Home Front

The day I stepped into a puddle of water in the hallway coming from the toilet was the day I decided to move home. Two days later I moved my stuff out and was on my way back to Ma'ale Adumim. I find it very depressing to live with my parents at the ripe old age of 24 but at least their running water is not all over the floor. And anyway, there's no way I'll be able to afford an apartment while I'm in school. I haven't yet been able to enter the Israeli mindset of “I'll move out maybe when I'm 30. Or married. But definitely by the time I have grandchildren.” To me it seems unnatural. Children go away to college at the age of 18, move back afterward for a few months until they find a job and then they leave the nest. They either fall out or fly out but anyone who stays is a loser who sleeps in his parents' basement and smokes pot all day. It's hard to change one's perspective on such matters even if they are no longer applicable.

Moving back home is however, not even in the same ball field of frustration as trying to get money out of the government. As a new immigrant, I am lucky enough to get my higher education paid for. If the student authority can get it together enough to actually give it to me.

The first time I went was fairly simple. I opened up a file with them, gave them my documents (except the inevitable one I was missing), they gave me a password for their website so I could fill out an online form and sent me on my way. All I had to do was bring them the missing document and go to their website. Easy right? Never! I realized that I didn't have that document in my apartment (it was in Ma'ale Adumim and I wasn't yet) and that was the day my internet crashed. Ok. I took my computer to a coffee shop in the mall to at least fill out the form and then realized that I had to scan and upload all the forms that I had already copied and brought in to the student authority. The documents which I of course hadn't brought with me to the mall. So I filled out the rest of the questionnaire, and sent it in intending to go back and send them the other documents afterward.

As for the missing document, I just figured I'd wait until I went back for Shabbat, root around my room, and bring it back with me. I promptly forgot to do this and returned to Jerusalem without it. I then sent my father to root around my room and scan it. Unfortunately, it seems that our scanner is no longer connected to our operating system ever since we switched to Linux. I then gave my mother the task of meeting me in Jerusalem with the document which she succeeded in doing. I then took it to the student authority and asked them what else I needed to do. They asked me if I had a letter of commitment and I just looked at them blankly and went, “whaaa?” I honestly still don't know what they were talking about. But they told me I had to go to the bank to get them to set up a payment system where the university would take money out of my account every month. Then the student authority could put money in beforehand so that there would actually be something in there to go out. Plus I still had to upload the documents to their website.

I went to the bank and they signed the forms I needed to take back to the university. The next day I went to the gym on the Har Hatzofim campus and then took a bus to the Givat Ram campus (the one where I'll be studying) to hand them my forms. I wandered around a bit (I always get lost there) looking for the office of student finances. I finally found someone to ask and he told me I was on the wrong campus and that the student finance office was on Har Hatzofim. Well I felt like an idiot but I certainly wasn't going back there. I had to go to work in a few hours and traveling around Jerusalem is like trying to get through the Mexican border with suspicious looking suitcases in your beat-up van. It cannot be done in a time efficient manner. So I went home instead and tried to upload the documents. This was problematic for two reasons- one, it turns out my scanner is also not hooked up correctly, and two- the website wouldn't let me log back in citing that there was already a form filled out by someone of my name and ID number. Yes, me.

The next day I went back to Har Hatzofim. I got up early to take the 9:00 bus so that I hopefully wouldn't have to wait too long and so I'd have enough time just in case it didn't go smoothly. The woman at security asked me where I was going and when I told her, she looked at her watch and said, “they open in another hour and twenty minutes.” I was like, “what?! What kind of office opens at 11:00 in the morning?! This is madness!” So I went into the campus (the office of student finances is outside the campus), read a newspaper, got some coffee, and checked my watch every few minutes until I'd wasted enough to time to go back there. By the time I got there, there was already a line of people waiting for them to open. Luckily it didn't take too long for me to give them the bank forms and then be told that the security fee (No, not security deposit, the fee. Israel may be the only place where you have to pay an additional fee for security.) that I'd been trying to pay for two weeks had to be paid at the post office. Yes, the post office. Another Israeli quirk is that you pay your bills at the post office. Which is also incidentally a bank. And a place where you can change money. All this time I could have just walked into any post office, paid, and been done with it. So I figure the closest post office is on campus, so I go back through security, walk back up the hill, walk into the post office and try to pay. Foiled again! Apparently they only take cash or checks. Not credit cards. Well, I didn't happen to have 417 shekels in my wallet that day. If I have more than 20 shekels in my wallet it's a good day. And I certainly don't walk around with a check book. So I went home to regroup. I then took the dog for a walk down the street to the post office with a wad of cash in my back pocket and successfully closed the matter of the security fee.

