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“So, what do you do?”

People respond to this classic conversation starter in a variety of ways:
“I’m a teacher.”
“I work at Initech.”
“I tend bar, and I listen.” (sorry, I couldn’t resist)
“I’m a full-time dad.”

You can tell a lot about a person from the way they answer this seemingly throwaway question. How? Let’s take a look.

Some people respond in the most literal way possible. What do I do? Well, I wait tables. I run a small crafts store. I design microprocessors. In short, I do something. I’ll call these responders activity-oriented, because they describe their professions based on the actual activities that occupy their time

Others recast this question as an inquiry not into their activities but into the circumstances of their employment.
“I work for Texas Instruments.”
“I work at Booz Allen Hamilton.”
“I work in Speaker Pelosi’s office.”
Let’s call these individuals association-oriented. What’s important in their answers is not what exactly what they do, so much as where they do it or who they do it for.

Still others have a different perspective entirely. Work is not merely an activity or an association, but rather a state of being. “I am a writer.” “I am a software engineer.” “I am a pilot.” These people are identity-oriented. Their work isn’t just a thing they do or a place they go; it is who they are.

Now, as with all such deconstructions, the world is not nearly as simple as the three buckets I’ve outlined. Indeed, most real-world responses combine these perspectives in some way, as in, “I write copy at Hill Holliday,” or, “I’m a graphic designer, I sell custom wedding stationery online.” Moreover, sometimes the response you get doesn’t reflect any particular worldview but is rather a grammatical convenience; “I’m a product manager at a software company” just sounds more natural than “I do product management.”

But even with all these caveats, I still think that you can learn something about a person by observing which “orientation” they exhibit when explaining what they do for a living. There’s an especially stark distinction between those who are identity-oriented and those who are not. People who say that they are their profession are telling you that it’s impossible to understand them without understanding their job, and they’re telling you that they’d be different people entirely if they had different careers. Most of all, they’re telling you that their profession isn’t something that fades into the background at 5 PM; it’s a way of life, one that influences everything they do and every decision they make. I think we all, to some degree or another, seek careers that we can be, not merely do.

And it’s clear that some vocations are simply more likely to provide people with this sense of identity. I don’t intend to espouse career elitism by saying this, but we can all name these jobs if we’re honest about it: teacher, doctor, entrepreneur, artist, astronaut…you get the idea. These are the careers we typically associate with making meaning in the world, with doing things that matter in some ultimate sense. There is, of course, nothing wrong with choosing a career that doesn’t lend itself to the identity-oriented perspective, and there are plenty of very good reasons to do so (not the least of which is a preference to find identity outside the workplace instead). But it’s nevertheless hard to imagine someone associating a strong sense of personal identity with their job as, for example, the receptionist at the Scranton branch of a struggling regional paper supply company (sorry, couldn’t resist again). That’s the sort of thing that someone does, not is.

Meanwhile, association-oriented answers can be revealing in their own right. For example, some people say they work “for” their company; others say they work “at” it. Similarly, one person might work “for” his boss, and another might work “with” her. Those who regularly use “for” are, whether they realize it or not, expressing a viewpoint that their work output ultimately belongs to somebody else, not to them. Meanwhile, the “at”/”with” crowd are saying the exact opposite: no matter who signs their checks, they are working to achieve their own goals. I have consistently observed a correlation between heightened ambition and adherence to the “at”/”with” faith (although exceptional loyalty can and does push these people back into the “for” camp). There’s also certainly a generational element at work here; on average, we so-called millennials (if you’ll permit the overgeneralization) are much more likely to harbor a fundamental distaste for the idea doing anything “for” anybody other than, well, ourselves.

Activity-oriented responses, finally, are probably the easiest to understand. People who give them want to make an impression, so they avoid the potentially sycophantic association-oriented answer, but they may not be convicted enough for an identity-oriented one. (Some people fake it and give the “I am” speech anyway; you can always, always tell.) The more insecure members of this group turn the question into a prompt for a resume, filling their long-winded answers with hyperactive verbs like “coordinate,” “strategize,” and “drive.” Paradoxically, though, activity-based characterizations can also be a vehicle for great humility; I’ve met people who might run the entire widgets business and still introduce themselves with a simple, “Hi, I’m John, I help build widgets.”

Why does any of this matter? Well, for one thing, it’s always useful to be able to make quick guesses about someone’s interests, motivations, and self-image when you first meet them, especially in a professional context. (It is, of course, equally important to be willing to abandon these snap judgments given more substantial evidence.) But more importantly, I think this model allows us to ask ourselves what it is we really want from our careers, and whether our answer to this perennial question means that we have it, or that we need to make a change.

So: what do you do?