In the break room:

Lady: "Are you new?"
Josh: "Yeah, couple months now."
Lady: "Where do you work?"
Josh: "I work in I.S."
Lady: "Ah, so what do you do?"
Josh: "I sort of work with ___, keeping the data flowing, sorta."
Lady: "Ah, all that interesting stuff." (walks away)

Though I can't really convey it here, she said "all that interesting stuff" in a way that meant the absolute opposite.

I can't decide if people just fear/dislike/misunderstand my association with my department in particular, or my association with technology in general.

Maybe it's just people doing the usual self-deprecating, "I don't know anything about technology" shtick (as they whip their iPhone out of their pockets). Maybe I just identify too closely with technology to recognize a joke, or an attempt at one.