With that done, the only thing left to do was drag myself back to the student authority and try to get some answers and possibly some money. I still hadn't paid the first payment of 3,800 shekels which was supposed to have been paid by September 12. The student authority expected me to pay this money and would pay me back afterwards. Well if I had 4,000 shekels, I wouldn't need their assistance now would I.

So I came in at about 10:00 or so and sat down to wait. There were only two people ahead of me and one person already inside. What I didn't realize is that there was only one worker taking care of everyone and each person took about half an hour. It seems they're having “manpower problems” which explains why my phone calls were never answered and why I still haven't received an answer to my first email which I sent over a month ago. I'm tempted to volunteer to work for them just because it's actually physically painful for me to see such a state of inefficiency. It makes Bituach Leumi (national insurance which your employer usually pays for you or you yourself pay if you're unemployed) look like a walk in the park. Sure they kept sending me letters that I owed them 700 shekels or 400 shekels or whatever amount they pulled out of a hat, but all I had to do was go to the center of town, wait a few minutes to get through security, take a number, and sit in a room with another hundred people. But everyone was sorted according to what they needed and if there were a lot of people waiting, they opened up more stations and the whole thing took no more than half an hour. Sure, after I proved to them that my employer had in fact paid and they realized that it was all in their computers anyway, I still got more letters but I've been ignoring them in the hopes that they'll go away by themselves.

So I waited, and waited. I met a bunch of people from the mechina who were all equally as frustrated. It was like a party, the kind where everyone is miserable and wants to go home. Basically like me at every party I've ever been to. I finally got them to upload my documents from their computer to whatever system it was that they keep all the uploaded documents, begging the question- why couldn't they just do that in the first place? It only took about a minute and considering the amount of grief they put me through to do what they could have done in 60 seconds, I was pretty aggravated. They also told me I had to bring them proof that the university had my bank information which I could do by printing it out from the university's website. So basically, I still wasn't done and they still hadn't given me the money for the first payment. By the time I got out of there, there was a line of people down the hallway who were probably going to end up camping out overnight since the place was supposed to close in an hour. And I was ready for a vodka tonic. I don't even know what tonic is, but it doesn't really matter as long as it comes with vodka. I always thought tonic was a medicine so I'm not sure vodka tonic is such a good idea since you're not supposed to mix most medications with alcohol especially if you're using heavy machinery. And who doesn't use heavy machinery in their everyday life? Your car is heavy machinery. The washing machine is heavy machinery. Pianos are heavy even if they're not really machinery. But all this is beside the point. The point is that I needed a drink. Although I'm rethinking the vodka tonic.

They called me during Sukkot to tell me that I had to bring in the statement from the university that they had my bank information but didn't pick up the phone when I tried to call them back to see if they were even open. So I had to wait until after Sukkot even though I knew it was going to be even more of a madhouse than usual since everyone else was getting as frantic as I was.

I went back Sunday and found a hallway full of people twitching and randomly seizing on the floor. Just kidding, most people seemed to be resigned to their fates and were probably counting the money they were going to get to keep from slowly losing their minds. All I wanted to do was give them the paper they'd asked for and like a real Israeli I had no intention of waiting hours to leave a piece of paper on the desk. So I ambushed someone coming out of her office and asked her if I could please just give it to her. The person who was next in line (and incidentally the person who had moved into my apartment on French Hill when I moved out) graciously let me go in. The woman disappeared for a while and when she came back, asked me if I had signed the letter of commitment. I still don't know what that is or even if I've signed it considering the amount of paperwork whipping past my head, so I just looked at her blankly. She told me that she couldn't find this elusive letter and perhaps it was wherever it is they send these things but that it would somehow come back and I could sign it then, whenever “then” is. Or I could wait (probably for the next four hours) and somehow something would happen (I don't know what since they supposedly didn't have the letter and obviously couldn't just print out a new one). I chose to go home since I wasn't going to wait for the next few hours if I didn't even know what I was waiting for. What, I was going to sit down when they finally admitted me and when they asked me what I needed I was going to say, “Oh, I have no idea?” Noooo. So now I guess I wait for them to call me again and in the meantime, resist the urge to repeatedly bash my own head into the wall.

A Bad Run

After the fridge went to wherever it is fridges go when they die, the internet joined it there. We didn't know what was going on with it (we'd been turning the modem on and off in hopes that we could resuscitate it but to no avail) until we saw a notice in our building that HOT, our internet provider, was having problems in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. We kept waiting for it to go back up but after a week and half we decided that it probably wasn't going to spontaneously recover. I called them up and told them that we still didn't have internet service, and no wonder- according to them, we don't exist. They couldn't find us by name, phone number or address. They had obviously missed us when they put the network back up seeing as we're ghost customers. I told my roommate about this and she went, “oh yeah, we had this problem before where they couldn't find us in their system.” To make a long story short, I don't know what she did but the internet came back after she spoke to them. Two weeks after it had gone down. She may have had to “explain” to them using very physical and graphic terms. I don't know what she did but it worked.

