"What do you do?"

When I meet people often times the question I both hate and love is asked. “What do you do for a living?” I am always a little uncomfortable when I answer this question because when I do say I am reporter, and the person finds out I am on TV, occasionally they will apologize for not recognizing me. “I don’t watch TV,” they’ll tell me.

I really despise the term “local celebrity.” The way I see it, I am merely the bearer of news. I have a job that puts me in the public eye, but that does not mean I deserve more attention than others.

So why do I love answering the question? Well, the broadcast industry is very much a ‘niche business.’ Many people find it fascinating to learn about, and lucky for me, I truly love what I do, so I enjoy talking about it with people. It’s a great conversation starter.

I recently read an article on this topic. A girl spoke of her friend, who didn’t have that interesting of a job. When she would meet people it made it hard for her to carry on conversations because no one found her interesting, even though, as the friend put it, she was the sweetest, loving, most caring person she knew.

As a society we tend to define ourselves by what we do. Financial consultant, mother, personal trainer, nurse, lawyer, police officer, ect. It’s somewhat logical as most Americans spend 40 plus hours a week at their jobs. But, how much of what we do says who we are?

In the three years I have been working in the news business I have met a lot of different people. We all do the same thing, but are not always alike. Some are called to the job because they like investigative work, catching people doing wrong. Others like telling stories, profiling people in their community. Unfortunately, I also have met people who just like being able to say they are on TV and the perks that go along with it. My point, there is a variety of reasons people are attracted to a certain line of work. So maybe, instead of asking, “What do you do,” we should be asking, “What motivates you,” if we are truly interested in learning who someone is.