I (a software engineer) sit at a table and pound my fingers against an object for many hours a day. That’s it.

I'd have to go through a bunch of concepts about light, moving motion and photography in general but I'm sure we'd get there eventually.

That's a challenge.

The job I do didn't exist when I was in high school, and most of the technology it was built on didn't exist until the early 1900s.

I suppose I could just call myself a general repairman and leave it at that.

I am an IT Technician, I guess I would explain my job as being a scollar and a teacher.

I create drawings of the enclosure of machines and contraptions, you know, the knobs and switches and all those things, and then instruct machines to assemble those machines according to the drawings.

I'd say, Beethoven on "steroids"

If it's not a one line reply with a designation and a linkedin description, but a conversation over drinks, they'd get everything we explain to them. I presume it's a smart person. There are many people in today's time who won't get it in a one liner.

I do qa for headsets so uh... Imagine a painting that moves. Now imagine instead of seeing the world, there was a device that makes you only see those moving paintings. I make sure that device and the paintings work well together.

If anyone knows of any kind of animation technique from that era that would help with the description. But even flip books wouldn't be invented for like 150 more years so 🤷‍♀️ Maybe I could find a nice painting and give the person a bunch of mushrooms and be like "this but different"

I think so? Libraries certainly existed, so there's that. Workshops existed, even if they were less industrialized/more artisanal. The only novelty might be that the two should be in the same place.

Then again, libraries of old apparently were used for a lot more than just books/scrolls, and trade guilds must have needed written materials often enough... Maybe the modern makerspace is a reinvention of an old concept? I have no idea.

Ambisonic is awesome man, it makes the sounds go vrooom all around you.

People who try to work together fail to do it well, so I help them understand why this happens, so that they can do better.

I make energy (a word describing the measure of the invisible magic which makes sea waves happen, the sensation of warmth of the sun on your skin, and the effort you put into lifting heavy rocks) move around really, really, really fast, and lots and lots of it too.

Controlling this 'energy' is a difficult task because if you give it even a little chance, 'energy' will escape in the easiest, most useless way possible. Half my job is planning how to prevent energy from escaping without doing something useful first.

I'm the guy who makes sure the castle is built to keep out the invaders. Only everything is made of captured lightning.

Gets burned at the stake

I work in a trade school and apprenticeship has been around for ages so I think it would translate. I would just say that I help teach apprentices along with their masters, specifically about boats and ships.

I help shops with their inventory.

Pretty easily, yeah. Customer tells me in advance what goods they want, and pay a little extra for me to buy the goods for them and meet at a dropoff point so they have more time to do... whatever people did in 1700... play video games?