{"id":586,"date":"2010-10-15T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.delectablychic.com\/?p=586"},"modified":"2011-10-24T11:28:13","modified_gmt":"2011-10-24T15:28:13","slug":"workinginisrael","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.delectablychic.com\/workinginisrael\/","title":{"rendered":"Working in Israel: Part Two of a Life in Israel Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erin Gold<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Skyline of Tel Aviv at dawn<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always thought of autumn as a time of work. As I watch the leaves change, I think of the summer holidays behind me and the goals that lay ahead. \u00a0This year, as I set out on my duties, I\u2019m constantly reminded of the five months that I worked in Tel Aviv, and how I balanced the exciting new atmosphere with a demanding internship.<\/p>\n

There were a couple of things that made my workplace more relaxed. When I showed up for my interview in Tel Aviv, I wore my best dress Capri pants and a blouse, hoping I looked professional enough.\u00a0 To my surprise, the editor wore jeans and a faded t-shirt. Blame it on the heat or the attitudes, but barely anyone wears a suit to work.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

People at Erin’s office didn’t dress up – most are much more casual than what North Americans consider “business casual” as pictured above<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThey have something called \u2018Israeli time\u2019,\u201d I tell my friend in Toronto as we\u2019re catching up, \u201cthere\u2019s no such thing as being late for work. 9 to 5 means you get there sometime between 9 and 10 o\u2019clock stay until 4, 5 or 6 o\u2019clock and they don\u2019t care, as long as you get all your stuff done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGod Damn our Protestant work ethic,\u201d she responds with jovial reference to Max Weber. What I hadn\u2019t explained was that Israelis do have a strong work ethic. Tel Aviv is an expensive place to live. Wages are not very high. Most of the citizens I met carry two jobs. The difference in so-called work ethics is that Israelis have a strong cultural ethic that pervades work and lightens the load. \u201cIsraeli time\u201d is just one example.<\/p>\n

An anecdote about Purim, a holiday similar to Halloween, says it best. After a long night of partying at the street festival, where I saw DJs on apartment balconies, costumed people dancing in the street, restaurants open all night and everything joyous and wild; I totally slept through my alarm. I woke up at 10am, thinking it was late even for Israeli time, and ran, panicking out the door.<\/p>\n

I rushed into my office, and to my surprise, it was empty. I was dumbstruck. I set up my laptop and looked around. My editor came in a few minutes later, nonchalantly carrying a coffee. \u201cWhere is everybody?\u201d I asked. \u201cThis writer\u2019s drunk or something, the other one went to see him.\u201d He said, adding nothing about the graphic designer or anyone else. \u201cTime for a cigarette break\u201d He announced and walked back out. \u201cOk,\u201d I shrugged and followed suit.<\/p>\n

When the assistant editor eventually showed up, she explained that it was the day after a holiday, so it was kind of expected that everyone would be late and hung-over.<\/p>\n

Sounds fun, no? The amazing part is how my office, with a staff of six plus an intern or two, running on Israeli time, could pump out five magazines a month. To pull off a tough career, you just need to balance with wholehearted celebration. \u00a0That\u2019s the general attitude. Have a balance between work and fun, and go full throttle on both ends, or as they say in Hebrew slang; gever, gever<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Image 1 \u00a9 Dmitry Pistrov\/iStockphoto<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Image 2 \u00a9 Lise Gagne\/iStockphoto<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erin Gold Skyline of Tel Aviv at dawn I\u2019ve always thought of autumn as a time of work. As I watch the leaves change, I think of the summer holidays behind me and the goals that lay ahead. \u00a0This year, as I set out on my duties, I\u2019m constantly reminded of the five months that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[193,519,197,196,520,204,198,207,200,195,203,202,199,194,205,206,201],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-abroad","tag-casual-clothing","tag-cultural-difference","tag-culture-shock","tag-dress-codes","tag-economy","tag-expat-life","tag-global","tag-internship","tag-israel","tag-jewish-life","tag-jobs","tag-judaism","tag-life-abroad","tag-tel-aviv","tag-world","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.delectablychic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/telavivskylineb.jpg?fit=1019%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Mf4l-9s","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6894,"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions\/6894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delectablychic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}