Ita
Yankovich
April 5, 2017
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Ita
Yankovich
After asking your name, “What do you do?” is commonly the next question asked by new acquaintances. Hearing your occupation gives people a feel for who you are and what you are about. Of course, we are all familiar with typical job titles like teacher, accountant, therapist, and secretary, but did you know there is a job out there where an individual shows you how to make the perfect challah, or tells you what you’re doing wrong on dates, or even takes people for walks? Well, they exist, and they are just a few of the most unusual jobs that exists in today’s competitive market.
When Chanale Hidegkuti became frum and found her soulmate at the age of 40, she knew she wanted to give back somehow, and this is how her business, www.shidduchcoach.com, became a reality. She decided to create a website and become a shidduch coach. Chanale, who is based in L.A., coaches singles all over North America, Europe and Israel. “Often, folks in the shidduch parshah, especially older folks, have some ‘baggage’ they are toting along on their search, and often, that ‘baggage’ and how it is presented keeps relationships from having a chance to flourish,” she says.
Rabbi Shlomo Slatkin is the creator of The Marriage Restoration Project and is a certified imago relationship therapist and a licensed clinical professional counselor who has been working with couples and singles for over a decade. He explains that the job a shidduch coach is to “help educate them about relationships and help them get more conscious about themselves and some of the stumbling blocks that may be getting in the way of their success.”
Rabbi Moshe Raitman, a Chicago shidduch coach with over 25 years experience agrees, saying that being a shidduch coach is his calling. “The need is huge on many levels; as well as the zechus of guiding one to their chuppah.” Rabbi Raitman stresses that clarity and self-awareness are key to making a successful match.
Every shidduch coach offers different services for different fees. Chanale likes to focus on resume building, which can take 3-4 serious hours; she does this in person, or over the phone. Rabbi Raitman likes to keep his fees simple charging $80/hour for coaching and if he ends up being the actual shadchan, then it is a minimum of $1250 per individual.
The job of a shidduch coach doesn’t end at the engagement. Chanale intervenes when the relationship has “derailed” and Rabbi Raitman says he is constantly learning methodologies through courses, lectures, and articles that could benefit his clients. The most rewarding aspect of the job is creating happily married couples. “Some of my couples have become parents, and that has to be the icing on the cake, “relates Chanale.
“I always wanted to be a social worker or psychotherapist,” recalls Devorah Heller, and today she is, but without the years of schooling. Mrs. Heller is affectionately known as the “Challah Doctor” by thousands of women worldwide who rely on her workshops, CDs, seminars and classes to help them achieve challah perfection. It all started 25 years ago, after Mrs. Heller, who had been childless for years before having her first child, gave birth to her eighth child. It was during this time that she got into baking, and through trial and error perfected an easy, fool proof challah dough recipe. Thrilled with how her life turned out, she wanted to give back to Klal Yisrael and help others connect to Judaism through the mystical mitzvah of challah. “Hashem put this chachmah in my head to make me able to do this; I am not a natural baker at all,” she says. Mrs. Heller began her journey by selling dough and then she had an epiphany: by teaching women to make their own dough, she could allow them the zechus of hafrashas challah. She placed an ad in Torah Times 20 years ago, and now she in on YouTube, Facebook, and travels the world teaching her method. The Challah Doctor’s tutorials are more than instructional guides; she instills humor and inspiration together with her ingredient list. Much like a real MD, Mrs. Heller is always on call, answering questions from women who are having challah complications; she also makes house calls. She charges $175 for an hour-and-a-half in-home tutorial. For groups, the rate varies. “As far as I know I am the only Challah Doctor around, “says Mrs. Heller, “but trust me, I don’t do this for the money. This is not a profit- making business, rather a means to help women connect to G-d.”
Los Angeles actor Chuck McCarthy was half joking when he first advertised his services as a people-walker for those scared to walk alone or in need of a walking partner or motivational boost. To his shock, people responded…many people. In fact, the job ended up being so lucrative that he had to add five more people-walkers to his team. When asked what makes a good people-walker, McCarthy, who maintains confidentiality with his clients, responds, “Really listening and paying attention, not just to the customer, but to the world around you. Different people might want different things from a walking companion. Personally, I’m interested in other people, connecting with them, and trying to help them, and I try to see the humor in everything.” He is now looking into designing an app that would allow customers to rate his walkers on personality and walking speed. Putting aside the financial gain, McCarthy asserts that the biggest bonuses of his job are the experiences and relationships he’s gained.
