This is why I bomb people.

Haifa’s (Un)Employment Office is a sick joke. First off, that place is for people who need jobs so desperately they’ll sit and wait in line with number tickets. People with options are not usually found there. Meaning neither are people with funds. That latter specimen, would be me.

So how is it acceptable that today I had to invest what little money I had, in going there and be sent home empty-handed, due to the mistakes of others? I know when I contributed to a mistake or mishap, and in this case, I did not, in any way.

6.90 is a lot for me right now. I’m living on fumes and motherly love. I still invested it in a bus ride, and I still spent money on a shower, washing my clothes to have something to wear and make a good impression, and on a bottle of water. There is also electricity costs involved since you can’t really shower in the dark. Not safely anyway. Nevermind the boiler. All in all, today’s appointment cost me at least 20 Shekels.

The previous and first time I was there, was last week, where the woman signed me up, asked basic questions, etc. She gave me one of these embarassing “I’m a social burden” folded paper cards with stamp space. And she wrote on it: this person comes in for employment councelling every Monday between 10:30 and 12:30″. She repeated these instructions to me without asking if this is possible. So today I dutifully went. I went hating myself for having to stoop so low. Except that for once, my father had been right when he said that this place is all about humiliating, and not about helping, the people who go there for… help? Still, duties and promises and shit, y’know? When I promise my mom I go, I go. After all: I’m not like some people lacking both loyalty and integrity, like that legal advisor, Liran Izhar, who will promise you his help, has you get everything ready, gets your hope up, sends you to take care of this and that so he can start, and then let his own lack of control over his unfaithful penis and his insanely jealous and insecure you’re-not-councelling-a-woman-hotter-than-me “girlfriend” (are you a girl at age 40 and when you look like Yoda? I dunno, I’m 10 years removed from knowing) be the baseball bat that breaks such promises.

I went to the same person as previously, and she sent me to the councellor. I tell the friendly-looking councellor I came for employment councelling. She asks for my referral. I tell her the name of the employee who sent me. Her face droops and all cheer is replaced with a frightening degree of indignation – what did I do??? – and she tells me she needs an actual referral. I tell her the previous woman had simply sent me here, and she tells me, “Well, guess she’s confused. I need that referral”. I stammer that I’m gonna get it from that other woman right now.
Who tells me that in order to get a referral, I have to go through an interview first, “obviously”. Oh, an interview. I tell her that she mentioned no such thing during our previous meeting and only told me to come in every Monday for councelling.
“Yeah but not without an interview first!”
-“So why didn’t you mention that that would be the next step last time I was here??”
-“You didn’t ask.”
Excuse me? EX-FUCKING-CUSE ME???? I’m an unemployed blue collar-assed citizen looking for work in the lowest of places, and I am expected to have the psychic ability to predict that there is another step to talk about that she has not brought up between questioning me and telling me to simply come in every Monday? If I was psychic, I’d be hosting a TV show psyching the money out of gullible rich people. I had no way of knowing I needed to ask: do I need to come in for anything else other than what you, the person who gets paid to know how this shit works, stipulated?

Now, once more without asking if this worked for me, she set me an appointment for said interview. I don’t think I’m gonna make it to my crucial and difficult-to-obtain doctor’s appointment…
In other words, because of this woman’s mistake of not mentioning a crucial step in my employment councelling thingy, I invested a minimum of 20 Shekels in sweating my ass there for ZILCH.

Judging by the treatment I received there, a dead-end job is all my polyglot ass with all those writing, graphic, photography, animal, engineering, and other skills is gonna get there.

I mean… Get this: some old pity-employed dude with a face that looks like it has been absorbing too much alcohol and UV rays (=hardly employed or educated much, or else would be too busy for addictions that would thwart any advancement of your mental greatness, and baking in the sun without protection, because people with money actually smear something on their asses before going out for long), determined that I am no academic.
They filter you: academics over here, non-academics over there. I’m sorry? The definition – the official definition – of the term “academic” does not preclude people without a piece of paper to certify their… academicness. A profound love and effort of higher learning suffices to meet the criteria for the word. Do I need a piece of printed asswipe to prove my worth? Seriously? In professions not dependent on diplomas? I’m not applying for neurosurgery. I could write you a sentence containing 7 languages that is actually grammatically correct in each fucking one of them AND in its integrity, and paint a gallery-worthy picture around it and build it an altar with a fucking self-engineered fountain, danced on by dogs I trained special. I simply can’t prove it with a PIECE OF PRINTED ASSWIPE. I have spent a total of 5 years “academically” studying Japan, every aspect of making movies and TV, graphic design, and did I mention I taught myself HTML and current control in aquaristics…
What does a man whose face betrays alcoholism, know about academics shmacademics? He was like, “Are you an academic?” – “Yes, sir.” – “Got a degree?” – “Circumstances forced me to drop out, sir.” – “So nope.” Need me to code a response to that, sir?

I ain’t naming and shaming the specific individuals I dealt with as they’re probably just victims of the same dumb system that has violated my backdoor today. The “Lishkat HaTaasukah” itself is what’s rotten. These women are probably overworked and underpaid, so while today I wanted to rip their spleens out and force-feed them to them, I doubt they are the source of the problem. So no spleen-ectomies today. I simply left, bummed that I hadn’t at least charged my MP3 player so I could listen to an epic soundtrack on my way home to feel like I had just been obstacled in an epic quest ‘n’ shit.

‘n’ shit…

…shit…

(that’s an emotional echo)

Sudanese vs. Jewish refugees

My favorite nostalgic band, Die Toten Hosen, have just reminded me of a topic that I feel needs addressing. They shared a video clip by another band, about refugees/asylum seekers and about how they really don’t want to be in the country they fled to. About how they would rather be in their home country, going about their lives, but can’t, because, bombs’n’shit.

