There's a scene in the doc Born Rich where some obnoxious titled adolescent objects to Americans asking people what they do within moments of meeting. He acts as if it's an invasion of the deepeset privacy. Moreover, one apparently should be able to tell what a person "does" (i.e., does he or she have money) by their accents, their interests, their topics of conversation, etc.

I saw that. That guy is a great, big asshole. I'll bet his tailor is the only person who can remotely tolerate him.

Kristin, I saw that about a month ago. It was very interesting.

Well, because his tailor gets to stick pins into him with impunity. I would be able to tolerate a lot of verbal abuse for that kind of opportunity.

You and juliana now must come to DC. Socialising can be fun if you don't take it too seriously.

True, true. But not taking it seriously is much like being a fly on the wall, yes?

True, true. But not taking it seriously is much like being a fly on the wall, yes?

Exactly. But I've got just enough capital to get us into the places and events where it would be worth our while.

Those games are fun. I come out all class mixy on all of them. It seemed pretty obvious to me which answers/items equated with various class labels.

I have a mix of Nouveau Riche and "downmarket" tastes, according to Chintz vs Shag. I don't have shockwave for the other two. (edited because my ts and hs hate each other. It's very sad. They're practically side by side on keyboard...)

When I've been unemployed for long stretches of time, one of the most depressing aspects of it was dreading going to parties or anywhere social because I had no answer to "What do you do?"

I eventually started using "I'm job-free at the moment" and then explaining that I was looking for work in X or whatever it was at the time. One thing that happened to me with working as a programming contractor, with stretches of unemployment is that I got a bit more at home with not pegging my sense of identity to any one job, but to my career in general, and to my (non-paid) avocations. It was freeing in some very basic ways.

What was most revealing to me when I saw the documentary was the world of the "old rich". I think I'd always assumed that I could, chameleon-like, fit in to any social class if necessary. I hadn't realized how foreign that world was to me and how much of a sore thumb I would be in it. Really, a different world.

You never SAW conversations end so fast as when I explained that I was a technical writer, not an analyst. I was bearing The Dreaded Production-Class Cooties.

Heh. It's very interesting to see reactions to the answer "Where do you work" when you work for the Giant Software Company I do. People from the area ask "Full-time or contract?", while a lot of people outside the immediate area assume I'm one of those software millionaires they've read about.