Asking someone to give you free professional advice when they are not at work and just looking to enjoy casual conversation with their dry martini is, of course, total etiquette fail.
My opinion remains that if you somehow don't want to talk for hours about the subject matter and techniques of your job, no matter whether you're getting paid for it or not, then you're in the wrong job and need to get over the fact that other people find your work interesting.
Oh Good Lord, no. I have an interest in computers, but almost no interest in diagnosing computer problems people have, or discussing at length them with people that know little about them.
I am interested in computer programming, and systems design. "Why your printer doesn't work" isn't something that's going to grab my attention even slightly. I'll fix stuff for friends, because, well, that's what friends do. But on an intellectual level? Dull as dishwater, and I've done it 5000 times before.
Well, quite. You're not a professional educator or diagnositian. Someone who went into the field of education who then proceeds to resent everyone who desires education is what is so alien to me.
Ah, that makes more sense. But I'd still hold out hope that the writer might enjoy talking about teaching or about grammar but not talking about the sort of things they're complaining about. (And the reason it being rude to ask is not because it's bad to talk about the topic, but "asking for professional advice" for most professions NOT really talking about it, whereas "do you do X a lot", while perhaps overused, is still a reasonable conversation starter)
As the old joke goes, at a party a doctor and a lawyer were talking. The doctor complained that people kept asking him for professional advice. The lawyer was sympathetic, and said he used to have the same problem. The doctor asked asked what had changed. The lawyer said that whenever he'd been asked for professional advice, he'd send a bill the next day, and people soon learned. The doctor heartily lauded this technique, and vowed to do the same. The next morning, he got a bill from the lawyer.
That your job should be that interesting is a good point. But I imagine the sort of things people are likely to ask "in passing" tend to be well-meaning but (a) endless repetitions of the most obvious misconceptions about your job and (b) talking about fairly obvious problems that need a high level of detail checking.
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andrewducker) wrote2010-11-09 11:38 am
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My opinion remains that if you somehow don't want to talk for hours about the subject matter and techniques of your job, no matter whether you're getting paid for it or not, then you're in the wrong job and need to get over the fact that other people find your work interesting.
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But then, I assume you haven't embarked on a career of diagnosis or education? (Like everyone in the examples gven by the blog?)
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That your job should be that interesting is a good point. But I imagine the sort of things people are likely to ask "in passing" tend to be well-meaning but (a) endless repetitions of the most obvious misconceptions about your job and (b) talking about fairly obvious problems that need a high level of detail checking.