Is it normal to respond honestly to the question "what do you do?"

So tell them about your hobbies and interest.

If I want to know what someone does for their job or income I specifically ask what they do for work.

Usually I'm just looking to see if we can have a conversation... and talking about hobbies or interests are usually a lot more interesting than talking about work.

Tell them you’re into murders and executions mostly

It's fine to hate your job. I used to have an office job that I really hated. When I explained what I did people would say "that sounds interesting" and I would say "well it isn't. At all. I hate it. I'm looking at getting into X in the future".

As long as you are making an effort to change your situation then it's fine to be honest. For me it meant going back to uni. For you it could be something different.

Just make sure you aren't one of those people who complains about their job all the time but has no intention of doing anything about it. Those are the people that no one wants to listen to.

Absolutely normal.

In some cultures its considered rude to ask that right away.
You could give a snarky answer like " as little as possible" or " i do my best"

At 71 it's not a question I get asked any more.

To lie about your job sounds kind of stupid to me.

Just change your job, I've had bad contracts and just dumped them. A few months down the road because everybody hated the place they went under.

Asking about jobs is a normal conversation-starter when you meet someone. It isn't too personal, it might indicate areas of shared interest and it allows us to slot people into a neat pigeon-hole.

Lots of people lie to others about how happy they are about the work side of their life because they want to appear successful and in control of their destiny. Lots of people also lie to themselves about how happy they are in their work life. Some of them realise ten or twenty years down the line that they've built their life around a job they hate and they've been chasing goals that are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. The really sad people are those who get to sixty and realise they took a wrong turn in their youth and have wasted most of their life doing something they aren't proud of and which gives them no true satisfaction.

The way our economy is structured means that there are a huge number of people doing drone-work that pays the bills but occupies a large part of their time and gives no real sense of achievement or satisfaction. There's nothing wrong with being honest about being in such a job when you first meet someone. If that makes them uncomfortable, it could be that they're one of those people who's lying to themselves about their own job-satisfaction. Cognitive dissonance - that unsettling feeling you get when the facts in front of you conflict with what you believe - can be a bitch.

As Swick says, the work you're doing right now isn't nearly as important as where you're heading and what your long-term goals are. If you're in a shitty job, going through the motions like a good little drone and hating yourself for that, it's probably time for you to have a good think about what you want out of life and how you can get to a better place.

I don’t understand why people ask about jobs so much, lots of people aren’t doing what they planned or wanted to do, so this question usually isn’t revealing of your character and can’t be used as a way to get to know people better, why do people continue to ask? I’d honestly tell them what I do and how I feel about it, wouldn’t occur to me lie about something so straightforward and trivial.

Yep.

I could see that kind of response working if you'r a funny guy and play around with it, otherwise it's just going to come off as a conversation stopper

Just tell you do stuff and thangs, if you're less than comfortable with the question. Also if someone asks you want you're doing at a specific time, but you don't want to answer just tell them you're takin care of business.

There's probably some taboo around that because most people make the connection that you can either pick your berries or you can buy them, and if you're gonna buy them you need stable income

I think it is normal to be frustrated with the current paradigm though, in America we have capitalism and while it does work it also pigeon holes a certain percentage to jobs like McDonald's where you're really not gonna make a life for yourself out of it but it can pay the bills and get you some commodities

Capitalism also requires you to be smart to be successful, that's why there's so much entertainment things, the world has basically decided to put a hold on conscious development so we can slowly build up better and better technology to give companies money over time so capitalism can work

Because the more people laughing at family guy and keeping up with the Kardashians the easier it is for any shadow government to take action

But I see what you're saying about convention, it sucks being forced into a conversation you have to say what you should instead of what you think. Sometimes it's better to smile and say you love your office job than it is to be counter culture. Psychologically speaking, if you don't even want to have that conversation, it would be quicker to give them the answers they want to give them what they came for