Do you feel like New Yorkers treat your town like it’s a small village even though six million people reside in your city’s metro area?
Do all of your kosher restaurants close before nine pm?
Do you have to drive 3 hours to get just the right type of kosher food? Is your town’s only “kosher” restaurant open on Shabbos?
Do you feel like an alien every time you talk to a New Yorker?
Fear not my out of town brethren – we are united (oy, I feel like a Marxist) and I intend to dispel the rumors that out-of-towners are going hungry and irreligious from lack of food and access to up-with-the-times head coverings.
When asked “What do you do?” by a New Yorker, you are not merely being asked about your occupation or whether or not you can support their son in Kollel – the question is actually a general question of rhetorical geocentricism; these folks from “in=town” seek to make everyone from any city beyond that of Rockland County appear as if they dropped off the moon. “What do you do?” is a question that latches onto the entire gamut of the frum experience, and can be defined in a myriad of ways, depending on both the particular asker and askee.
As a 27 year old single make, the four word query can be typified in one of two ways when directed at me: Sometimes it might be delivered with the intonation that the Founding Fathers used upon asking the Natives of New England during the height of winter “What do you eat?”, which means to say that the in-towner wants to know what I do…for food. I always answer with the obvious, I EAT, but that is never good enough for these geocentric New Yorkers intent on messing with me, the poor out-of-towner. It is followed up by the same exact “What do you do?” repeated verbatim, this time with more attention placed on pronouncing each of the words really clearly, as though I might be severely learning disabled. This time they mean to ask “I didn’t know they have kosher food there, are you sure it’s really kosher?” I answer this as if I were an OU representative visiting a prospective client, “did you know that 1/3 of the products sold in the US are certified kosher?” This is not enough for them either, so they cobble together a new question out of their limited oral lexicon: “But, do you have kosher restaurants?” When I lived in Rochester and Albany, NY I would answer no, and enjoy the looks of astonishment on these people’s faces, while they would gasp in horror with the thought that I would eat treife, although all I was actually implying was that there are single men who actually do cook for themselves. To acknowledge that single frum men cook for themselves is too progressive for many people, they simply cannot believe why anyone in their right mind would settle in a place devoid of kosher restaurants.
I never really thought much of the 3 hour drive to Toronto for some kosher pizza when I lived Rochester, as the drive itself was made into a pleasant trek with all sorts of interesting stops along the way. The capstone highlight at the conclusion of our journey was being able to eat out in a kosher restaurant. I used to love eating out, it was such a treat, something I relished and never took for granted – I came to realize over time that New Yorkers are just spoiled. Besides, cooking for yourself looks great on the skills portion of your shidduch resume – and talking recipes with women always gets you invitations to try some of their food.
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
my favorite question is when the NYers infest South Florida and i always get asked the “so… what do you do down here?” asking about my career since theres no possible way i could have a real job if i dont live in the tristate area. So, in keeping with my maxim of “stupid question, stupid answer”, i always find some zanny nutty job that will freak them out. I’ve done it so many times i can keep a straight face through the entire delivery and remaining conversation.
my go tos are:
1) I’m a tour guide
2) I drive a double decker bus
3) I work at Disneyworld but I take weekends off down here in Miami
4) I sell celebrity house maps. (this one usually comes with the tour guide)
5) I’m a cop.
6) Tattoo artist
This list goes on and on, but if the look of sheer horror on their faces is too much, i stop and tell them “no, I’m a lawyer”. This is a big mistake usually since then they always as the follow up stupid question. “at, like, a firm?” to which I always say, “No, at the F*&^ circus.”
and for the record, for all NYers reading this, when someone asks what you do for a living, dont say “I work in _____.” its not english and sounds stupid. Noone “works in computers” computers are a thing, and unless you are really really small you dont work in them.
Secondly, if you dont know what a hedgefund really is, you dont work for one. and being the copy boy at a hedgefund, doesnt make you an analyst.
more to follow when my blood pressure returns to normal…
How about opening a kosher health-food establishment at the foothill of the rockies?
I love the “what do you do?” question. It so stupid and narrow minded that i employ the “snappy answers to stupid questions” form Mad magazine with regularity.
When the NYers infest South Florida these questions come several times a day, from people who cant fathom that someone can acctually have a “real” job if they dont live in the tristate area.
My favorite answer to the “what do you do, down here? do you like go to the beach all the time?” is either:
1) I give tours eith ‘maps of the stars houses’. seriously, i have a double decker bus!
2) I work at Disneyworld, they just gave me today off.
If for some reason i let it slip that I’m acctually a lawyer, the follow up question is the most infuriating. “You mean like, at a firm?”
“No at the F*&@’in circus”.
Note to all NYers: When telling someone what you do, dont say “I work in ______”. unless that blank is “an office” its not going to make sense. For example, telling me that you work in computers means nothing. Also, unless you acctually know what a hedge fund is and what it does, dont tell me you work for one.
i dont think that most individuals who have always lived in ny believe that anyone who lives outside of the new york tri-state area is actually frum. they think that they are more like what new yorkers call syrian religious aka traditional, not shomer shabbat.no matter how many times you tell them otherwise. anyway, those of us who have grown up elsewhere actually had to decide to be frum as opposed to the socially frum residents of ny , especially brooklyn. by deciding to be frum, i dont mean that everyone outside of ny is bt, what i mean is that the pull to be unfrum outside of ny is so great that if you grow up frum and remain frum, its because you want to , its not because of peer pressure.
