Do you unleash your inner career-nerd too?

Do you think people who make a living as salesmen are as susceptible to other salesmen's Jedi mind tricks?  Do cooks silently judge other cooks when they go out to eat? Would a barista rather pull her own teeth than have a first date at a coffee shop?

My prepress manager planted this idea in my head earlier this morning, and I ran with it. It boiled down to one main idea: given the job you currently have, do you "see" that job out in the real world and analyze it like you are at the office? Do you take it in a negative connotation or positive? The examples above are short and sweet, but I'm sure they could stretch on for a while.

Me personally, ever since getting into the packaging side of printing, I look at every single box I come across. Groceries. Video games. Postal parcels. Soap. I look that box up and down and every which way just to study it. How did they die-cut it? Are there any spot colors used? Who printed it? Why is that image low-res?

I guess it really begs the question of do you take your work home with you? And in a sense, I believe everybody does to a certain extent depending on your field (I doubt trash collectors think about trash collection services when they get home and see their own garbage). And I'm not knocking it by any means, after all don't we spend more than half of our lives working? I think a little overspill is to be expected.

Be well.