Porch Stories

Questions to ask · Work

Questions to ask about their work

Work fills most of a life, and families often know surprisingly little about it beyond a job title. Children see a parent leave in the morning and come home at night. What happened in between, across thirty or forty years, is usually a mystery.

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Questions about work open that up. A first job, with its nervous first day and its tiny wage, is one of the best-remembered stories anyone has. The path into a career is nearly always more accidental and more interesting than it looks from outside. And asking what someone was proud of gives a modest person permission to tell you what they were good at.

These conversations are especially useful if you are starting out or changing direction yourself. Hearing how a parent or grandparent found their way is both practical and reassuring. The questions below are a short sample. The linked ones lead to a full guide with advice on how to ask, alternative wordings, follow-up ideas and an example answer. Many of these are best asked while you are doing a job together, side by side.

Work questions to try

Let them be the expert. Ask how the work was actually done, and do not hurry past the technical parts; that is where the pride is.

The rest of the questions are in the journals

The Tell Me Your Story journals give work a full chapter, from the first job to the lessons of a whole career. One guided question per page leaves room for the stories that a job title never tells.

Free printable

The 25 questions you’ll wish you had asked

For your Mom, Dad, Grandma or Grandpa: the stories families most often lose, on one page to print or keep on your phone. Free when you join the porch list.