Tell me your XYZ coordinates

In many places around the world, but especially in India, people will typically try to ascertain three things about you and mentally assign you a certain rank and position. This rank is often deemed to be a measure of how successful you are, and whether you have “made it.” How they interact with you from then on depends on the rank or score that they assign you.

The three things are: your job (company, profession and title), your house (location and size) and your car (make, model and year). Here in India, I’ve had numerous people ask me directly or obliquely in an attempt to assign me a status-rank.

When these people find out that I have none of the three they are at a bit of a loss, unable to slot me into their coordinate system.

This takes them out of the scripted conversation that they are used to, because they’ve done this dozens of times before with others. But it sure makes for interesting conversations.