| Great replies guys, I enjoyed reading them.
It reminds me one of the PU challenges I read about. Basically people, no matter what their job was, they had to pretend it was something people were prejudiced towards.
It's exactly how the other posters have said, you have to be really upfront about it, because it's almost always something which is built into a person's perception of someone else, and if you even hint at wanting to hide it, it automatically makes people think that you're doing something you're not proud of or don't enjoy, which reflects badly on your character. It's not being a binman particularly, either. I know of accountants and fairly wealthy businessmen who have such boring jobs that they're reluctant to share about them, which I'm sure works against their game.
It's exactly as the others have said, it's not your job, it's your attitude towards it. The DHV, beyond the fame/wealth/power brought by those few elite jobs, is the passion and pride you take in it. You could be competing against a surgeon with a negative attitude about his job, and so long as you make clear how much of an ego boost your job is, you'll be getting all the numbers.
Do you have any good stories to tell from your job? You can make it really interesting if you talk about people you work with and things which go wrong.
I'd also try to incorporate some sort of destruction of the preconceptions people might have. Being unhygienic is one of them. Now I'm sure it's not the cleanest job in the world, but you get to wear all the protective gear, and probably get some sort of wash time at work? You could break that down by saying something along the lines of:
"I bet you think we crawl around in it like pigs and get really dirty, don't you? Well, the funny thing is, with all the cleaning I have to go through, I probably come home from work cleaner that you do! You know, I bet I even smell nicer than you right now." [obviously you have some sort of cologne, you smell each other] "Eeew you smell like work. haha just kidding, you smell nice, like...." etc.
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