A few days after we lost the internet, I did laundry and realized that the bathroom was about to float away. There was a large pool of water on the floor and some ducks had taken to roosting in it. And the water wasn't coming from the washing machine- it was bubbling up from the hole in the floor. All bathrooms in Israel have a drainage pipe from the floor down to the sewage system but while most of them are covered, ours is covered in a piece of plastic with large holes. Thereby letting in things that don't belong in a pipe and are not beneficial to its health. Like hairs, gravel (from when they “fixed” our bathroom) and probably little pieces of plastic that Pilpel had generously contributed to the cache of treasure down there. I immediately called the landlady while searching for the life raft I'm sure we have around somewhere and to my astonishment she actually answered the phone and called the insurance company who then sent someone over within the next few hours. Who says Israelis aren't efficient?

According to the insurance company, unclogging pipes isn't covered by them. If the plumber could unclog it by hand then it would be 50 shekels. If he had to use a machine to do it, it would cost 400 shekels. Luckily the landlady had kindly agreed to pay for it. After deigning to glance down into the pipe for 2 seconds, he decided he couldn't unclog it by hand. He had to go back for the machine because for whatever reason, he hadn't brought it with him (considering there were two options, unclog by hand or use the machine). If he had decided that he could do it by hand he probably would have had to go back for his hands. At some point while checking the water, he realized that our toilet runs. And I don't mean in a sweatsuit and jogging shoes. He told us that we'd have to completely replace the toilet but he tried to fix it a bit so that it wouldn't be as bad.

A few days after the flood in the bathroom, my roommate realized that now our toilet was leaking. And I don't mean that someone was taking a leak in the toilet. The back overflowed a bit every time we flushed it and water was pooling in the bucket she had placed there. Some of it made it into the bucket anyway. I don't know what the plumber did but it seems he's made himself some more work.

We did manage to find a fridge. Someone was moving into an apartment that already had a fridge so she had to do something with her fridge for a year. We're storing it for a year in our kitchen as opposed to a storage facility which she'd have to pay for. I just hope we don't kill it. We don't have a very good track record with fridges and it'd be a shame if we did in a fridge that wasn't even ours.

… And Another One Bites the Dust

I guess it's no longer important that our microwave blew up because fridge number 2 is being eulogized and mourned over in a cemetery plot next to fridge number 1. I have nothing to put in the microwave since all of my food has walked off on newly sprouted legs (leaving only an unpleasant smell and a trail of green goo behind it). Even if I did have some kind of sustenance, I woke up this morning and realized that I am yet again teething. I may steal some of the dog's chew toys. Maybe her squeaky chicken. It's not very lifelike but I'm desperate enough that it just might taste like schnitzel.

In other news, after the disaster that was the 60's party I knew I had to quit the bar. I worked one more shift and then quit afterwards. Suddenly dressing up like an escaped Bais Yaakov girl didn't seem so bad anymore. At least I wouldn't have to wear peace signs. I decided to ease back into working at the restaurant without them even noticing. I told the manager that I could work any time the rest of the week if he needed me. Which he of course did. The owner's parents came in to eat (gratis of course) and his mother commented that “she was so glad to see me and was so upset to hear that I'd quit.” I'm like, I uh... thanks I guess. She seemed as upset at my leaving as I was on returning to the restaurant.

So I'm pretty much where I started except down some money for the month of August for the few weeks I didn't work at all. Not only that, but when the owner finally noticed that I was working full time again he “renegotiated” my wage back down to minimum. So he's a jerk and I work at a job that I hate to pay for an apartment that's falling down around me. Such is life I suppose.

It's not only my life that sucks. My mother got back from the States last week from helping her mother move to assisted living after becoming essentially immobile and wheelchair bound. My family all met up on Thursday for a sushi dinner in Tel Aviv to celebrate my birthday. Not the happiest of occasions. I was forced to sit through my mother telling us about my miserable, sick grandmother and my sister and her husband telling us about how their apartment caught fire, almost burnt down and how all their stuff is ruined. Great. What an uplifting conversation. At this point I just kind of wanted to go home. Does someone else maybe want to get mugged or come down with E. Coli? Or maybe go through an earthquake, hurricane, subsequent power outage and phone company strike? Oh no wait, we're back to my grandmother. My sister called my parents in the middle of the night and my father picked up. In her state of half-consciousness, when my mother heard “fire” she of course immediately thought there was a fire in my apartment. If my apartment ever burns down, it will be because I burnt it down. Or because the wall next to the bathroom with faulty wiring is still wet. If my landlady's apartment burns down (she refuses to replace the fridge because she wants no responsibility for anything in the apartment), I will proclaim my innocence and take an extended vacation in Baja.

