How do you relate to non-technical people (read: your significant other/mom/dad/family/etc.) about your job with programming? When asked about how my day was at work, I find it rather difficult to explain anything specific without going over their heads. How do you handle such situations?
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Sep 4 '11 at 5:53
closed as not constructive by Mark Trapp Sep 26 '11 at 8:03
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When I was six, my father told me he was a number doctor. (He worked for the local electrical utility doing demand forecasting -- how many power plants to they need to build to handle demand twenty years from now. Try explaining that to a six-year-old. It involved a lot of numbers, so "number doctor" seemed like a reasonable explanation.) I knew of only one kind of doctor, the medical kind, so obviously these numbers were sick and needed medical attention. I cut numbers out of cardboard, gave them faces and limbs, and presented them to my father to figure out what their medical problems were and how they should be treated. |
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I'm a digital construction worker / architect. I build and design structures, both for beauty, like a park, and for business, like an office building or supermarket. I spend time designing the foundation and breaking ground and building up from there. I add doors for people to enter and furnish the inside so people can use it. I put up nice windows, paint the outside, and landscape to draw people in. |
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It really depends on what you're doing and who you're talking to. My biggest problem is generally that as soon as "computing" gets mentioned, I'm now the support guy. Any problem with their ISP, wireless router or Word doc and I'm first on their phone. My doctor friends have the same problem - you introduce yourself as a medical professional and suddenly all the aches, pains and concerns are weights on your shoulders. Currently I work within a financial services company which makes the current news cycle my friend as now more people understand what we do - and that's been the bigger obstacle recently. I can explain the programmes I write (graphs, charts, grids of data) quite easily, but explaining quite the company does ... |
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Albert Einstein said "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough". An opportunity for self-development by looking at things differently? Throughout the day, think "how would I explain this to a layperson?", and see what happens. |
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I've always said that "I make computers do magical things" or "I make something out of nothing." |
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I write database software, and it's sometimes hard to explain to people what I do and why it's not incredibly boring, since databases are not something that the average non-techie uses directly. One of the guys that I used to work with is now a VP at RIM, and he noticed quite a difference when he started there -- rather than a potentially long drawn-out description of what a database is and why it's useful, he can now just pull out his Blackberry and say "I make this." Shorter description, and a higher "wow" factor. |
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Long explanations are sure to induce glazed eyes inside of 30 seconds. For that I reason, I try to keep it short. "I design and build software." |
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It depends on how interested a person is, especially when discussing it with family (who are interested but have trouble with the technical details, being non-technical)... they know I "code" and do a lot of work with computers, and normally I just say "Oh, today I built a website to sell advertising." or something along those lines. Otherwise, it's generally "oh, I make websites" (the concept of 'web design' seems to be easier for people to grasp than 'web development' or 'web applications'). Otherwise, comparisons to things people understand tend to work best. |
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After years of family reunions I have learned that if I can't explain what I do in a single sentence I get the eyes glazing over look. Even though I'd like to think what I do is much more involved, I just tell anyone who asks "I work with computers". |
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As far as describing what you did on a specific day? Impossible. And its quite annoying. Because I have a roomate that talks about his job all the time. |
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"Hi, I'm Bob and I make computers do work." |
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This really depends on their background, but typically just find a way to relate what you to do something that is familiar to them. |
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I like to describe it as the science of managing complexity. Our job is to break a complex problem down into the simplest discrete sub problems, then manage the complexity of putting all those sub-problems back together again in an organized fashion. It isn't strictly accurate, nor does it need to be. I think it gets the point across without being overbearing or overly long. :) |
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"I make the internet go." Actually, I use a program they have as an example and talk about the things it has to do. For example, AIM has to start, get a buddy list, be able to send and receive messages, etc. I tell them that there's a special way of telling the computer how to do all those things, and it's called a Programming Language. Hopefully, at that point, they're either bored or have questions. |
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You instruct a computer how to perform a task or tasks for people. The tasks may be extremely complex or may just be more time consuming for a person to complete. This is a pretty simple explanation that most folks will be able to follow, even without technical knowledge. |
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I'm a digital construction worker / architect. I build and design structures, both for beauty, like a park, and for business, like an office building or supermarket. I spend time designing the foundation and breaking ground and building up from there. I add doors for people to enter and furnish the inside so people can use it. I put up nice windows, paint the outside, and landscape to draw people in. |
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A lot of what we do has to do with people, other people or ourselves. We get requirements and questions from the customers. Those can come on time or later on as an addition or even a surprise, there can be misunderstandings. We have to interface with other teams and other team members to divide the work, those people can be smart or not so smart, they can be friendly or petty and annoying. When we work on a problem we can find it rewarding or frustrating. All those are things that need no technical know-how to understand. If you spent few hours in a design meeting arguing several options, your father might not be able to understand those options, but he may be able to understand what a long argument feels like. he might even ask a question that would surprise you like - can you make test cases to try the different options. For people who are not interested in the day to day details but just want the big picture I would try to describe what is that the program I am working on is supposed to do: -"I develop a software for insurance companies" -"Isn't it boring?" -"Well I thought it would be at first but actually there are some interesting challenges. I don't have to do all the boring statistics myself, I teach the computer how to do that" "But you just sit in front of your computer all day long? how can you stand that?" -"Oh its nothing like that at all. We usually consult each other, we have to talk to decide how different parts of the system will interact, or we help each other with difficult problems. Some times I long for some alone time with my computer." |
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I work on embedded systems. I tell people that as long as no one realizes there's a computer inside the device they are using, then I've done my job. |
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"I connect people all over the world." -Web Engineer |
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I often say that I'm like a potter or woodworker ... except instead of making physical things I make programs. It isn't exactly art, but it is a craft and requires the same kind of expertise, experience, and, to make something really good, talent. |
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Well... I come home dead tired with red eyes, dumb as a vegetable.. I cannot follow common conversations like "what was the weather like today" .... People who don't know me much ask: have you been drinking? are you a drug dealer? are you hooked on chronic? are you some kind of .. whatever deviant behavior? NO I am simply a software developer coming home for some rest! Please get a degree in CS and try it out for yourselves, I can't explain it but it's much funnier that what it could sound like! |
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