Slash careers, elevator statements, and flipping hamburgers

Working as a slash careerist is – for the most part – a blast. You can roll a couple of interests into a hybrid sort of overall occupation, and if one or two parts of the equation aren’t exactly hauling in the cash, no problem, hopefully another of the slash/options will.

The hours might be long, and there are occasions you need to be in two places at once, but otherwise it’s all good.

Talking, however, about your slash career work is another, far trickier proposition, especially in social settings, and particularly when meeting people for the first time.

Why? What’s the problem?

Well let’s go through it:

• People are accustomed to occupations that are usually only one word long.
• Further, people are, for the most part, accustomed to that word also describing what the role is, for instance a dentist is a dentist, nothing more to say there.
• Multi-slash job titles that can’t be summarised in five words or less usually lead to attention-fatigue if ten or more words are required to sum things up.

At the moment my slash career title is “content producer/blogger/consultant” which makes a lot of sense to me, but probably needs explanation when speaking to others, something that also makes sense to me.

Now if I’m at a professional event, none of this is (usually) a problem. I’m there in the context of one of my slash options, blogger for instance, my reputation precedes me, and often no further discussion is necessary.

But back to the cocktail party where no-one knows me, but wants to know – in five words or less – what the hell a “content producer/blogger/consultant” actually does.

• To make the “content producer/blogger” portion a little more palatable I try saying “writer for various online publications, or blogs”.
• That doesn’t always wash though, people still think you only post pictures of your cat to blogs, and are in no way remotely professional (yes, even in 2009).
• It’s nice that you’re a “content producer/blogger/consultant” but can you summarise that for me in five words or less?

Wouldn’t an elevator statement help though?

An elevator statement is a five to ten second summary of your work. The expert elevator statement writers have won big work as a result of these smartly executed mini pitches.

In a move that defies logic, I usually avoid putting out elevator statements at parties. Why?

• If someone doesn’t know what a blog, or other online publication is, you won’t sell yourself much in five to ten seconds, will you?
• In that context being one of Australia’s Top 100 bloggers is, more often than not, lost on someone. (That goes into my elevator statements usually, because I am trying to sell myself.)
• I actually hate blowing my own trumpet in that sort of fashion anyway, but if I don’t do it, who will?

Still I’m not much further ahead in attempting to explain my occupation/s to someone I’ve just met.

So what is the cocktail party answer to “what’s your job?”

You do what you do, and if that doesn’t compute for someone there’s no point getting too bothered about it. For better or worse here’s what I now do:

• Say I’m a “content producer/blogger/consultant”, a real jack of all trades, you know.
• Hand out my business card, and say “go see my website for yourself, it may or may not make sense”.
• Add that I’m also a part-time hamburger flipper. That almost never requires further qualification.
• Offer whoever I’m talking to another drink. This is a party after all, why are we talking about work anyway?

I know it’s shooting myself in the foot, but there are some days I’d rather just get on with what I do, rather than trying to talk about it whatsoever.