Obviously I was in quite a mood after a.) reading my fridge its last rites and b.) receiving my paycheck for August. I know I demanded 27 shekels an hour but after working at the restaurant during that time, I saw how incredibly busy it was and how much money we collected in tips. For those of you just tuning in or who may have forgotten, the salary is paid in a very unusual manner especially for a restaurant. The customers are charged a 15% service fee directly onto their bill which is counted and split up at the end of the month. We are then paid by check with all the taxes and other various government fees already taken off. If we don't make an average of at least minimum wage an hour in tips for that month, the restaurant makes up the difference.

When I got my paycheck I was a bit taken aback to realize that I'd gotten what I'd asked for but no more. I knew that we'd made an average of maybe 800-1000 shekels in tips a night. Where was all that money going? I couldn't figure it out and I was getting more and more upset as I thought about it.

I sat and stewed some more on the bus and by the time I got to work I was so angry that I demanded that the manager tell me where all that money was going and why my paycheck was so low. I told him if I didn't get a satisfactory answer I was going to turn around and walk out the door. He said he didn't know how the owner paid everyone, he also wasn't sure why my paycheck was so low, bla bla bla, more excuses, and you can't leave because we have a table of 10 coming soon. I was like, not my problem. Call him up and tell him I want to talk to him. He didn't want to call him (he dislikes confrontation and conflict even more than I do) but said he'd let me talk to him when he called in a few minutes. The owner finally appeared (late to a meeting, as usual) and said he'd talk to me after said “meeting” (i.e. shady looking business deal) and then the 10 people came in and I had to take their orders (not as patiently as usual) and then he left again. He did eventually come back and I cornered him and asked him to explain to me how he paid us. After sending me off again to do a few things (go check on the table in the corner, bring that table ketchup, etc.) he finally couldn't put it off any longer. He explained his incredibly complicated method of hour keeping and tip accounting and I finally understood that he's an even cheaper jerk than I'd thought. It seems he also pays the manager from tips (instead of just paying him a normal salary) even though he's not a waiter plus if the tips come out to more than 30 shekels an hour for the night, he counts the kitchen as one person (for 7 or 8 hours) and shares the tips with them too (not that the kitchen staff has noticed any kind of change in their salary). He also pays himself tips if he works in the dining area for a few hours even though he owns the whole place. So essentially, he's paying his entire staff on the tips that the waiters are earning. And that's where all that money is going. Cheap bastard.

After explaining all this to me, he said to me “there were a few nights that you didn't make 27 shekels an hour so I added a few shekels to make it 27 an hour for that night. I thought you'd be happy instead of complaining that it's not enough but I guess no one ever is.” I didn't have anything else to say to him so I just got up and left. I was pissed off and not feeling fantastic (physically and emotionally) so I informed the manager that I was leaving when the other waitress showed up. I don't know what's going to happen with this job but all I can say is if the place burns down, I'll be in Mexico.

Pugnacious Bartenders & Peace Signs

You know what I dislike more than drunk people? Parties. Which is why I was very happy not to be scheduled to work on Thursday night which is when the bar was having their highly anticipated (by them if by no one else) '60's party.' In fact, I was quite relieved because the one thing I hate more than parties is dressing up. The other staff seemed to be excited, chattering over what they were going to wear and how much fun it was going to be, etc. I did not partake of this chatter; I rarely partake in any chatter especially if it revolves around clothes, parties, or any kind of fun whatsoever.

It had been a long week and I was looking forward to a relaxing Thursday of coffee and lunch at the mall in Ma'ale Adumim with my father and then making dessert (in a clean and fully stocked kitchen) for the family we were staying at for Shabbat.

I had worked Sunday, filled in for someone on Monday, worked as scheduled on Tuesday, and answered the summons to help out at the restaurant on Wednesday (explanation to follow). Frankly, I was exhausted. As for working at the restaurant, the manager had been calling me every day asking me if I could work that night. Obviously I had told him no, I had a job, I was working that night, whatever would make him stop calling me. I finally told him that there was no reason for me to work at the restaurant because I was getting paid 25 shekels at the bar and I wouldn't work for less. He called me back the next day and told me that he'd relayed my message to the owner but had told him that I would only work for 27 or 28 shekels an hour. The owner actually agreed to guarantee me at least 27 shekels an hour (which just shows how desperate he must have been). So I agreed to work on Wednesday. I needed the money and the pay and hours were better than at the bar so I figured I may as well work there a few times if they needed me.

