What do you guys answer to guests who asks what is your full time job (and you actually doing airbnb full time)?

I have people asking me this question like 5 times a week and i have a guesthouse of 20 rooms so i am working like 12-14 hours a day. I used to answer fair (like i do airbnb full time it gives me benefits like arranging time, but disadvantages are i cant travel, i have to wake up at night etc.) but guests ether pshaw at me or start envying me. I can see how they will count 20 rooms and multiply by daily rate and are like “ooooo you are rich man” without even knowing my occupancy rate and expenses. And is not like one particular guest but like 70% of them. How do you deal with them? I feel like i lost it today when some guest who locked herself out asked me this again and i answered that i am drag queen go-go dancer.

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I’m retired and almost no one asks me about my lines of work because I disclose that in my airbnb listing. Since you are an innkeeper it’s a bit different. It’s strange they don’t realize that is your job.

Frankly I’m surprised you have such nosey guests. Simply answer that you are an innkeeper. Who cares if they think you are rich, rich is relative anyway, nothing you can do about that. Compared to 98% of the people in the world you are rich.

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Only 5.5 million people are richer than me. Can that be truth?

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People ask me too not as often as they ask you though. When I tell them my whole income depends on the 2 properties they look at me like I am
Dying from
Hunger . Most people have no idea how much we as hosts make and they just speculate.

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I tell people I am a Free-lancer who works on special projects but my favorite is Airbnb. I then give examples of my farthest away guest, most interesting occupation, or most interesting reason for visiting. Then I steer the conversation to their Air experiences.

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Almost half of the worlds population, (3 billion people), lives on less than $2 a day. Less than 1%, controls half of the wealth. Yes, it’s true. Sad, but true. We are very fortunate.

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I once had a very lousy guest look me direct in the eye and ask with a sniff,
“Do you work?” The implication was that I didn’t have to because I somehow made enough to live on by charging her and others $99 a night for my suite. I just said ‘yes, doesn’t everyone?’
She was my second worst guest ever, so it was sort of a foreboding.

I think most people are just trying, unlike my guest, to be friendly with you. They wonder about your life.

Or, try updating your listing description to include your profession. There are professional drag queens you know. :rofl::rofl::joy:

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A mate of mine when asked that question used to reply that he was a sperm donor. Surprisingly nobody ever followed on from the initial enquiry…

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Never had that one asked, a few others…

I’ve never had a guest - EVER - who has had the temerity to ask me personal questions. And if they did, I’d tell them that they were pretty out of line. It is absolutely none of their business.

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@KKC Thanks for your reply. I bet is because my rooms are 14-20 USD per night and i got a lot of that people with big bag-packs.

I think it also depends if you have a lot of contact with guests: We’ve had people stay for 5 nights, so there were at least 5 breakfasts that we needed to socialize. We in fact socialized a lot more than just breakfast. In these kinds of situation I think it’s normal to start talking about personal stuff: “So where did you and your hubby meet?”

I’m also one of those persons who thinks you can do little wrong with questions :blush:.

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@Yana, @konacoconutz, @Como, @jaquo, @GutHend

What would be your polite line to answer this question? Like psychologically correct one. I dont think the guest are really interested in me - they are just polite or impolite in this way - so just need some line to use as default without loosing stars in their review.

I know what you are asking but I don’t think there is a one size fits all answer to what appears to be a rude question.

Add any profession at all to your profile so they won’t ask in the future.

O you can do a lot wrong with questions. "Is it your mom? Wife? Son? Etc. these are bad … bad questions. I had a guest who came with a woman at least twice his age . I almost said “your mom” butvthen remembered my golden to never ask this question and was so right … as it was his wife​:joy::joy:
Just one example.

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No one has ever asked me this question. I would consider it a bit rude, to be honest. My profile does state what I do for a living, so maybe people actually read that? Or maybe they like to think I live to server them?

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The worst one is…

When is the baby due?

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

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yes that one is pretty bad.
:joy::joy:

GutHend, I am exactly the same with most of our guests, very open and chatty. :blush:

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“Didn’t you sleep well or do you always look this tired?” I totally get your point :grin::wink:!

I suppose I was more thinking of questions that don’t have any assumption / passive aggressiveness in them. I don’t mind people being curious in a nice and non judgmental way. If I don’t feel like answering the question, I will always try my best to make this clear in a nice way. I myself am curious without limit, because I’m genuinely interested in people and their lives. I ask loads of questions, to the point that my hubby is sometimes disappointed when I haven’t asked a certain thing HE wanted to know :grin:.

In the OP’s case: I don’t see anything wrong with people asking “Is BnB your full time job or do you combine it with another job?”

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