Back to Work

Well I can tell I have truly returned to the workforce - Yesterday I was on strike!

It is one of the advantages of working within the local system that although my children were home because the school was on strike I was at home to look after them because the local Matnas (community centre), where I now work as librarian, was also on strike.

The reason for the strike? As the posters say 'The Government is Losing the North'. In a play on words in Hebrew it also means 'The Goverment is Losing Direction'. Neither are sentiments with which I have great argument except that maybe to lose something you have to have had it in the first place.

Hizbullah has been relatively passive for the last year and so in its wisdom the Goverment has come to the conclusion there are no security concerns in this area, unemployment has come to an end and life is peachy.

Personally my life is quite peachy and I like living in Shlomi but if the Government removes tax relief and other subsudies we will not be able to afford to eat. This is not money for luxuries such as foreign holidays, sports cars or milllion dollar homes in Jerusalem, this is what we need to provide the basics for our families.

Pretending to be a librarian

I have been volunteering at the local library for several years now, organizing the English section. I am also a familiar face around the community centre as a result of the various children's activities and local initiatives.

So the last year when the local librarian was struck down by a vicious bug that barely left her able to breathe, they asked if I could man the desk for a few hours so local bibliophiles, desperate for the next literary fix, could make a quick exchange.

With my fondness for computers I soon figured out how to enter lent and returned books on the program that I had previously only used for cataloguing. More problematic was trying decipher Russian names, mumbled names and names that turned out to be first names.

Most of the visitors were children and Russian pensioners with the occasional mother who, recognizing me from various activities with my children and after inquiring how I came to be working in the library, would launch into an enjoyable review of the latest bestsellers while I would try to translate the titles from Hebrew to English in order to reference their comments against my own opinion or other reviews I had read.

After two afternoons of such pleasant occupation they asked me to take a third turn at the librarian's desk However, obviously due to such frequent contact with the librarian, I had become infected with the same dreaded lurgy and could hardly summon enough breath to gasp, "I can't."

This week the librarian attended a conference and asked me to cover for her again. The timing was a little complicated as my father was going into hospital, meaning that not only was my mother not available for babysitting but we would also have to be 'on call' for any night-time pickups and any animal emergencies. On the other hand, it would be a good thing if I were occupied with no spare time to fill with considerations of hypothetical 'worst case scenarios'.

I managed to arrange, with the help of my hubby, that my daughter would be able to take part in her ballet lesson without having to go either there or back on her own. And I felt that several long stints in the library might encourage my son to read.

The first afternoon the library was quite empty to begin with and my children joined me straight from school.
Then a couple of six grade boys came in and began searching the Internet for the history of Hanukah. Soon they began calling for my help.

"Find something for me," they asked.

"Exactly whose homework is it?" I replied.

A little while later a teacher tried to help them but they couldn't even be bothered to click through on the links Google gave them so she soon gave up. Eventually, after lot of fuss, they found something suitable and printed it out. However, one of the boys being too impatient grabbed a page it before it had printed and the printer had a hissy fit.

I made several attempts to fix it, with the boys pestering me that I had to fix it because they needed to print.

After ten minutes a lady stood at the desk waiting to be served. I didn't want to keep her waiting as I knew her books would take only a minute while the printer seem to be un-fixable.

As I was talking to the lady one of the boys barged in. "You must hurry up. I'm going to be late for sport!"

I replied that he must be more polite and more patient.

Eventually they showed me that they had already printed one copy so that photocopying was their solution. An end to the problems? Not quite. One of the boys had no change to pay me for the copies so I directed him to reception.

"Where's that?" He asked

I explained to him, but even though reception is the main feature in the community centre lobby he had to return twice for directions until one of his friends took him.

Next two little girls needed help with their homework. As I moved over to the computers I noticed two small boys were playing games on the Internet computers even though one of the games computers was free [Don't get me started about computer games in the library] When I asked them to move their mother gave me an 'evil glance'.

About ten minutes later another child came in and inquired politely when a computer would be free so she could play. I replied that the children already at the computers had another five minutes at which 'evil glance' mother piped up "That's not fair my children have only been playing for ten minutes."
I replied that when there is a queue each child has a turn of fifteen minutes so it was perfectly fair.

Somehow the turns sorted themselves out without me having to interfere any further. However when 'evil glance' mother decided to go home both of her boys threw a temper tantrum at being removed from the computer which gave naughty me more than a little satisfaction.

