American vs Israeli customer service

A funny thing I "learned" today from one of my teachers here in Israel.

In America, customer service is amazing and revolutionary.  You can be taken care of within minutes (usually); banks and post offices are open late.  You can always find time to go take care of stuff during your free time.

In Israel, it's not like that.  Sometimes a store or place is open during the work day, and sometimes for only an hour.  I'm pretty sure they find out what hours you aren't available, and that is when they decide to open.

You can go to a bank, and the sign will say: "Open whenever Stiebel isn't available."

:)

It's funny cuz it's basically true.

 

 

A new person in Chicago

Background 1:
My synagogue in Chicago sends out an email to the congregation every week with announcements and whatnot.

Background 2:
A shokhet is a trained kosher meat butcher, who knows the various Jewish laws pertaining to how to properly slaughter meat for kosher consumption (cows, chickens, etc.)

Understand the background?
Ok, good.  Now you should understand why the following announcement in this week's synagogue email made me laugh.

Please welcome our new intern Aaron, who will be with us for the first time next week.   Aaron is a certified schokhet, and he is looking forward to meeting everyone.

Hide yo kidz! Hide yo wife!

Lady on the train

So I took the express train from the airport to Haifa this morning.  Despite being surrounded by all my heavy luggage, the ride was actually quite comfortable, and the view of the seaside and countryside going by was great.

Halfway through the quiet 60-minute ride, I hear music from the seat behind me.  At first I thought it is just someone's song ringtone, but the song keeps playing in full....then another song starts, then another.  Someone was listening to music outloud!  How rude! (It was definitely too loud to just be leaking from someone's headphones.)

Everyone else on the train (except me) had iPods or mp3 players with headphones, so I guess they didn't notice the noise.  But I sure did.  Honestly, the music would not have been so bad, but the songs playing were some sort of bad cross between Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi and Barney.

Anyway, then suddenly I hear a newscast or something from behind me.  This person was now watching TV outloud!  WTF!

I thought that if you didn't have headphones with which to listen to music, radio, TV on your phone, proper etiquette is to not listen to it at all (or at least on a very low volume.)  So this lady behind me apparently missed the etiquette memo.

But when it was my train stop, I took a glance behind me, and I was wrong about her listening to music/TV on her phone.  She literally had an FM radio and mini-TV with her on the train!


Anyway, the whole episode didn't really bother me.  (As usual, my first thought was 'I need to post this on the blog.')  But it was pretty funny (in my humble opinion.)

UPDATE: David in Israel

After spending a few days in Detroit, then a few days in Boston and New York to visit friends, and then a 12-hour layover in London, I finally made it to Israel.  Woo hooo!

I landed this morning and took the express train North to Haifa, to my college friends' apartment.  Yay for reunions!  I will spend Shabbat here, and eventually make it to Jerusalem (probably Monday) for the start of my program.

I plan on updating the blog as much as I can with stories new and old.  Thanks for reading!

(I found out I might be able to send blog updates by text message, instead of typing them up on my computer first.  This means it will be easier to post updates and stories, but it also means less thinking-through my posts, which ultimately means more entertaining/embarrassing content.  Lucky you!)

Feeling fit

I've been in Pittsburgh for work since Sunday night, and for some reason I am feeling pretty good.  I mean I'm feeling more physically-fit than usual this week, like I've lost weight or something.

Oh, nevermind.  I forgot to pack my belt this week, so my pants are just loose.  :(