A large fraction of people in the &quot;developed&quot; world (perhaps a majority?) work as something like a cashier, for an employer they don&#x27;t really care about.  And they are all aware that most other people they meet are working similar jobs.  So they don&#x27;t ask, because they know they&#x27;ll probably get a reply like &quot;I stock shelves in a department store&quot;, which isn&#x27;t going to lead anywhere interesting.<p>Because of this, if someone does ask them what they do, they can be pretty sure right away that that person does something &quot;better&quot; than what they do, and (wrongly or rightly) it can make the situation uncomfortable for them.<p>Obviously the extent to which this is relevant depends on the demographic of the group in which you&#x27;re socializing at a particular moment.