Metaphors, anecdotes and comparisons with occupations from a bygone age are hopeless when explaining "what exactly is it you do", according to a new report.
The verdict will make grim reading for people preparing for Xmas, as they visit friends and relatives and face probing questions about how they spend their days. A staggering 65.873 per cent of a study group is still totally unable to explain themselves adequately to a range of audiences with different capacities of understanding. Some analysts have predicted this understanding gap could send Britain spiralling into recession, spark a class war or a battle of the sexes. Or worse.
Researchers quizzed a variety of people from a smorgasboard of different emotional viewpoints, ranging from disdainful uncles, through competitive cousins, curious nephews and neices and passive aggressive aunts through to baffled grandparents. As a controlled experiment (In order to take in regional differences) the sample also included chippy neighbours of relatives who've never really liked you or anything that your post code represents.
The study found that for a range of reasons, it's increasingly difficult to explain what you do all day, or why. The challenges include feigned interest - which is often a set up for a pre-prepared gag - generational differences, mis-matched expectations - I told you to get into computing! - and a broader category called General Incomprehension.
It is the General Incomprehension category that shows the fastest growth. Class war, family resent and regional differences have flatlined as root causes of people still not being able to work out what you do. There are no signs of these deliberate put downs being eliminated however.
On the other hand, Britain's increasingly eclectic jobs market has been a rich source of confusion. Under test conditions, some uncles who didn't have passive aggressive digs to make, were genuinely baffled by the job description for as, Apple Evangelist
Social media blogger and an Audience Insight Manager.
Under these circumstances now amount of metaphors, similes or simple biblical style parables could convey the nation of the job or even the rationale. Researchers found that some of the people holding those jobs showed signs of not understanding what they do all day either.
The report author, called on parliament to do something. "We need to return to the days when people were named after their jobs," said Dave Transformation-Manager--Turned-Report-Writer.