Ask HN: What does your mother tell people about your work or employment?

Tangential: my favorite conversation starter at parties / gatherings is getting people to describe their spouse's job in front of them.

technothrasher · 4 years ago

I tell people my wife is a product manager, and when they invariable ask what that means, I say, "I dunno, it's like marketing I think, you know, sales." She used to hit me. Now she just roles her eyes.

formerkrogemp · 4 years ago

When people are told I'm in accounting, one of the most common questions is related to taxes despite that not being my actual line of work. Oh well.

atonse · 4 years ago

I’m totally stealing this.

In fact, I had to explain to my wife (and mother in law) what my father in law dad and her brother did in their careers.

They claim the guys never explain it but I found that their eyes glaze over!

dsr_ · 4 years ago

My spouse used to run technical customer support for ISPs. Then she ran technical customer support for a big CDN. Now she translates software engineering bug fix reports into customer-appropriate release notes for a big process-automation company.

BoGs83 · 4 years ago

This is by far the best to watch. My wife used to describe "He works for <insert company name> (ecommerce) and makes the systems scale for famous stars flash sales and black friday cyber monday."

smithcoin · 4 years ago

That’s a good one, I’m going to use this.

Gigachad · 4 years ago

That’s easy for me, they do the same job at the same company I used to work at.

My parents have both passed on but my mother never really believed me when I told her what I did for a living until I was almost 40 years old.

My first job was building custom cars with my father when I went to live with him when I was 14 years old. We worked on a lot of cars for movies and celebrities in Hollywood. My mother lived in Rockford, Il and, honestly, I didn't believe my father either until I moved there to live with him.

Years later when I was in my 30s I started learning how to program and my mother didn't believe I could ever do that until I started a business. And, to make even harder for her I was building web sites and ticketing software for entertainers in Branson, Mo.

She ended up moving here shortly after I did and got to meet a lot of them and she was like a teenage girl when she did, calling all her friends and telling them about it, and bragging about me. She was too cute. It was awesome to see her get so excited.

STILL, "my son built the Breaking News banner on cnn.com!" is the thing that my mom tells her friends. It's the only thing that my wife ever understood about what I do for a living. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31598324

Aulig · 4 years ago

My grandparents think I don't work at all - because I have no employer (self-employed) and work from home. My parents understand pretty well that I turn websites into apps [0]. Recently someone described it as "Oh you make the big thing (websites on computers) go into the small thing (app on smartphone)". I found that wholesomely funny.

[0] https://webtoapp.design

schwartzworld · 4 years ago

caseysoftware · 4 years ago

The last time my mother in law visited and I suggested taking the day off, she said "but I thought you protected the internet? Will it be safe without you?"

arthurcolle · 4 years ago

This is hilarious.

Narrator: "In fact, the Internet is never safe"

flurdy · 4 years ago

"The internet is a little box you can take with you" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg (IT Crowd)

Ondigo · 4 years ago

This reminds me of a time back in the late 90's when I was doing support for internet access. I had a very old man on the phone trying to connect to the internet using a CD (similar to AOL). I then say to him please close all the windows you have open. He says "one moment" comes back after a minute and says "I closed all windows in the house but it's very hot, what do I do now".

CSSer · 4 years ago

"My son built the thing that helps you find where to order from for [insert regional pizza chain]!"

I've worked on a lot more interesting CRUD, E2E encryption, and projects for industrial manufacturers that easily dwarf the size and scope of that location finder. It's just Google's geocoding API, some KLM files and a CMS I'm sure you've heard of. I think it sticks out because my parents and I are from a small town and we rarely ate out. When we did, that chain was the only place close enough to deliver to us, so they deeply and immediately relate to the value proposition.

EDIT: updated to more accurately reflect language my parents would use

oblib · 4 years ago

IncRnd · 4 years ago

Starting this off, StevePerkins just wrote on a different thread here:

frosted-flakes · 4 years ago

Without the code formatting:

Breaking News banner on cnn.com!" is the thing that my mom tells her friends. It's the only thing that my wife ever understood about what I do for a living. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31598324

danielodievich · 4 years ago

Way back when I was just another IC at Microsoft, my mother was with me at some some party and said to someone who was also at Microsoft and was acting as a jerk to her that her son "is your boss's boss's boss". I think I choked on whatever I was eating at the time. Instant promotion time!

stevenisageek · 4 years ago

My Mom tells people I "work on the internet".

She's not wrong... but it's kind of like saying construction laborers "work on the earth"

Good chuckle regardless

bombcar · 4 years ago

He “does computers” is basically where we get to.

Amusingly enough, my dad, who has written kernel-level drivers, has basically the same answer for what I do.

Me? I’m a janitor for the internet plumbers.

CoastalCoder · 4 years ago

> Amusingly enough, my dad, who has written kernel-level drivers, has basically the same answer for what I do.

Maybe he's just learned the futility of trying to give more detail.