Since the beginning of human history, people have always defined themselves by what they contribute to the group; a hunter, a farmer, a king... Today is no different. We may not be our job, but that is how others see us at first. They are not trying to get to know you; they just want to know where you fit, so they know how to deal with you. Only later, if things get personal, might they become interested in you as a person.
That is not your job, but your role in the group. Being a parent, a child or a spouse, a friend or a running mate, are not jobs. The point of the article is that your identity should not be driven by just one role, that is transactional and will not span your whole life. You need to broaden your target and also understand that you open new roles with each new relationship, plus also you can create new roles into existing relationships.
Well I think it's nothing more than a social norm, and an easy one to avoid at that. People are mostly asking what's your job because that's a standard icebreaker.
Since I (mostly) recovered from burnout, and learnt that I'm actually not my job, I took the habit to never automatically ask people what is their job, at least not for ice breaking.
You can talk about their hobbies, their kids, their tastes ... because those are the real topics that will define if you bond or not anyway. And yes some people sometimes do have an interesting job that is worth talking about but when it happens, you will inevitably talk about it anyway.
Where I live, when meeting ppl they don’t introduce by asking “so what do you do?”, instead the phrasing is somewhat akin to “what do you spent your time on”. Even though they mean “what is your profession”, it allows me to stir the discussion to “what I like” or what kind of subject I enjoy discussing at that time eg philosophy, theatre, books, etc.
I agree to an extent that you mostly worked with people you grown up with on those farms, some of which became lifelong friends. This has been replaced by making friends in high school and then parting ways forever, more or less.
I’ll add that if you see your colleagues as anything else than primarily working for money, you’re a bit delusional unless you know for a fact they could not work for the rest of their lives and be financially fine. Of course there are other reasons to work than money, but the way the system is set up you’re not supposed to care more about them than about cold hard cash.
