You go to a party or a social gathering that will have
you. You strike up a conversation with a
stranger. Or they do with you. It works in either direction.
The standard, if unimaginative, “ice breaker” after
exchanging names is:
“What do you do?”
An innocuous “opener.”
Unless they’re a felon and they admit it, leaving you the conundrum of
reporting them to the authorities or letting it go because it’s not your
business to catch them. Under normal
circumstances, however, a pleasant encounter ensues following “What do you do?” Something like:
“That’s interesting.
How do you like it?”
Or, if it actually is
interesting:
“Tell me about it.”
Or my abrasively less sanitized version:
“What’s that like?”
Maybe you learn something.
Maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re
bored to tears but you can’t strategically get out of it because you opened the
floodgates with “What do you do?” and you cannot rudely interrupt with “That’s
about all I wanted to know.”
One thing is certain.
You are trodding undangerous terrain.
“What do you do?” is socially sanctioned and is in virtually no cases
viewed as an intrusion. The worst you
can hear is, “Don’t remind me”, which leads to a laugh which leads to the twin
forks of “Is it really that bad?”, opening things up further or “I wasn’t aware
that was a sore subject” after which you move on. With the conversation, or actually physically
move on.
Mostly, “What do you do?” is generically harmless.
But here’s what isn’t.
The forbidden follow-up question to “What do you do?”:
“How much do you make?”
Am I right?
I mean, have you ever done that? I
haven’t.
“What do you do?”
“I’m a neurologist.”
“Oh yeah? How much do
you make?”
It’s a disrupter, that question. Walls immediately go up. Next thing you know, there’s the combative,
“Why? Are you
thinking of becoming a neurologist?”
“No. I was just
curious about how much you make.”
“I see. And what do you do?”
“Well, I’m retired.
But I used to be writer for television.”
“Oh yeah? How much
did you make?”
And now it’s on you. And it is really unlikely you’ll tell them. And the question is,
“Why?”
“It’s not polite” is an answer, but it’s a deflective one,
because “Why isn’t it polite?”
It’s a capitalist country.
Everyone gets paid. But if you
are paid inordinately generously, unless you’re the current president, it feels
uncomfortable to brag. Or not brag. Just accurately report what it is.
Which you immediately place in a diminishing context.
“We are not talking ‘Seth McFarlane Money’, I’ll tell you that.”
True. But it’s a
large pile of money. And what exactly
did you do to deserve it?
Stop! “Deserving” is
not the issue. In a capitalist country,
you don’t make what you deserve. You make
what you are somehow able to get.
Some people make substantial sums because they receive a
tiny fraction of an enormous entrepreneurial pie. For example, if you make a million dollars a
year in a business that grosses a billion, your personal “cut” is one tenth of
one percent.
Still, it’s a million dollars a year.
And the majority of people make less… doing things that are
far more valuable to the community. Though
even that doesn’t protect you. Sometimes, it makes things even worse.
I do not recall the specifics, but there was a recent L.A. Times “Letter to the Editor”,
decrying the million-or-more-dollar pensions given to certain high-ranking police
personnel and upper echelon firefighters.
There is this subliminal acceptance that in certain recognized
undertakings, lopsided exorbitance is natural. Police officers and firefighters, and
millions? Somehow, it does not seem to fit.
And not just because it is “public money” they’re receiving. The implicit perception is those guys aren’t
supposed to be millionaires.
Why? Because they’re
not in show business?
“We dodge bullets.”
“And fire.”
“Sorry. That is
strictly for ballplayers.”
It’s so weird.
And innately uncomfortable to talk about.
And believe me, there’s more.
But I feel so uncomfortable talking about it,
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