a,
| "telephone repairman," which has now become a running joke in my
| family
| kitten_mittens_ wrote:
| I work in 'spam mail.' My company name is basically never
| remembered.
| cwdegidio wrote:
| Both my mom and dad have no idea how to talk about what I do. Mom
| just tells people I do things with computers at a major bank. My
| dad tells everyone I work in IT... which drives me up a wall. Not
| that I don't respect IT, but as a developer I'm about useless
| when it comes to the hardware side of things.
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| "Stuff with computers that I don't even understand and she gives
| us tech support"
|
| Which gets the point across pretty well, honestly.
| omgmajk wrote:
| She says I work with computers.
| ishjoh wrote:
| My wife tells people that I 'build parts of the internet' which
| sounds a lot cooler than building ecom, marketing sites, and
| mobile apps. Most people are pretty happy with that description
| too.
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| My folks think I do on site tech support. Doesn't matter how I
| explain my work or correct them they don't really understand.
| jakebasile wrote:
| My mom has told more people where I work than I have. For her,
| she's much more concerned with the company vs the day to day.
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(page generated 2022-06-02 23:01 UTC)