First however, I was expected at the bar for “arts & crafts” time. They had asked all the waitresses to come in to decorate for the 60's party. They offered us free food and drinks (including cocktails) as an incentive because obviously they weren't paying us for our time. I guess they thought we'd come in due to our clearly feminine love for cutting out hearts and peace signs and for the chance to chat about our love lives and gossip about the customers. I passed kindergarten despite being the kid who glued her fingers together and I have no great love of arts & crafts. I also wasn't going to be drinking any cocktails seeing as I had to work at the restaurant afterward. So I wandered in an hour late trying to hide my annoyance at this irritating obligation and trying even harder to ignore the idle chitchat which is considered to be interesting to the other waitresses. They didn’t even end up having free food or drinks (which didn't altogether surprise me). All I could do was look forward to my day off on Thursday.

Thursday came around, and I was happily carrying out my plans of coffee and cooking. I had just finished making the dessert and had moved on to making peas when I decided I should probably check my phone. I'd left it in my bag and forgotten about it for the past few hours so I was not surprised to find a missed call and a text message. They were both from the head waitress at the bar. I was not anxious to read the message knowing that it was probably something that would ruin my day. And it did. She wanted me to come in at 8:00, dressed up. After wailing and cursing for about 5 minutes while mournfully stirring my peas I looked at my watch and realized that it was already 6:30. There was no way I was going to make it on time if I had to go back to my apartment first. Plus I didn't happen to have a 60's costume lying around. Really, who has random costumes sitting in their closet? Do they think I live in the backstage of a theater? So I pulled something marginally retro together and told them I could be there by 9:30.

It would not be an overstatement to say that I was dreading it. And justifiably. When I got in the computer they use for ordering was down so the other waitress asked me to give the bartender the order while she was busy elsewhere. I took a step into the bar area in order to catch the bartender's attention and he went nuts on me. He said, “I don't know if anyone told you but you may NEVER come behind the bar. This area is bartenders only and waitresses aren't allowed back here. If you need something you have to call me or put in an order, not come back here. Bla bla bla, you're bad, what were you thinking, I'm a territorial caveman with prehistoric instincts, etc.” At some point I think he regressed a few million years back to grunting and making threatening movements at me. When he was finally done proving his superiority over me, the lowly waitress, I just kind of stared at him for a few seconds and said, “I forgot what I wanted.” I finally remembered and asked him for ½ a liter of Heineken and a Coke and he responded that I should put it in the computer and then he'd make it. I was starting to get quite exasperated so I told him none too gently that the computer wasn't working and that I'd put the order in afterward. All this and the order wasn't even for me. Last time I do anyone any favors.

The night didn't get much better from there. We had a special drink, a “dirty hippy” that they wanted me to push. Evidently their marketing for the party hadn't been particularly effective because everyone I told about the drink just looked at me blankly. I'm like, you know, in honor of the 60's party. More blank looks. Did you not notice the cut-out peace signs taped to the mirrors and the cliched 60's slogans adorning the walls? Do you think the staff dresses like a bunch of burnt-out hippies all the time? I had two big tables that night of barely legal teens who kept ordering more and more and by the end of the night had ordered so much that they had no money left for a tip. One table even stiffed me 15 shekels.

At about a quarter to 4 in the morning I was getting worried that I'd miss the last late bus back to Talpiyot. I went up to the manager to tell him that the last bus was at 4:10. He then asked me when the first bus was. I couldn't understand what he was asking me. I was like, well I missed the first bus long ago. He's like, no, the first bus in the morning. I was like, are you serious? The first bus is at 6:00 or so. What, I'm supposed to wait here until then? He was not very sympathetic.

So I went back to cleaning stuff and waited for him to come down and organize the money I had on me. First he had to take out the cash that people had used to pay for their meals and then count the tips (which was whatever was left). Somehow though, I was missing 200 shekels from the computer account of how much I'd sold. This was not good. We looked everywhere, did the accounting again, but still couldn't figure out what had happened to that 200 shekels. In the end the manager said, “we'll figure it out” and let me leave without taking it out of my paycheck.

I started walking home even though I was pretty exhausted because I didn't feel like waiting around for 45 minutes for a bus. This was a mistake. There are many creepy people out in the early morning even if it's fully light out. I shall not go into detail so as not to worry anyone, but suffice it to say that if you're going out that early in the morning, take a dog with you. A big dog with lots of teeth.

