Anyone Else Have a Weird Job?

So, I get asked basically the same question on every first date and every time I run into someone after not seeing them for over two months. What do you do for work?/Where do you work? It’s an understandable question. Given that I’m no longer in school, I clearly must have a job. The problem isn’t the question itself, its in me not knowing exactly how to answer it.

For some people, that question is easy. I ask what they do and they say “teacher” or “nurse” or “police officer”, etc. For others, it involves a little more information “I work at a nonprofit”, “I work in marketing”, “I work in a research lab”. The average person knows what that means or can guess. For me, I need to either choose between giving an answer that’s not entirely true, or needing to spend the next few minutes explaining further in depth. Because not only do most people not like to think about the industry I work in, but most don’t know that companies like mine exist.

Let me back track a bit and explain: I work in the operations and commissions department at a brokerage general agency for life insurance. I’m guessing most of you have no idea what that means. If you don’t, that’s fine. I’m not going to explain it, because knowing what it is isn’t important to the point I’m trying to make.

Here’s the problem with the “what do you do” question for me: explaining what a brokerage general agency is confuses a lot of people. They either hear “I work for an insurance company” or they hear “I sell insurance”. Neither of which is true. I sometimes try explaining it again, other times I just say “kinda” and move on.

Thinking about the way that conversation usually goes got me thinking about how many other people are in the same situation. I’m sure there are plenty of jobs that not everyone knows exist. It’s either in such a specific field that only others in the same field would know about it, or its not an industry most people interact with on a daily basis. How many weird or hard-to-explain jobs are out there that I don’t know about?

Anyone else have a job other people wouldn’t know about?