Occupation: Intellectual Vagabond

[nowalmart]

So I have written about my lifestyle before. I have often run into issues with government identification. I have often wondered why a driver's license requires an address (which in turn has fairly strict proof-of-residence requirements). Tax forms become difficult. Most years I have income from three or more states.

When my addresses change on more of a monthly basis than yearly, it is one thing to update addresses in various online places so that tax forms, shipping addresses, and so on find me. Updating my driver's license becomes an expense and time-waste I do not need in my life.

So now I find myself updating my passport. I am not a fan, since the new US passports contain RFID chips and other troublesome technologies. My lifestyle and desire to travel out of the country requires me to do this, however, and so I start the process.

I start on the paperwork only to find that there is now a required field labelled "Occupation". There is another one, optional, labelled "Employer".

What kind of question is that? Why is this needed at all? What should I list, given my current lifestyle and the fact that the passport will be good for ten years?

Any suggestions from the peanut gallery on what I should list in this field?

Comments

[scottique.livejournal.com]

My guess would be "Entrepreneur"/"Self-Employed." Then again, that sounds like a euphemism for "I'll be trafficking drugs across your border, sirs."

[nowalmart.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the big issue with putting the "wrong" thing is some customs agent in another country looking at it and thinking "Boy, this is suspicious!"

[overstim.livejournal.com]

Occupation: "antagonist, vagabond, bon vivant"

Employer: "politicos, venture capitalists, n'er-do-wells"

[adaptively.livejournal.com]

Occupation: Starship Captain
Employer: United Federation of Planets Starfleet Command

That'll hold you over for ten years, no?

[everyoneiknow.livejournal.com]

well, as per our recent discussion about how there are really only a handful of jobs . . .
(as best as i can tell, making stuff, buying stuff, selling stuff, analyzing how other people make/buy/sell stuff)

marketing maybe? that pretty much covers anything in retail & sales, right? getting people to buy stuff

i was actually glad that kentucky decided i am not a resident, because the hassle of transferring everything to kentucky was going to be more work than i really cared to deal with when i moved here. im not really looking forward to having to deal with that in a new state in a year or two when im NOT living on a campus

[briandigital.com (from livejournal.com)]

Bohemian?

Do you have any evidence that occupation and employer will actually show up on your passport? I somehow doubt it considering most people don't stay at jobs 10 years anymore.

If you wrote more on the blog (not that I can talk) you might qualify as a writer. Of course, that fits nicely with the Bohemian title.

if you're going to go with your title...

[pigstubs.livejournal.com]

employer: the ivory tower

[bigpeteb.livejournal.com]

Homemaker? They might think that's suspicious since you're single, but then surely there must be unmarried but living-together couples out there in which one of the two doesn't work, so maybe it's not so odd that it'll get flagged.

I don't understand what they're going to do with this information. Surely it doesn't get listed on your passport. (I haven't examined the new RFID ones yet, nor do I have any idea what data the chip contains.)