Terrorism is No Good for Tips

It's official; I passed the training sessions and have been hired at the bar. The training sessions went fairly well. I basically just waitressed which I already know how to do. Bring this plate to that table without dropping it on your feet, spilling beer on the customers, or falling down the stairs. Bring table number 5 the check. Give recommendations on food you've never tasted while sounding like you know what you're talking about. I am particularly good at this. For some reason people often listen to me, I suppose because I sound like I know what I'm talking about. I've convinced some people of some crazy things. Usually by accident. I give directions and then 2 minutes after the people have driven off I realize that I just sent them to Metula. Oops. I remember giving a car full of soldiers directions and sending them in circles. My Hebrew was not very good at this point and I didn't quite understand what they wanted. I worked it out a few minutes later and then realized that there was a very good chance that they'd pass me again in a minute. I had an escape plan all ready; I knew which bush I was going to dive into if I saw them approaching. Not because I thought they'd shoot me or anything. Mostly because I was embarrassed. Call it karma for all the bad directions I've gotten from Israelis. “The dumpster is at the end of the hall.” Yeah, I found it after twenty minutes at the end of the hall, out the door on the left, down the path, down the stairs on the right, to the left through the parking lot, and on the left at the corner past the construction zone.

In any case, I get there a few minutes early for my first “real” shift (the kind you get paid for) to get a worker number and a shirt. The shirt they rustled up for me was not quite large enough (apparently they don't have fat waitresses) but it was all they had so I took it. I'm sure it will stretch out anyway when I inhale. At 7:00 I clocked in and started setting up. I didn't really know what I was doing but no one said anything so I just continued wiping stuff down (that seems to be a big part of waitressing). Then I stood around waiting. And waiting. Not a single table came in during that first hour. The second waitress clocked in then but it seems that having two waitresses stand around staring at their nails was too much for them to handle so they sent us outside to “flyer.” They already had two younger guys outside handing out flyers and doing a hell of a better job at getting customers to come in than I would have. I'm like, wait a second, I didn't sign up for this. This was not in the job description. If it had been I would have thought twice about accepting the job. This is not the ideal situation for a person who dislikes talking to strangers and has a fear of rejection. So I wandered down the street a bit so the flyerers wouldn't all be standing in the same place. The other waitress came to bring me back so the management wouldn't get mad that I was wandering off. I'm like, what am I, five? I can't even do my job because they don't trust me not to run off to eat a felafel? So then I pretty much just stood around wishing I could go back inside and wondering when this torture would end. At some point the manager decided I could come back in and made me wash the glass panels on the stairs (I'm convinced that it was in punishment for my less than stellar flyering). How was he to know that I would prefer to clean anything than stand outside being studiously ignored by people who are tired of being inundated by flyers and besieged by street people.

I assume that it was due to the threat of terrorist activities that I ended up with only one table the whole night. The bar was practically empty as were the neighboring restaurants and even the street. They clocked me out at midnight and sent me home (I'm obviously the most expendable waitress). It's incredible; the terrorists don't have to actually carry out any of their threats. The threat itself is enough to scare people enough to stay home and damage the economy and injure Israeli society through more subtle methods. I'm convinced that the only place safe from rockets and bombs is Tel Aviv. However you're more likely to get stabbed in a club or run over by a moped there. Plus I don't like the weather. So I'll just stay in Jerusalem and worry instead about getting hit by the new light rail (or having it fall off the tracks and crush me as I innocently walk down the sidewalk).

My second shift was slightly more successful than the first. I ended up filling in for the other new waitress who wasn't feeling well. It started off as quiet as the previous day but luckily the manager asked me to re-organize the cupboard in the waitress station instead of handing out flyers. I'm like, you asked the right person. It was completely organized within 5 minutes. I now actually know what's down there. Why we need so many small sauce/dressing containers I don't know and where the pair of women's shoes and men's socks came from is beyond me but some things are not worth puzzling over. People kept walking by while I was standing around and going, “smile!” What kind of weirdo stands around smiling for no reason? Only people with mental handicaps and the waitresses at this particular bar are happy and smile without any stimulus. I'm like, either leave me alone or entertain me. I'm not going to walk around smiling like an idiot for no reason.

It did at some point start getting busy. Apparently there was a soccer game on at 10:00 and quite a few people came out to see it. There were a bunch of obnoxious Israelis who complained about everything (the 16 chicken wings were really 8 cut into two, they didn't finish the olives so they should only have to pay half, they wanted to watch the Maccabi-Haifa game instead of the Tottenham-whoever game that everyone else had come to watch, etc.). There were a couple of religious guys, probably yeshiva bochers who were obviously not aware of accepted tipping practice because they didn't leave a shekel even though they got good service. A British guy and his daughter were quite pleasant until he asked me to add the tip to the credit card and became convinced that I had swiped it twice since I had to print out an extra copy to give to the manager. Then there were a bunch of people who just sat there forever and wouldn't leave.