Your child refuses to share his toys, doesn’t know how to take turns and tantrums every time he loses a game. Perhaps you should consider consulting with a playdate professional on how to improve his social skills. Some parents have been known to spend hundreds of dollars an hour so a playdate consultant can observe their child’s playtime and give them tips on how to improve it. The term “playdate consultant” was borne of the term “shadow companion” according to Dr. Fran Walfish, a Beverly Hills family and relationship psychotherapist, and author, The Self-Aware Parent. She defines a shadow companion as a trained specialist retained by parents to teach social skills to children with Autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, and other developmental challenges. Do children without these labels require playdate consultants? Dr. Walfish says the answer lies in whether their parents have the skills, intuition, empathy and patience to be their child’s own “playdate consultant” or social skills teacher.
Don’t you wish you could combine your cleaning lady, chef, personal assistant, babysitter, and gardener all in one? Well, you can – by hiring a house manager. The job of a house manager is to help oversee the running of a home. They are usually hired to maintain high-profile estates, but today even average busy homes are seeing the value in their work.
The term “house manager” was created by Mary Louise Starkey in 1981 after she founded the Starkey International Institute for Household Management, which trains people to be estate managers, butlers, personal assistants and private chefs. “At the time, terms like ‘butler’ existed, but there was no way for women to enter the management aspect of private service,” she says. “The term ‘butleress’ didn’t work for me.”
Household manager job descriptions will vary according to the needs of the individual household. A household manager’s duties may include any of the following: booking travel arrangements, maintaining household security, running errands (shopping, gift purchases, dry cleaning), keeping track of the household calendar, paying bills, planning special events, supervising other household staff, and childcare. House managers can get paid hourly or weekly. The average annual salary is $27, 994 and $38,660 in NY, according to glassdoor.com
Customer reviews are often the deciding factor in whether a consumer will click “checkout” or “next” when looking an online item. A 2011 study from Harvard Business School estimates that boosting a restaurant’s rating on Yelp by one star can increase its revenues by as much as 9%. What does it take to become a reviewer? “They obviously need to be able to put together good sentences, not make typos, and learn more about all options in the neighborhood they are reviewing,” explains Adam Kruse. Adam is a realtor from Missouri whose company, The Hermann London Group, hires people whose reviews of local businesses are added to his website. Reviewers generally have to write 400 words and get paid per $15 article, depending on the length of the content. Due to an increase in fake online reviews, the Federal Trade Commission has issued guidelines stating that all online endorsements need to make clear when there is a financial relationship, but enforcement has been minimal and there has been a lot of confusion in the blogosphere over how this affects traditional reviews.
There are many odd jobs to be done around the frum home, such as building or taking down a sukkah and cleaning the house for Pesach. This is where The Odd Jobs Crew comes in. Started by Cobey Nerenberg and Zalmy Blejer, two yeshivah boys from Passaic, N.J., the company can handle any job you don’t want to do. Nerenberg and Blejer have been doing seasonal work since they were 12; when they were 18 they decided to make this into an official business with hired workers. “ The month leading up Pesach has been our busiest time because we simultaneously run Pesach car cleaning and Pesach house cleaning,” explains Nerenberg. The boys can handle moving, furniture assembly, yard cleanup, basic handyman work, or anything else a customer requires. “We’ll do anything we feel is at our skill level, except jobs that are liabilities, such as plumbing, in which a simple mistake can lead to a flooded basement! We stopped offering landscaping services because after doing so much of it in our early teens, we found we’re not big fans,” says Nerenberg. The strangest request they ever received was to do vocals and track for a local musician whose singer backed out last minute. The company has grown to the point where they sometimes have to hire 6 full-time employees. The boys don’t intend to make this into a long-term career. “We’ve heard of a similar company in Brooklyn, Handyman Moshe, that managed to make it big in Brooklyn, but we have different aspirations,” explains Nerenberg, who is studying investment banking. Blejer is planning to study in Eretz Yisroel and then go into real estate. Currently, they run The Odd Jobs Crew part-time.
Jobs are always evolving. 15 years ago, if you were to tell someone you’re a Zumba instructor or blogger, they would have looked at you, puzzled. Then again, you won’t hear anyone today claiming to be an alchemist and typesetter. Who knows what jobs will be invented or become obsolete in the next 10 years. I hope “writer” is not one of them!
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