The Dreaded Conversation Stopper

I stole this title from a blog post by John Vasquez that I read in “Inside Higher Ed.” The title caught my eye, because it is a question that I dread. If I answer with, “I’m a policy administrator,” I get a blank stare and silence, as if the other person is still waiting for me to answer the question. Sometimes I answer, “I work in ethics and compliance.” To which the other person responds with a knowing, “Oohhh,” as if they are buying time while they think through all the rules they broke that day and wonder if I’m going to call them out on anything. Either answer tends to be a conversation stopper. 

This is one of the drawbacks to working in a relatively new industry. Only those of us who are policy administrators know what it means. Does the fact that others don’t understand what I do make my job less significant? At times, it feels like it does. When people are not able to relate to something, they disregard it. So, I wonder how I can answer the question about what I do that makes it more relatable to the uninitiated. 

Policies outline the rules and expectations for the university community. From a compliance perspective, policies are necessary for setting the tone of an employer’s culture. If the employer does not specify what is right and wrong and what employees can do to prevent wrong behavior, the employer will be hard pressed to say it has an ethical culture. As the person responsible for making sure that Purdue University’s policies are clear, reasonable, and current, I play a pretty big role in shaping its culture. 

Maybe the next time I’m asked what I do, I will answer with something along the lines of, “I help faculty, staff, and students understand what it means to be a Boilermaker.” Would that be a conversation starter?