I ended up working with one of the managers (the easy going one, not the one who made clean and organize stuff so as to earn my wages) because one of the waitresses left early. I don't know why or where she went but the manager was obviously not used to serving people which I gathered because he kept forgetting stuff and asking me questions. I had to tell him a few times what to do, and I'm like, wait a second, there's something wrong with this picture. I just learned to do this yesterday and now I'm explaining to the manager how the tables are set up and how to put in orders? He complimented me on my waitressing skills and I'm like, well they're certainly good in comparison.

At the end of the night, I had to square away the money with the less pleasant manager. Sitting there in the office while he counts the money and goes over the receipts makes you feel like you're in the hot seat. After he counted the tips, he said to me, “this isn't so great.” Which of course made me feel inadequate and like he was going to criticize me at the end of every night. He started to tell me what I should be doing but thankfully was interrupted by his cell phone and lost his train of thought. Unfortunately, my wages are made up of tips but I am assured 25 shekels an hour which means that if I don't make 25 shekels an hour in tips, then the bar must pay me out of their own pockets. This does not make management happy. They are cheap and don't want to have to actually pay their staff. And yes, in case you're wondering, that is the norm in this country. I don't know of one restaurant that pays its staff fair and/or legal wages. No one complains and the government doesn't take this kind of thing seriously. There's also no good reason why I should work harder to make 150 shekels in tips as opposed to 50 if my wages come out to 175 shekels that night. Either way, I get 175 shekels. And if I do miraculously make over 25 shekels an hour in tips then why should I clean the floors at 3:00 in the morning when I just want to go home? They aren't paying me squat. Obviously, management did not think this through all the way, and have convinced themselves that they're doing us a favor by letting us work for them. How generous. I fantasize that one day I'll be rich, and I'll buy them out. I will then turn the place into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting hall.

Homeful & Hopefully Employed

The good news is that my roommate's wedding got pushed off so I can stay in the apartment until the end of the year. Well maybe this isn't such good news for her (or maybe it is, I don't really know). I may even be able to pay my rent.

I got called back to come train at the bar so I guess I must be more fun than I thought. Or maybe they think they can make me more fun. I don't know how effective they'll be considering I've been called a grandma. By my friends. Although honestly, my grandmother is probably more fun than I am. And more popular.

In any case, it's unpaid training and there's no guarantee that I'm actually hired (though if they decide not to keep me they will pay me for the training). So I have to pretend to be fun for the next couple weeks so that they decide to keep me. Maybe I will make balloon animals or wear a funny hat. I've got the waitressing part down (it's basically the same everywhere) but they pride themselves on making everyone feel welcome and at home. In addition to not being particularly fun, I am also not exactly known for being personable. This may be my greatest challenge yet. Army? Piece of cake. Psychometric? No problem. Not only do I have to pretend to like the human race in general, I must now pretend that I care about every random drunk, loser, and yeshiva student still awed by the fact that he can drink at the age of 18 in Israel, that comes in. The fact is, I do not. I do not see regulars as my friends. I see them as people who hang out way too often in bars. Perhaps this will change when I get to know them as people, but until then I will just have to pretend that I am a happy, joyous person who does not despise the world and most people in it. Luckily I got pretty good at hiding my apathy or outright annoyance (reference the chicken wing man) while working at the restaurant. All I can say is, this had better be worth the money.

During the first training session, the head waitress (the one who hired me) kept telling me to smile and be myself. Go crazy she said. Be fun. She must be under the impression that everyone is fun on the inside and that they only have to let it out. And I have a feeling that my brand of crazy is not what she really intended. There's dance on the bars, sing drunken karaoke, leave at 5 in the morning crazy and then there's lock yourself in your room with your imaginary dragon, wear foil on your head to block out the radio transmissions, leap out the window convinced that the radiation from the microwave has given you the power to fly, kind of crazy. She should really be more specific when she says go crazy. It's not understood what kind of crazy she means.

The second training session was a Friday day shift. I don't know why they call this training (although I did learn a few things about alcohol) because I was pretty much just working normally. I took most of the people sitting in the area outside and did it almost alone (except for the occasional help when it got too hectic). They bartender did split the tips with me at the end though. After taking out the money for this person, for that person and so on, I was left with 10 shekels for my trouble (it was still unpaid training). After the shift the owner had a talk with me about being fun bla bla bla. He said I've got the technical stuff down but that people come to the bar because we talk to them and befriend them etc. And more of the same. Honestly, although the bartender was a nice guy, he didn't seem like a fun, crazy person per se. He just happens to have rubber bands in his beard.