The second day I just put a notice on the printer saying it was broken, saving myself a whole load of hassle. A few children came into play games and use the Internet but they were well behaved and I was able to concentrate on dealing with the positive flood of people coming to exchange books. At one point I had to chase out a few children who had drifted in from the Hanukkah fair with doughnuts in hand. But otherwise I spent all my time checking books in and out on the computer while the returns piled high around me waiting for the librarian to return them so their shelves in the morning. It was a busy but very pleasant way to pass the afternoon.

Where has the weekend gone?

I have lived in Israel nearly 20 years, more than half my life, but there is still something I can't get used to: the one-day weekend.

In Israel Saturday is the Sabbath and on Sunday we all return to work. It is true that most people work a short day on Friday but it is still depressing when your day of rest is sandwiched on both sides by work.

Both my husband and I have tried various ways to fix our working week so that it includes a full day off on Friday but it is a rare occurrence. Even though I work from home and have quite a lot of control over when I work, I always seem to need to meet with someone on Friday or rush to get something finished because suddenly the week is over and this is our last chance to find an hour of free time.

I did work part-time with a five-day week for a year but for most of that time I was pregnant with my son and so resting through any free time, and as I was normally home alone it didn't have the feel of a weekend.

Of course working on Sunday is a pain for international companies. They would never let you stay at home because you can always spend Sunday 'preparing' for the rest of the week. However, all business is put on hold becuase nobody in Europe or America is reading the faxes or answering the phones.

For us, personally, it means that that our favourite MotoGP races are Assen and Qatar because they take place on Saturday and Laguna Seca, which is so many time zones distant we can watch the race live late Sunday night.

The hardest struck victim is our social life. We are not completely secular so Friday evenings are reserved for synagogue and a meal with the family. If we do go out it is afterwards, at 11pm. That is fine when you are18 or even 25. But when the big four oh is looming close and you are weighed down by a heavy meal which was, naturally, accompanied by wine, and have been on your feet since 6am when you staggered off to work, going out on a Friday becomes a special event rather than a weekly routine.

Saturday is no better. You maybe well rested having lazed away the better part of the morning but you have to stay the sensible side of a wild time in consideration of the fact that you must be fit for work on Sunday morning.

However, there is a rather dim, wavering, but recurrent light bobbing on the horizon.

The religious sector, who have disproportionate clout in the Knesset, are fed up with everyone in the Jewish Homeland shopping on the Holy Sabbath. They have joined with the factions that support workers rights', in trying to convert Israel to a five-day working week.

There are many economic objections and some orthodox Jews demand that the second day of holiday be on Friday because it is just not Jewish to be like everybody else. As a result, the law has so far been rejected.

But I have hope that in the not-too-distant future the combination of economists on one side recognising the problem caused by the lack of a universally acceptable shopping day, and the religious elements on the other side trying to assert their power by protecting the Sabbath will ensure the rest of us can enjoy a two-day weekend.

Daily Amusement

Today was hot yet again. So I spend another day trapped in the house, crouched over the computer screen, with hair as straight and as dry as straw as a result of washing my hair during the heat wave which is raging outside the closed windows.

As a stay-at-home Mum who works part time from home, I divide my time between the computer and housework.

I love cooking and don't mind laundry but cleaning and tidying is a punishment thought up by the devil and all chores can be boring when executed in silence.

As to my work: I am a bookkeeper. There are few things in life that give me more pleasure than reconciling accounts but due to years of experience and computer automation most of the work does not require the 100% participation of all my brain cells.

Television is no good as a distraction. I need my eyes for the computer screen while working and it would be a temptation too far for my self-discipline especially when competing with the dubious attractions of washing floors.

Radio could be an option except that endless pop music is not my thing and Israel talk radio does not appeal to me.

As always, my trusty computer came to the rescue. One day I was surfing the net searching, in vain, for the perfect RSS reader when I stumbled across podcasts.

After a short flirtation with ipodderx, iTunes became podcast friendly and I switched even though I have never owned a Mac or even an iPod.

Now I am subscribed to about 70 podcasts. Some have fallen by the wayside due to lack of time or lack of interest but there are still many gems that keep me company during the day.

If nobody objects (and even if they do - this is my blog after all :0) each week I will recommend a favourite.

Tomorrow I will return with my first recommendation.