I am a NY Lawyer who wants to work in a hedge fund, and knows what it is. How do i go about it?
(But no business experience)
NY Lawyer, if you had experience you wouldn’t want to work in a hedge fund. When the market was roaring almost none of the hedge fund managers had experience and it didn’t matter. Picking stocks was like tossing darts.
Now that the market has crashed most funds whether managed by experienced or inexperienced folks have done about the same.
I think you would be better off staying in law and defending all the hedge fund managers who are getting sued.
Or better yet, become an analyst and help all of the people suffering from depression and/or anxiety!!
What do you do?
My answer nowadays is always the same – “I do a lot of things, the most important of which is being an Abba to my children.”
NY Lawyer – I am a NY Lawyer who wants to work in a hedge fund, and knows what it is. How do i go about it?
If you are asking that question on a message board, then you are very likely not qualified. And I promise I am not saying it to “be mean” or to be snide, but rather to point out the reality that the hedge fund business really requires you to have a large network of people “in the business (of finance and investing)” in order to even have a slight chance of success.
Mark [former New Yorker and now in South Florida and goes to the beach only once or twice a year - those New Yorkers go to the beach more during one Pesach that I go in 5 years!]
You see Mark, that is the exact reason why i want to join, and have no idea where to start. I have this great network of Hasidic Clients of mine, who have money to throw around and would trust me, but i need to start somewhere. This other lawyer mentioned something so i thought “maybe he can give me a tip.” Good luck Mark.
When I went on a shabbaton with my school to New Square the kids asked me where I was from. “Maryland,” I told them.
“Maryland, is it far?” was the typical response that I got from the kids who asked.
However, I told the adults I lived near d.c. just so they might have a chance of knowing where I lived. The followup question normally was along the lines of, “Do you see the president every day?”
I’m screwed when people from New York ask me what my dad’s job is. How do I explain that he works in an office, but isn’t an accountant or lawyer and doesn’t work for the government? How do I explain that he is a director of regulatory analysis and scientific affairs?
i’m from so far out of town (that being NY) that there are some americans i’ve met who have never heard of australia, let alone ’southern hemisphere’. it’s a nightmare trying to explain that concept to someone who has no idea of anything much other than their own city.
and i have to fly 15 hours to LA for decent kosher sushi! (thankfully we have ok pizza here.)
Haha this is great, and so true! I know so many New Yorkers and it’s like they’re in their own little bubble and just don’t get that there’s an entire frum world outside of NY.
veebee, I too am from Maryland (Baltimore) and I also tell people I’m near D.C., even though it’s an hour’s drive. I’ve never heard that line about the president, but it’s a great one!
New Yorkers actually get kind of humble in Jerusalem. First, they know there is Cafe Rimon at 3am. Secondly, they know they’ll get the “Why haven’t you made aliyah, yet?” guilt trip if they try it in Israel. Besides if they complain about Israelis, you can always retort there are more Israelis in New York than Israel.
I like when people think that Midwestern cities are states…
Detroit
Minneapolis
Chicago
St. Louis
etc.
I like when people think that Midwestern cities are states…
Detroit
Minneapolis
Chicago
St. Louis
And especially … Miami. You know where we go to the beach everyday and most of us are lifeguards or work at Disney
Um…right. Becuase Miami and Orlando (home of Disney World) are SEVERAL HOURS APART!
I’m from San Diego. Someone thought that was in Texas. Many times I’ll be asked if I know “sos-and-so in L.A.” Um, no. LA and San Diego are a three-hour drive from each other.
So much for those high-priced yeshiva educations.
Pretty much everyone I meet from ny thinks that since I live in florida I spend all of my free time at the beach, although I go maybe twice a year. Non-floridian out of towners, on the other hand, are generaly smart enough to ralize that floridians may possibly have other interrests than the beach.
“So much for those high-priced yeshiva educations.”
How much geography do you think they really teach in yeshiva, other than what happens to come up in the Gemara- like the case of the “flying camel” that could travel from Sura to Neharda in the course of one day? (It’s in Makkot.)
My favorite story: We were guests at Vacation Village in the mountains one Shabbat. A neighbor asked, “Where do you live?” “Jerusalem”, I said. “Yeah”, she responded, “we also used to live out of town, but we didn’t like it.”
thelaw, you’re funny. Don’t people in NY (I’m on Long Island) know that there’s a HUGE observant Jewish community in Baltimore? I’ve got a cousin on my stepmother’s side who’d make snoop frummy frum look traditional who met a girl, got married and lives down there. And Miami … the grandson of the lady across the street from my grandmother (we should’ve grown up playing together, but fortunately, I was raised out of town) is a rabbi down there. They’ve got Jews. I live right by the beach and don’t go all the time. I reckon it’s easy to do the same down there.
i told someone i was from detroit…and she asked if it was in chicago
its not?
i hope to god that you’re joking
ha ha!!!! you bought it!!! its ok, hesh is not around, and some of us are not into watching a million days of inaugeration coverage.