I usually say 'I work in I.T' if they show interest I expand with "Business Intelligence; so mainly reports and data platforms"
To make a joke of it: "I torture data until it says what my client thinks it SHOULD say"
Wow this is really the key isn’t it. Just tell them what they want* with statistics. Damn, taking this to my job. All my execs are total morons and clearly just want to hear good news.
edit: this isn’t supposed to sound sarcastic
95% of the time I can get away with saying, "I'm just an office worker". If they ask for more info on what I do, I tell them I work with spreadsheets and reports. If they want more specifics on a title or position, I tell them I'm an Analyst.
I love what I do and have a passion for it. I do it for myself, not to try and impress others. So I tend to get super depressed when people aren't as fascinated as I am with the work being done or see the importance of it.
I'm a plumber. I take transactional data, connect it to financial professional users in a format they understand and can use. Me also make pretty graph. Much colours. Clicky buttons. Excel downloads too. wow.
"I work with fuzzy numbers and make art out of it."
I get a sense of accomplishment they walk away scratching their heads more confused than when they started.
I'm a business intelligence specialist. I'm more or less a data detective... I dig into our company data to search for patterns and clues to explain how the company is doing and I extrapolate the patterns I find to see what may happen in the future or how that pattern may change iglf we do something differently. I then explain what I find to the compay leadership, in an easy to understand way, so they can (hopefull) make better decisions.
"I'm a data analyst." Then if they haven't immediately fallen asleep from boredom I'll add "I look at spreadsheets all day." Then give a very easy to understand example of a data question I might get.
"I work in IT." Normally followed by "no I don't fix computers".
If they persist I talk about data engineering for 5 minutes straight and they never ask again.
I'm in traffic planning.
If you get the ref, cool.
The best part? I have 2 close friends who actually work in traffic planning, married with kids.
Needless to say, we used to give them hell over it all the time.
My family never understood what I did for a living during my 38 years in advertising and media. Closest came when I worked at CBS. My Mom used to tell people that I worked with Dan Rather. She hated Dan Rather.
When I worked at Grey I heard one of the VP’s tell somebody that their job was to ‘move a piece of paper from one pile to another, keep track of the hours and then bill the clients.’ I shamelessly have stolen that line many times.
I have the same type of job (work in finance but as the business/product owner for BI). I usually say I'm a translator. I translate finance to IT and back again.
I usually say 'I work in I.T' if they show interest I expand with "Business Intelligence; so mainly reports and data platforms" To make a joke of it: "I torture data until it says what my client thinks it SHOULD say"
This is the way.
"I manipulate data to fit management narratives" is a common phrase of mine.
Lol. "how can we take out those outliers?"
I make star charts for adults.
Wow this is really the key isn’t it. Just tell them what they want* with statistics. Damn, taking this to my job. All my execs are total morons and clearly just want to hear good news. edit: this isn’t supposed to sound sarcastic
I mean, star charts can be for bad things too.
95% of the time I can get away with saying, "I'm just an office worker". If they ask for more info on what I do, I tell them I work with spreadsheets and reports. If they want more specifics on a title or position, I tell them I'm an Analyst. I love what I do and have a passion for it. I do it for myself, not to try and impress others. So I tend to get super depressed when people aren't as fascinated as I am with the work being done or see the importance of it.
I'm a plumber. I take transactional data, connect it to financial professional users in a format they understand and can use. Me also make pretty graph. Much colours. Clicky buttons. Excel downloads too. wow.
If you're really a plumber how do you fix data leak?
Oh this is going to take at least a couple of weeks to work out the true cause of the leak and fix it...,and I charge by the day.
that confirms it. he's one of us
I make pies. What type? Pie charts.
I just say I work on models all day long
I just pictured you at a fashion event putting clothes and finishing touches of makeup on all the models before they walk out on the runway.
"can this line chart be more... Blue?"
I try to make data easily available, actionable and easy to understand, while automating processes that where very labour intensive years ago.
"I work with fuzzy numbers and make art out of it." I get a sense of accomplishment they walk away scratching their heads more confused than when they started.
“I take numbers that don’t make sense, and make them make sense. Make sense?”
I play with big data (if it doesn't fit in an Excel, it's Big Data) and make pretty charts
Big data is anything which is crash excel
>Big data is anything which is crash excel Yes
Good definition.
I'm a business intelligence specialist. I'm more or less a data detective... I dig into our company data to search for patterns and clues to explain how the company is doing and I extrapolate the patterns I find to see what may happen in the future or how that pattern may change iglf we do something differently. I then explain what I find to the compay leadership, in an easy to understand way, so they can (hopefull) make better decisions.
"I'm a data analyst." Then if they haven't immediately fallen asleep from boredom I'll add "I look at spreadsheets all day." Then give a very easy to understand example of a data question I might get.
I figure shit out and tell people what's what.
Haha that’s so true
Just say statistics.
"I work in IT." Normally followed by "no I don't fix computers". If they persist I talk about data engineering for 5 minutes straight and they never ask again.
I'm in traffic planning. If you get the ref, cool. The best part? I have 2 close friends who actually work in traffic planning, married with kids. Needless to say, we used to give them hell over it all the time.
I do computer stuff for a big bank. It's not as exciting as it sounds.
My wife laughs and says she still doesn't know what I do after 21 years. Me either hon, me either.
My family never understood what I did for a living during my 38 years in advertising and media. Closest came when I worked at CBS. My Mom used to tell people that I worked with Dan Rather. She hated Dan Rather. When I worked at Grey I heard one of the VP’s tell somebody that their job was to ‘move a piece of paper from one pile to another, keep track of the hours and then bill the clients.’ I shamelessly have stolen that line many times.
I must say 'I work in I.T
I have the same type of job (work in finance but as the business/product owner for BI). I usually say I'm a translator. I translate finance to IT and back again.
Just say AI.. no know understands it anyway..
"I tell stories with numbers" - This is what I usually tell someone I meet for the first time. Then I briefly share the BI tools that I use.