Quite possibly my favorite thing about working in Israel. The minibus drivers just let you off on the side of the highway and you walk down to the street. Why get stuck in a traffic jam?

A tale of absurdity in hiring practices

A friend of mine works in a big coffee house near Tel Aviv University, and she set me up an interview there to work as a waiter or barista. I went, but it turns out that at that particular branch, they were looking for people to work Friday nights/Saturday. Of course, I don’t have a way to get there without public transportation and they won’t pay for cabs, so they decided to send me to a branch that’s closer to where I’m staying.

So I went to the local branch, interviewed with a woman named Orly*, and learned all about the glorious history of Coffee To Go, and was offered a job in the spot. Great, I thought, that wasn’t too hard. I’ll learn how to make cappuccinos, kill some time, and maybe even meet some people.

Then came the fun part. Tuesday morning, at precisely 8:30, I showed up at Elite Coffee, and was promptly escorted upstairs to a small seating area where there were about eight other future baristas eagerly awaiting to absorb new coffee-related knowledge. We sat and waited for about 25 minutes until this Orly finally showed up and distributed a thick, spiral bound packet to each new recruit. This packet, which must have weighed maybe half a kilo, starts out with a nice five page summary of the company and makes a strong point that they weren’t taken over by this other company; they just bought a 26% stake, made them use their name, etc. She left us for another 15 or 20 minutes to look through the books, and finally someone else arrived to actually teach us how to make coffee.

Again, you wouldn’t think that coffee is that hard to make. Just like you wouldn’t think wine was such a complicated thing to handle, so too is coffee, at least according to the pretensions of , a quasi-independent subsidiary of Elite-Strauss Ltd. (Just so we’re clear, Elite-Strauss owns precisely 26%).

Somehow, two or three hours of coffee theory pass by without incident, we ate lunch, and individual instruction began. While each recruit made whatever drinks the instructor demanded, the rest of us got another stack of forms. With the sound of milk being frothed in the background, I started to look through the stack. The first form was the Israeli equivalent of a W-4 form, with pretty standard fields like name, address, ID number, etc. No big deal. I finished the Cartis Oved and moved on to the next form, which of course also asked for the same information that the previous form requested. But after the basic information section was what was dubiously billed as a “questionnaire”. The ranged from fairly reasonable to ask a future barista to completely ludicrous. Below are some examples, along with my approximate responses:

What are some of your hobbies and interests? Listening to music, photography

What are the most important traits necessary for executing this position with success? Patience and courtesy

Please copy the following math problems and solve below:

4×13 = 52

54+12 = 66

73-8 = 65

What are your expectations from your work at Coffee To Go? I want to learn to make a really wicked cappuccino

Here’s where it got really good:

“Please write a detailed CV on the next page. Make sure to fill at least one page.”

I pondered the dubious relevance my prior experience in advertising might have before calling the manager and asking her to explain the meaning of all this, and she told me to write a history of my life. Though ridiculous, the question wasn’t as obscure as the following: “On the next page, either in pen or in pencil, draw a tree.” So that was it, I drew a palm tree, while at the same time, turning to everyone within eyesight of me and rolling my eyes and asking why this had anything to do with my newly chosen occupation. Nobody could provide a satisfactory answer.

I thought that had to be the end of it, but then I reached the last page of the form, which was a blank page, except for the first line: “Compose a story about a topic of your choosing.” What is this, I thought, 5^th grade? Class, we’re going to do a creative writing exercise. The only thing that was missing was a page with the three dotted lines that show you how high upper and lower-case letters are supposed to be. But hey, they asked ridiculous and irrelevant questions, they were about to receive an equally ridiculous response. I began crafting a story.

Once upon there was an idealistic young guy from New York. He grew up and studied there, and after working in a boring office, he wanted a change. So Yossi quit his job and moved to Israel. Yossi wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do, so he decided to work in a coffee shop – he thought it would be really cool…

At the end, there was a release authorizing the company to send the questionnaire for analysis by a graphologist. This way, they would be able to learn about the personalities of the people they hired and if they are honest, trustworthy people. Isn’t this sort of thing widely discredited in most of the world? Because if you analyzed my handwriting or my dad’s you’d probably come to the conclusion that we’re serial killers. At least now I know how to make fancy coffee drinks.

As if that weren’t ridiculous enough, they also wanted me to sign a contract. As I flipped through the three-page contract of seemingly innocuous clauses covering things like arriving on time and proper attire, I came to clause 5, which was effectively a non-compete/non-disclosure clause. What is anyone going to disclose, how to make a cappuccino? Do they seriously consider this information to be proprietary in nature? Come on. And if that wasn’t absurd enough, the next clause stated, in very formal legalese, that if you leave the job before six months, you are required to pay the company damages of ₪300 for each month you did not work out of those six moths. So, if you quit after 4 months, you would owe the employer ₪600. And mind you, all this for a ₪20/hr wage, less than ₪2 more than the nationally mandated minimum wage. To top it off, the boss said, “I’ve set up a really great place for you to work, the Tel Aviv train station. They sell over 4,000 cups of coffee a day at that branch!” This is bad for two main reasons: first, it means I would have to work about ten times as hard for the same ₪20/hr wage, and second, the train station is a prime target for terrorist activities during this tense period. She refused to remove the damages clause from the contract, and I refused to sign up for this arrangement, so I just said I was sorry but could not accept, and walked out of there.

