What Do You Do?

I realized recently that the first thing people ask when the meet me is my name. The next thing is that question that no guy except Barack Obama has a good answer for: "what do you do?" I can't say that I have ever had a good answer to that question. Neither has anyone I have come in contact with. As a result, men have to make up good names for what they do so we sound more important. When I was in my teens, I worked in an automotive warehouse which house tires and various auto parts; I told everyone I was an Inventory Stock Technician. This is after we bounced around Vehicular Pack-out Professional, Rubber Merchandising Guru, Product Transport Specialist and Freight Transportation Facilitator. My friend pumped gas and he was a Petroleum Transfer Engineer.

Years later, companies have realized this need for job titles to sound more important. Secretaries are now office managers, a Stewardess is a Flight Attendant, a waitress is a Food Services Specialist, Subway has Sandwich Artists and even the person pouring your morning coffee is now a Barista.

Now guys don’t need a good job, they just need a job that sounds good. And guys don’t care what a woman does. She can shovel crap for a living and we’d just ask about the kind of shovel or say “That sounds like a shitty job.”

I'll go one step further and say that it doesn't matter what a woman does, just as long at it doesn't sound more important that what the man she is with is doing. The more powerful a woman is the less likely it is that she'll find a guy. If a girl has a job that required her to go to school for five years while his degree required four, he most likely won't date her. This has been the problem for Condelezza Rice, Janet Reno, Barbara Walters, and even Tyra Banks. They’re all powerful women who are single. The higher up you go as a woman, the less choices you have. I don't care if you tell yourself that you're the Senior Corporate Director of International Cross Migratory Inter-dispersed Monetary leveraged Finance. It still doesn't stack up to Secretary of State (why not Executive Assistant of State?). Their answer was always too good. Men get threatened when women compete with them in their own world.

A woman can never have a job that sounds too important or powerful. A woman can be doing some great stuff just as long as it’s not as good as what her man is doing. A guy doesn’t need a great job, just a job that sounds that way. Because no guy will date a girl with a better sounding job than he has. So when Condelezza Rice meets an eligible guy at a cocktail party who doesn't recognize her, she should just say she was a Secretary but now she's out of work.