Comment by somewhereoutth

In the UK we do this as part of status negotiation - the second question anyone asks (after whats your name?) is what do you do?

Then we can decide whether we are above or below the other person in the status hierarchy, which is roughly as follows:

  - Architect
  - Artist/Designer/Creative
  - Lawyer/Doctor/Teacher
  - Executive/Manager
  - ...
  - ...
  - Bar staff
  - Engineer
  - Software Engineer
  - Waiter
  - Driver
  - Cleaner