Let the record show that despite my refusal to sign, I received a call later that afternoon offering me a job at the very same cafe where I originally wanted to work, this time without signing the agreement.

On a plane full of almost all Israelis of one sort or another, the breakdown of passengers was about 60% children and the remaining 40% the adults who were accompanying them. Naturally, each and every adult on the plane though he/she was important enough to not obey the crew’s requests to remain seated. Instead, they cavalierly moved about the cabin to fuss with their carry-on baggage in the overhead bins or go to the bathroom, or stroll down the aisle to chat with another passenger, causing us to miss the 4:50 departure time by a long-shot. When we finally did leave the gate at 5:30 or so, we had to queue up for takeoff because we had missed our turn, so wound up taking off an hour and fifteen minutes later than scheduled. Good thing I showed up three hours prior to departure.

The stewardesses, who were all primped-up Americans dressed in conservative 1970s-style outfits, clearly had no idea what they were in for. They were also subcontracted. In contrast, the two native Israir flight attendants, who I’m assuming were there to ensure that the Israir brand experience was fully conveyed to the passengers on this flight, were wearing jean skirts and orange polos, and didn’t seem to care about very much.

The Israir experience is quite different than its only competitor, El Al. It’s also funny how little effort the company makes to conceal the fact that Israir is simply a cheap knockoff. El Al has pretty visible security (em, sekyoority) from the moment you come into the terminal (although Terminal 4 at JFK is very insecure). El Al’s ground representatives ask you the security questions very firmly: “Who packed your bags?” “Did you take presents from anyone while you were here?” “Where are you staying in Israel?” and the like; once they even asked my sister if she knew what Passover was. If you pass cross-examination, your bags get tagged with neon colored stickers featuring a word of the day, in this case, Venice. They usually come in sets of cities, fruits, trees, etc. Last time I got tamar (date palm).

On El Al, they seem pretty serious with you the whole way through, but on Israir, they just don’t seem to care very much. There isn’t (as far as I could tell) a guy that’s obviously a highly trained shabak agent flying with you in coach, to whom the pilot delivers an ambiguous brown envelope before takeoff, which the guy promptly shoves into his backpack. With Israir, you get the El Al security car to accompany the plane’s taxi to the runway, because they don’t have their own. They don’t even have their own ice bucket. One stewardesses had one that actually said “El Al” on it, and another that looked like it had been smuggled out of a cheap interstate motel.

Then of course there is the subject of food. Not the food itself, but rather, the procedure of distributing the food. First, the 80 or so people who had asked for glatt kosher meals got served. Naturally, these meals weren’t distributed with food carts, per the usual. The confused American stewardesses went running about the cabin checking passenger lists and tossing packets labeled “GLATT KOSHER REGAL MEAL” onto the appropriate tray-tables. Then, down the aisles came the food carts, and they began distributing meals to the rest of the passengers. As if to make some sort of point about the quality of service, the regular meals had “ISRAIR ECONOMY CLASS OMELET” stamped on the wrapper, and were double-wrapped, lest an unkosher contaminant attempt to corrupt an unsuspecting diner.

On El Al, even most of the female staff are extremely attractive. From those who ask you if you have a bomb in your suitcase to the stewardesses, one is just more beautiful than the next. Israir, on the other hand, where everything is done half-assed, the women were just not good looking enough to make it onto an El Al crew…

The grammatically correct Hebraized English form of this question would be: “Em, you know what is North American Airlines?”

Last night I arrived in Belém, Pará, on the banks of the Amazon river, 120km from where the river empties out into the Atlantic Ocean. The river is brown, like a sewage canal, but very cool.

I arrived from Fortalzea, in the Northeast, by bus. This was arguably not a smart idea, because said bus traveled along what to the best of my judgment appears to be the shittiest road ever. It is important to note that this “Highway BR-316″ is classified as a paved road,though it would server the world better it it were just plain dirt. As it is now, it is the remains of a 2-lane road, with huge potholes,bumps, and oddly positioned slabs of concrete in the center, totaling the width of about 1.5 cars, and the remainder on either side is dirt. I drew a diagram in my notebook, which i will show you when i get back or eventually take a picture of and upload. It is ludicrous. I also made a little video clip of part of the ride, with these huge Scania (European big-rig) trucks passing the bus at a brisk 10mph. Until about 200km from Belém it’s like this, with the bigger vehicles weaving around the potholes to minimize tire and cargo abuse. However, the bus was a comfy leito, which means the seats were like business class, reclined, and were only 3-across in the bus. It wasn’t too bad, since I slept a great deal of the way. I left Fortaleza at 1:15 pm and arrived around 6:00 pm the following day, to give you an idea.

