THE parents of a 36-year-old software engineer have once again purposefully resisted understanding what he does as a job.
Tom Booker of Cambridge, who works as a UI engineer for a phone company, would happily to explain how he makes a living to his parents if they ever stopped telling him it was all nonsense to them.
He said: “I’ve been doing this job for 11 years. They’ve got phones. All I do is write the programs that makes your touchscreen work when you press it. There. Done.
“But will they listen? No, they prefer to interrupt saying ‘Your grandfather was a stonemason’ and ‘These jobs these days, I swear they make them up.’
“All they do is say ‘Computers!’ or ‘You might as well be a sorcerer for all we know!’ He’s a university lecturer and she worked in marketing, but for some reason they expect my job to be pre-industrial.”
Booker’s wife Rebecca, a financial product manager, agreed: “I design anti-fraud procedures, but my in-laws are convinced I work in a bank. Sometimes they give me jars of coppers and ask me to pay them in.”
Tom admitted: “Yeah, I have no idea what Rebecca does.”
