Be Very Careful Using Labels--Especially About Yourself

Labels are often greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted. Ask five friends or strangers to describe a career title like administrator or engineer and you will most likely get five very different answers.

The quicker someone attaches verbal or mental labels to people, the more shallow and lifeless their reality becomes. These instant experts believe they know all about a person even though they have never met. They pre-judge without waiting for any facts.

A variety of labels are given to each one of us in our lifetime: husband, wife, mother, father, parent, grandparent, employee, employer, citizen and on and on. However, for now concentrate on the labels surrounding work.

Asking about a persons work is an easy way to start a conversation when meeting someone for the first time. A problem occurs if, as a child, you were told repeatedly to stop sounding like a braggart or know-it-all. So the answer is a vague word or two with the unspoken hope that the person listening is interested enough to pursue the subject further.

In contrast to the excessive modesty are the individuals at the other end of the spectrum. Remember the person who rattled off a bunch of techno-babble jargon or shop-talk supposedly designed to impress you with his importance within his super-duper company.

After a few minutes your eyes started to glaze over, you wished for a pair of ear plugs and discovered someone across the room you had to see immediately!

How do you answer when someone asks what work you do? Dull, nondescript words create nothing in anyone's mind--no image, no feelings; just blah. Generalities make no impact because they speak to no one in particular; they leave no impression. They get no one's attention.

You can joke or make flip remarks about your job or employer when talking to close friends or relatives. But be warned that careless comments made within or outside that circle may come back to haunt you.

Once words are said you have lost control of where or when they might be repeated. The stranger (to you) just might be a close friend or relative of an important executive in your company or a potential future employer when you want to change jobs.

You know you will get questions about work so take some private time to draft an appropriate answer. Forget the label (title) that the personnel office gave you. Remember you are writing a response to use in a social situation. You are not on an interview trying to impress a future boss.

When that job label question comes up, you will be ready with a three or four sentence answer that leaves an impression that you are a contributing employee. Pick out something about your work that would be interesting—the challenges, contact with customers, travel, making a difference or the location.

It might help to practice speaking it while you gain confidence. That way you will eliminate all those pauses while you scramble for words.

The secret for making this a memorable conversation is to immediately get back to learning more about the stranger. Your sincere interest in them is going to make a favorable impression. Your job label is really not important. It was just a way of getting to know you.

A reminder: No two things can occupy the same space at the same time. There is no room to have another agenda going on in your head—like wondering what you are going to say next.

When you are really listening to someone, you become connected with that person. What you want is for them to notice and remember you as a person worth knowing. Someone who actually listened to what they were saying.