One of the most aggravating things about going to parties and such in Northern Virginia was that the first question anyone asked you was "So what do you do?" and then you could see them compartmentalize you after you answered (if they listened at all). With a lot of them if you were perceived to be below their status or of little future use then they tried to move on to someone else.

Brad Feld has a great answer for that most annoying of questions, and it got me to thinking about one of the first things I noticed when we moved to Winston-Salem two years ago.  Instead of asking you what you do most people here ask you "Where’s your church?"  I think they also compartmentalize you based on your answer, but I honestly think the motivation is to see if you have a church and if you don’t to invite you to theirs. 

The result is that I don’t know what half the people here do for a living but I do know there’s a bunch of Methodists and Baptists running around.  Kind of nice.