Despite being way too long, the trip was interesting though. We passed through vast expanses of the sertão, which is a dry inland region in the north/northeast of the country. Every so often we passed little hut and shanty villages, a lot of which has many houses made out of dirt or clay bricks with straw roofs. Lots of ranches,too. There were tons of animals, and at one intersection there was a herd of cows just standing there on the traffic island. I must have spent hours gazing out the window at the scenery, which was gorgeous, and somehow the trip passed by.

Dining out in Belém

When I got to Belém, I decided to “splurge” a little when I found the Estação das Docas, which is basically a converted and renovated dock warehouse on the riverfront which now has nice restaurants and live music. I sat down at a relatively fancy and expensive place and ate pato no tucupí, which is a tasty duck cooked in tucupi sauce, whatever that is. It comes in a broth with a green vegetable that’s slightly bitter and vaguely resembles Chinese broccoli, but it leaves your lips with a numb sensation similar to when your hand falls asleep. It was quite delicious though. Then I had açaí (an energy-rich amazonian fruit)-flavored ice cream, and also another flavor of some amazonian fruit I’ve never heard of and I’m sure there isn’t a translation into English anyway. And by expensive, I mean 12 or 15 dollars for a meal.

The next day I saw an artisan fair in the city center which was kinda cool, and I took a walk around the Mercado Ver-o-Peso on the riverfront. There, merchants hawk various goods ranging from exotic amazonian fruits and vegetables, most of which I’ve neither heard of or seen before, to dried fish, shrimps, random “medicinal” powders and potions that supposedly cure or treat any kind of ailment and all sorts of other random stuff that I wouldn’t even know what to do with. When I passed by around 10 am, some of the fishing boats that were unloading were doing so from a small inlet, which because of the tides, was empty. So, the boats were sitting on the mud at the bottom of the inlet unloading their catches while two guys were kicking each other’s asses in a Fight Club style fight.

When I returned around lunchtime, the boats were afloat again.

Steerage Class

The main reason I came to Belém was to take a boat trip up the Rio Amazonas. For the full experience, I decided to go in hammock class. And you thought steerage didn’t exist anymore. 5 days in a hammock on a boat is not as comfortable as it sounds, trust me.

In order to make the most money, the boat company sells as many places as they have life vests, which is a lot. On the bottom deck of my boat, in what I have deemed steerage, there must have been around 200 people, hanging side by side with little or no space between hammocks, while on the top deck (where I was, hilariously called first class) each person got to hang his hammock on a numbered hook, ensuring each person had precisely 1.5 feet of space in which to hang. There is a men’s’ side and a women’s’ side, and in the middle, couples can hang their hammocks. Not joint hammocks, mind you, but they can hang individually next to one another. One American couple I met bought a 2-person hammock and was prohibited from using it.

I showed up the night before to get a good spot, and stayed on board because they let you. There were plenty of other people there already,and I met this family of evangelical Christians who chiefly wore clothing with some form of “Jesus” written on it. One of the kids seemed to get a kick out of saying my name, and would constantly come to my hammock, say “Avishai” in a funny accent, and just stand there and stare at me.

Definitely the most amusing people on the boat were my neighbors, a gaúcho (southern Brazilian cowboys) family from the Porto Alegre area. They introduced me to mate, a type of herb that they make tea from and drink from this hollow wooden ball with a special filter straw that’s called a “bomba.” They told me that a friend of theirs was held up in US customs for a very, very, very long time when he translated this to officials as “bomb.” That said, mate is very good. It also has 3x the amount of caffeine than coffee, which means that after having it 1-2 times a day for the last week, I am feeling some serious withdrawal today .

On my birthday, the gaúchos woke me up singing happy birthday in Portuguese extremely loudly so that within a few seconds the entire deck joined in. It was really cool. I don’t really have that much more to right about this trip right now, but here are some highlights:

• Indians occasionally paddle up to the boat in their canoes, and sling a rope with a metal hook on the end onto one of the railings and attach themselves to to boat. Sometimes just for a ride, but most often to sell fruit to the passengers.
  
• At one port-of-call, some kids entered to boat to sell cheese; one of them failed to notice we left until we were a few hundred feet away from the pier—he had to jump onto a neighboring boat.
• Whoever designed this boat obviously didn’t think it would be a good idea to install a cargo door so you can load and unload with a forklift. Everything is done by hand and it takes hours.
• Locals dance forró on the top deck all afternoon.
• Showers on board took water straight from the river. Gross. Needless to say, the bathrooms were also quite nauseating.
• Breakfast: a piece of bread, butter, terrible super-sugary coffee with floating bits of condensed milk. Lunch: Beans, rice, spaghetti with ketchup sauce, meat. Dinner: Beans, rice, spaghetti with ketchup sauce, meat. Every day.
• Friday I visited the most gorgeous beach I have ever seen, on one of the Amazon’s tributaries. Clear water, no waves, nice sandbar in the middle with little kiosks. I was there for a few hours while they were unloading cargo.

And that is how you spend a week on the river.