What Do You Do?

It's a simple question. Most people have no trouble answering quickly and succinctly. I'm a doctor. I'm a teacher. I'm a general contractor. However, for me this question poses quite a few complications in answering with ease.

It is possible I take the question too literally. What do I do? Well, every day I wake up to snuggles and kisses with the world's most handsome little man. That is, unless he's sick or he woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Then, I wake up to whining and tantrums.

Once I've handled my mommy duties for the morning – breakfast, clothes, teeth, and the dreaded daily battle get him loaded in the car and even worse to drop him off at day care – I move on to the work that pays.

I spend the bulk of my day on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and at times Pinterest. Most of the time is on the clock and some of it is personal time just fiddling around. The rest of my "work day" is juggled between various blogging interfaces, websites, and email accounts.

I ride my bike often, practice yoga, meditate, and have lunch with friends and colleagues whenever I can.

I'm a coffee house expert. I know which have internet problems and at what time of day they're most prone to experience them. I have preferences to which I will use as my office any given day depending on what my work load looks like because I know which will have the most conducive environment.

I play pool on Wednesday nights, where I've become the bar room's official website and social media consultant (something I really should consider charging for but what can you do when it's friends asking right?).

I recently opened my own social media management business, so "Business Owner," or "Entrepreneur" should be added to the list somewhere.

I could also answer with, "I'm a writer," or "I'm a photographer."

A very dear friend of mine who hates cleaning pays me to tidy up her house for her on Fridays, so let's add "housekeeper" (which was actually implied with the mommy role).

So there you go. Now, if we ever meet and you ask me that question you will know why I pause before answering. You'll understand why I sputter out some over complicated answer that has you thinking, man I was just trying to make small talk. 

I know that's not what people are after when they ask me what I do. I know they don't want a literal rundown of what I do on a daily basis. They want to know how I earn my money. (That's really what people should ask. Who pays you?)

But truly, I just find this question a difficult one to answer. Perhaps it's because I have a problem with identifying myself under a job title. Perhaps it's because I don't have your typical 9 to 5 job with an office, name tag, and a phone extension.

I guess what I should choose for my answer is, "I'm a freelancer." Yeah, freelancer, we'll go with that.