[pjerem]

> but that is how others see us at first

Well I think it's nothing more than a social norm, and an easy one to avoid at that. People are mostly asking what's your job because that's a standard icebreaker.

Since I (mostly) recovered from burnout, and learnt that I'm actually not my job, I took the habit to never automatically ask people what is their job, at least not for ice breaking.

You can talk about their hobbies, their kids, their tastes ... because those are the real topics that will define if you bond or not anyway. And yes some people sometimes do have an interesting job that is worth talking about but when it happens, you will inevitably talk about it anyway.