So what do you do....?

The other night at the pub post-work, we somehow came around to the conversation of whether your friends and family actually know what you do. The answer was a resounding 'no'.

Gone are the days when most of us are nurses, teachers, journalists, and farmers. Now we are account directors, consultants, project managers....

To my left's friends know he does something to do with numbers; diagonally's brother thought she was in PR for three years; and the most senior at the table's dad has always thought he is a management consultant. None of which is true.
Directly across from me once appeared in one of our campaigns, for a medical client of ours. Now half of her friends are sure she is a nurse.

Some of you may well remember the Friends episode when Rachel can't remember what Chandler's office job is, so then calls him a 'transponster'. This term now appears in the Urban Dictionary:

Transponster is now commonly used to describe an office job not clearly defined as one role/responsibility, but a combination of data entry and analysis. This sort of role is difficult for the employee to describe to friends or family, often sounding boring, confusing or both to those outside the office environment.

So there we sat on that Thursday night, a table of 'transponsters', enjoying some drinks and giggles after a hard day of 'transponstering'.