More often than not, people will ask you what work you do. This leads to potentially a two-pronged issue developing.
Firstly… A lot of the time, your job title is used to define you.
People tend to see you as your job first and as a person second. Most of the time this will happen in your place of employment, especially when you are working in a larger company.
This stems from a conversation I had with my therapist last week. I am not my job. My job is something I do.
I am a person who also does software support. I am a person who writes a blog, but I’m not a blogger. I am a person who enjoys taking photos, but I’m not a photographer.
None of those verbs can be used as my nouns. I do those things for various reasons.
I am not my job. My job is just another task that I perform. Tomorrow or the next day my job function could change, but I will still be the same person at the end of the day.
The second issue that stems from people asking what work you do, is so they can try to calculate how much respect they feel they should give you. If you have a “menial” job, then they feel they don’t owe you as much respect as they owe someone with a BSc.
Why not rather respect someone because they’re a person first? Their jobs are just something they do to pay the bills.