Andrew L. Van Slaars

What do you do? Where do you work? What line of work are you in?

These are all very common questions that people ask when meeting new people. I do it too. Society tends to identify people based on their profession. This isn’t a new phenomenon, look at names like Shoemaker, Fisher and even Smith… all based on profession.

[Sidebar:it's interesting that Prostitute never made it as a last name;It is after all the world's oldest profession...If anybody with an expertise in last names knows differently, feel free to share in the comments].

So, historically, people have been linked to their trade by name, essentially linking them and their entire family to that trade. In a time where a man (and this isn’t sexist, it was just normally men) learned a single trade and spent a lifetime perfecting that skill and dedicating themselves to it, naming somebody after their job may have made sense. I don’t think that identifying somebody based on a job title, industry or profession makes sense anymore. We stopped naming people that way.. after all, you don’t see people walking around with last names like CEO, Administrator or Novelist (again, name experts, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong).

So what do I do? I write (otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this), I like to cook, I boat and I am an amatuer photographer (very amateur). None of these things are my profession (at least not at the time of this writing). There are more, but I am not going to list all of my hobbies and interests here. I am a software developer by trade, but a few years ago, I was a technical trainer. A few years from now… who knows.

I fell into the same identity trap a few years ago (just about when I left teaching to join the “real” world). When I stopped teaching full time and relegated myself to a cubicle, I started to identify myself based on my job title. I went from a guy who taught classes on topics ranging from Web Design to medical coding and billing, into a role with the title “Senior Systems Analyst”. I started to identify myself as “Senior Systems Analyst”. When I started my blog, I brought that new identity with me and that set the focus for the things I wrote. My life and my thoughts aren’t totally focused on technology, so I have decided that my writing (whether on this blog or in some other media) shouldn’t be either.

I have a lot of things to say and lots of ideas to share. So, instead of keeping a tight focus on technology on my blog, I am going to write about things that I feel are important, things that make an impact on me and things that I think other people might benefit from. These things might be technology related, they may have to do with business or marketing and they may be tips, words of advice or quotes from others that stood out as important in my mind. Maybe you’ll read them, maybe you won’t. Maybe you will agree with me, maybe you won’t. Ultimately, I am writing my thoughts, good bad or indifferent, but maybe with a little luck, something I say will stand out to you, make you think or with a little more luck, make your life better somehow.

What I do is not who I am, but if you would like to find out more about who I am, check the about page.

This doesn’t just apply to me.. the next time you meet somebody new, start off by asking them what their hobbies and interests are… once they get past the initial shock of the question, you’ll find out who that person is, not just what they do for a living.

Andrew Thoughts identity, profession