“What do you do?” The inevitable question, preferably preceded by a self-deprecating nod to its predictability, and too often issued with the sideways glance of a challenge. It’s loaded, rolling out to encompass status, interests, time spent and time wasted. The question’s arrival in a conversation signals that it is time for you to smoothly summarise yourself in a few lines, packaging your career as prettily as you can. “What do you do?” It is baggy in its non-specific nature, and yet pointedly direct. Insistent and yet innocuous. Considered in its most literal sense, though, the ways in which we choose to spend our time demonstrate a great deal about us. How we draw the line not only between work and play, but how we split up our free time itself. Partying or reading, late-night drugs and the lost day that follows, or an early night and a gallery visit the next morning. Dinner parties or image research, Instagram scrolling or a film, sex or sleep. What do you do?
Early in a creative career, the decision to work on developing ideas and personal projects, outside of the interminable internship and monotonous minimum wage job, is often crucial in moving forward. Overcoming exhaustion at the end of a day of filing returns in a fashion cupboard, or after a stretch of waiting tables, can feel near-impossible, though. The last thing that you want to do after having faced dull co-workers and demanding customers is to work on an article pitch or sketch out your zine. It’s easy to let projects slide when you have no one to make excuses to but yourself, when Netflix is one click away, and wine and friends just an iMessage away.
Sticking to a self-initiated work agenda after hours takes stamina, and it is because of this that it can feel all the more crushing to reduce yourself to a straight-up job description on demand. This was perfectly captured in the TV show The Office, back when Ricky Gervais’ incisively observant writing skills hadn’t yet lost their edge. Dawn, the receptionist at the fictional company, struggles to define the split between her day job and her creative work, saying, “I always wanted to be a children’s illustrator and when people said, “What do you do?” I would say, “Well, I’m an illustrator, but I do some reception work for a little bit of extra cash.” So, for years, I was an illustrator who did some reception work. Then Lee thought it would be a good idea for us both to get full-time jobs and then you’re knackered after work and it’s hard to do illustrating. So now, when people ask me what I do, I say I’m a receptionist.”
It can be a crushing dilemma. Many friends of mine who are talented photographers, writers, artists and stylists work in shops, cinemas and admin jobs on the side. Others tutor or teach in schools, self-publishing their own work in their spare time. After university, I worked on shop floors, writing articles in my spare time and dreaming big. But the line between the two easily becomes blurred, and the balance can tip from one to the other almost imperceptibly over time. Defining your job as the work that you choose to focus on in your free time throws the presumed neatness of work and play into disarray, muddling them into one another.
Even later in your career, if you’ve reached a job that allows you to focus your tastes and interests into projects that you’re proud of, and your ideas are really listened to, this overlap between work and leisure can become more complicated still. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Another simple, all-too-familiar phrase, dismissively delivered. It rings in the ears of those who have shifted up the ranks, hovering over new promotions and lingering around successful ventures. Nepotism conjures a web built on shallow connections and devoid of real talent. It is in your free time, though, that you form the friendships that make up “who you know”. Relationships are built on shared interests, outlooks and experiences. Collaborating on a collective vision within this intimate framework is easily transferred to a wider workplace, and independent projects first created by a group of friends transformed into new opportunities. Think of the early films of Larry Clark, born out of his and his friends’ adventures at the skate park, think writer Sheila Heti’s homage to her artist friend Margaux, think the early days of Purple, Vice and of course i-D.
It’s by going out and falling into groups who not only share your point of view, but who also challenge and expand it, that you find the friends who might well influence your career, either directly or indirectly. Is this social climbing then, or a reflection of your true interests? In the networked age of social media, it’s easier than ever before to get to know the people who could shape who you are, while choosing to attend parties, openings or even a low-key dinner could influence your future. The friends that we stay in touch with from youth, or those who we meet abroad or at university, all reflect something about us. This in turn bleeds into our working life, from a piece of advice said in passing, to a professional recommendation, to a new appointment. If it really is all about who you know, then there might just be good reason for it; maybe what you know and who you know aren’t so different at all.
Work time and spare time are undeniably entwined, and the significance of both should be acknowledged. The decisions that we make in our free time are far-reaching, and a non-hierarchical balance between work and play is immensely important within this. Staying in to work on a new project is valuable, just as going out to be silly and have fun at an event can be too. It’s when this balance starts to shift emphasis that problems arise: too many late nights out and not enough time spent concentrating on books, films or art that you care about is never a good thing. Where we draw the line between the two speaks volumes about us; next time someone asks, it is worth considering, in all of its messily sprawling interconnections, what you really do.
Credits
Text Louise Benson
Photographer Tyrone Lebon
Stylist Charlotte Stockdale
Cara wears all clothing, earring and shoed Dolce & Gabbana. Rings Boucheron.
[The Q+A Issue, no. 324, Spring 2013]