I remember working at a call center where we had to contact contractors
from all over the country to take care of our clients that called in. Once
I called one of our vendors from New Jersey and I had grown used to
them being rough and sarcastic and I made a joke to the guy about his
fine state in a negative I thought he would like. His answer surprised me.
"Don't say that. I don't like that. We aren't all like that."
He said it in a sincere, hurt tone that I rarely heard from people on the
East Coast. I apologized right away.
It taught me a lesson about people. Many times stereotypes exist for good
reason. I had experience with a lot of people in New Jersey that were
what I had expected-rude, brusque, pushy, just like I saw on stupid TV
shows. But that wasn't all of them, and sometimes I think the way they
acted wasn't really who they were outside of the rough business we both
were in.
I saw this video on Youtube of a folk song about New Jersey, and it really
illustrated this point very well. Good music and he has a nice voice too.
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