Looks Predicting Occupation

I’m topic stealing from Scott Adams today. He has just suggested a theory that a person’s occupation can be predicted with great accuracy from physical appearance. More specifically, he includes the question of “Do you look suspiciously similar to other people who have jobs like yours?”

I can see his point for many lines of work. If we ignore the causality question (do looks create occupation, or do occupations create looks?), we’re left with what I decided to type about today.

I look nothing like a chemical engineer. I look even less like a graduate level chemical engineer. But yet I am both. It’s actually really funny at times. I routinely call in contractors twice my age to do large projects at work. (I’ve spent about five million dollars in my career so far.) Whenever a new one sees me, you can see the confusion in his eyes. Despite the fact that I choose to show up when they ask the receptionist where I could be found, as I approach, they skeptically ask me who I am. This question is usually followed up a bit later by questions as to my exact job title.

I don’t hold it against them. Most chemical engineers, regardless of physical age, appear to be at least fifty years old. This is true even of graduate students in the field. Homely is another adjective that is well represented.

By contrast, I am not aware of anyone ever having called me homely, and I tend to be mistaken for someone much younger than I am. Blockbuster and theaters routinely card me for R-rated movies, and my Japanese teacher thought I was a high school senior on the first day of class (poor vision was later ruled out entirely).

So the question then is what I do look like. At first, I was tempted to say that I don’t look like anything. But then it occurred to me that people actually tell me that I look like things all the time. I was just ignoring them as jokes. In order of occurrence, they are:

1) Assassin
2) International Spy
3) Bouncer (bar patrons think this all the time)
4) Satan

It would at first appear that I am in the wrong line of work. But then it occurred to me that the main job perks of all of those, namely acting clever and having lots of power sex, I have managed to gather together via a select group of friends and philosophies.

Nothing seems to bar the conclusion, then, that I am a morally ambiguous, intimidating spy/assassin with an eccentric side job (hobby) in engineering. This is what many people conclude anyway, so it seems to pass the sniff test.

I can’t decide if that’s cheating the original question or not.