I am considering getting a green mohawk or a tattoo (fake, don't have a heart attack daddy) on my nose so that they will think that I'm fun and leave me alone. Can't I just give good service and make tips that way? That's already better than you'll get in most places. I guess for now I'll just have to practice making balloon animals and making funny squeaky noises with my mouth.

On the Hunt...for a Job

I'm now on the hunt for a job. Equipped with a resume (which no one has even bothered to look at yet), I skulk around popular commercial centers, trying not to look too creepy as I scope out their windows for help wanted signs. I've been to quite a few restaurants and coffee shops (one day I will learn to use the cappuccino machine) and it's usually the same procedure. I ask them if they're looking for waiters and they rustle up a scrap of paper (usually from the register, sometimes a napkin or something from off the floor) and ask me to write down my details and someone will get back to me. Immediately and with the utmost urgency I'm sure. In one place I went to, the manager walked in after I gave the waitress my cash register paper. She pulled out a stack of these little pieces of paper and handed them over to him (I'm sure at least some fell on the floor or were blown out the door so there's maybe a 70% chance that my details even made it to him). My face fell and I walked out feeling somewhat hopeless. What if every place gets that many applicants?

I've only gotten 3 responses so far. It sounds promising, but trust me it isn't. One was from a bakery/coffee place in the center of town. It just opened about a month or so which means that they're still looking for staff but also means that they're nuts. I've been to the branch in Tel Aviv a few times with my sister and it seems like a very nice place. Good food, relaxed atmosphere, cappuccino machine. What's not to like? So I figured I'd apply there and they could probably use my English skills. I went in and asked if they were still looking and they told me yes and to sit down and someone would be with me shortly. I wasn't really expecting such a quick response but I sat down to wait. The manager came out to interview me and told me how it worked. Each potential waiter must memorize the menu and the first training session is a test. You must remember over 80% of the menu in order to be called back for more training. I'm like, ok, I can probably do this. I have a pretty good memory for stuff like this. I once read the Sunday comic section of the Bergen Record and had my mother and sister test me on it afterward. I remembered every single comic that I'd read. My short term memory is excellent. He said he'd send me the menu either that night or the next morning. Which of course, being Israeli, he didn't.

I went to the website to take a look out of curiosity and my jaw dropped. Four pages! Four pages of practically identical items. I'm good, but I'm not that good. 7.5 large breakfast options, 10 kinds of sandwiches, 9 different salads, 10 pasta sauces, 32 drinks plus the other items I'm not bothering to mention. All with long descriptions made up of every ingredient that ever even went near the food plus shapes and cooking methods. I basically gave up at this point on even attempting to memorize all this. In any case they still hadn't sent me the menu so I figured they'd either forgotten about me or decided they didn't want me in the end, and I was fine with this.

About a week or so after I'd totally forgotten them (only my short term memory is good, my long term memory is non-existent), they finally got around to sending out menus to all the applicants. They'd added another 2 pages of desserts to the original 4 page menu they also sent. I was like, nope, never gonna happen. I have this fear that if I try to memorize 6 pages of useless information something important is going to fall out. Like where I live, where I keep the laundry detergent or where I left my house keys. Which means I'll end up wandering around the neighborhood in dirty clothes. They called me the next day to ask if I'd gotten the menu and I told them straight out that there was no way in hell I'd be able to remember all that. The woman on the phone was like, “but that's our menu.” I'm like, “yeah, but it's 6 pages.” Maybe she was some kind of idiot savant because she couldn't seem to understand why memorizing 6 pages of food with lengthy descriptions might be difficult. So I told her if I was interested I'd get back to them. Which is about as likely as me learning Greek.

The next interview was at a popular bar among Americans. The restaurant's old chef had defected to their kitchen so I figured if anything I had a good reference. The interviewer asked me questions like, do I know Hebrew (well enough), can I balance a tray of drinks (got enough practice at the restaurant), and all manner of questions to which I think I answered fine. However, she also stressed that they were looking for someone fun and energetic, bla bla bla. I know I don't exactly give off an impression of funness and energy. But that doesn't mean that I'm not fun or a hard worker. At the end I told her if she wanted another reference she could call the manager at the restaurant. She told me that she doesn't ask other people, but decides based on how fun the person seems withing the first few minutes of the interview. Really? You're not going to ask someone I've already worked with who could give me a good reference, you're going to hire the most fun person who applies? Because fun people are known to be hardworking folk with good work ethic. Excellent hiring method. Really. And good luck with that.

The last interview was at a coffee shop about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. The deal was though, that they have most of the waiters working on Fridays until an hour before Shabbat starts. Hmm. Kind of problematic for someone who keeps Shabbat.

So that's that I guess. Still looking without too many prospects. I'm waiting for something to drop out of the sky I guess. Or for a miracle.