"What are you" is a fun question to ask, particularly when traveling. Most Americans answer with their race or job. Italians, in my experience, gave answers with their local heritage; in India I frequently got a religion.
It's part of what you do, and it does influence how you see things, but your life does not being or end with a job.
Your job friends, however friendly, might not necessarily remain your friends after you leave the company.
You can care about your job and your craft, and doing good for your customers to do your part in building a better world for everyone... but there must be something else outside that or your life will be pretty empty, and might even affect your job in the long run.
Leading workshops in USA and Europe has been pretty eyeopening.
Americans: “I’m so and so from $employer where I do software engineering in the foobles department”
Europeans: “I’m so and so from $city where I live with 3 kids and enjoy basket weaving. For work I build foobles”
You have to explicitly ask Europeans about their employers whereas Americans seem to get completely consumed by their company so much they lose all other identity.
I noticed this at 2600 meetings: "I'm so-and-so, I hack on $technology and I like to teach $interest", and some would mention their employer as an aside, but some wouldn't.
Whereas at tech-bro meetups: "I'm so-and-so, I work for $employer in the $technology group".
It's a puzzling observation, isn't it? By now, every at-will US employee will have internalized that they are disposable, and yet they continue to identify as a member of $COMPANY family. It's just bizarre, and I just can't think of an explanation.
I disagree. Not equally irrelevant. Your employer is connected to your profession, your hobbies/kids are not.
I attend a ton of AI/ML conferences (which count as professional conferences) all over the world. On almost all badges and tags, under your name you have your affiliation (company or university). You don't have number of kids or your random hobby on your badge for a reason.
Part of me understands that people have lives and don’t identify with work. But if that’s you, what are you doing with your life exactly? You only have so many years to live. Most of your waking hours are spent working.
If why you’re doing for work isn’t also your passion, it might be time to reconsider what you are doing.
I see this frequently pointed out, as in not introducing yourself by your profession, etc.
But what are you then?
You introduce yourself as an uncle to somebody or a dad?
Yes there are things outside of working, but its a core part of who a person is.