I understand them. I sympathise. Having to run, suffer tremendous losses in the process, and leaving your reasonably good life behind, is something I’m familiar with personally, and in terms of ancestry. 

Many arguments against Israeli politics, policies, actions and inactions, are valid. As someone who loves this country, I refuse to be in denial or glorify it; I want true change and improvement so Israel can be truly great and keep the moral standards it parades about in empty words. Love is to want the best for someone. I want Israel to be better.

But there is one anti-Israel “argument” that perpetually makes me angry for its profound and inherent hypocrisy. The world is screaming at us, not in the nicest terms (racists, Nazis, murderers,…), to embrace and welcome those poor refugees from Sudan, Eritrea, and of course, the native Palestinians. It is screaming at us to be humane and warm towards those who were forced to flee their home country.

Except when these refugees are Jewish. Ultra-rightwing Zionists are propagating the lie/ideological bullshit that Jews living in diaspora, are “in exile”. They are not. Nobody is forcing you to stay out of Israel; Israel pays you to move here. Maybe their far (faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar) ancestors have been exiled, but let’s face it – if your name has been rather German (Rosenzweig, Bernstein) or otherwise non-Middle Eastern for the past 20 generations, you have very little claim on the exile pity party. A ginger Braunstein family does not originate from the Middle East, unless we go almost as far back as our ape ancestors originating in Africa, and then we can all say we’re Africans in exile. Oh my, poor Africa, all those white people “returning home”.
Are you a Jew living outside of Israel? Great, stay there, because your life over there is probably better than it’d be here. You are not in exile, stop pitying yourself over harm that has not been done to you or your family in a very long time. You happen to live wherever you happen to have been born. That is all. People have migrated throughout history, some by force, some not. Jews are no exception and have little claim on more drama or pity than others for being part of this phenomenon. Stop asking for VIP status in the history books, thank you.

However, Jewish refugees are a reality. Not the happy family from Virginia wallowing in the exile self-pity party, no, actual refugees and their offspring, having actually had to flee from actual dangers. 
Jewish refugees have come from Nazi-Europe.
Jewish refugees have been bombed out of Iraq.
Jewish refugees have fled Morocco. 
Nevermind the Jewish Ethiopians who are given hell to come here for “obscure” reasons or reasons I shall not name. For example, the fact that David Ben Gurion had been a passionate racist and white supremacist, and if he disrespected and scoffed at Arab Jews, how would he feel about these dark-skinned blacks? And the legacy of his attitude runs deep and feroceously through Israeli politics and people.

Whatever the details, Jewish refugees are a reality no less valid or tragic than Sudanese refugees or Palestinian refugees in Israel or outside, after having been forcefully removed from the land. 
My own ancestry is like so: Naeim Giladi owned a gold refinery which even earned him his original family name. He bred Arabian horses, owned vast lands, and was generally rich and respected. Actually, most Jews were in most parts of Iraq. Don’t believe the “OMG pogroms everywhere” propaganda. But at some point – let’s not discuss the identity of the launchers of those bombs – the Iraqi Jewish communities were attacked and Jews started to flee – to Israel. It had been promised to them as a safe haven. Let’s not discuss how the Arab Jews were fooled in that respect. My grandfather, his family, and the many Jews he helped cross the borders, were legitimate refugees with nowhere else to go. Just like the Sudanese, the Palestinians, or the Eritreans. The same is true for Jews who fled Nazi-Europe. 

Yet, while we are demonized for not welcoming non-Jewish refugees enough, the refugees among our own ranks are demonized for having succeeded in entering and settling in Israel. We, descendants of refugees, are not occupiers. Unless you would say the same about Sudanese refugees. You want us out, yet you want them in. But – does it matter who occupies “stolen” lands? While I don’t believe this land was exclusively owned by non-Jewish Arabs, we Israelis are constantly vilified for occupying it. So if not who you believe are the land’s rightful owners, what does it matter who comes to “steal” the land? Does it matter whether they are Jewish refugees from Poland, or Muslim refugees from Sudan? Do Sudanese have a bigger right to asylum in Israel than Polish? Why? Logic? 

Let’s simplify this:
You have a house in Palestine and 3 Arab men live in it.
The organized Zionists come and kick the Arab men out of the house.
Now, 1 Jewish refugee from Iraq moves into the house.
1 Jewish american from a happy background moves into the house to live with the previous Jew.
Then, 1 Sudanese refugee moves in to the same house to live with the Jews.
The world screams at both of those Jews equally to get the fuck out, although one had nowhere else to go and only one is there by choice, but supports the Sudanese, while all three are occupying the same house, and all three are making it impossible for the Palestinians to live in their former house.
If you’re going to hate one of these occupiers, hate occupier number 2, but 1 and 3 are there for the same reasons. So why is one to be embraced, while the other is to be demonized for the exact same reason?

Why?

I don’t understand…

…some people and their choices of behavior. Why do some adults feel compelled to stalk, slander, and bully others on the net? I can see how insecure children and teens may see the temptation in that, but adults? Unless there’s money or a personal vendetta involved, I do not get it. There is this Toni Howell girl for example, who is a complete psycho. Every time I blacklist a shady, dishonest, abusive, or otherwise crappy business on a Facebook group, she will go out of her way to inform me that I am a waste of life.

First, she got all up in my face because I complained about an online supermarket lying to their customers as to what methods of payment they accept. This resulted in my order not being delivered, despite confirmation. She decides that my complaint – about lies and outdated information – indicates that I’m a “spoilt brat”. I had ordered bottled water since the tap water in my building is very bad for you. Now I’m a spoilt brat for not wanting to be sick and calcified at my young age. Okay.

Next, there was a discussion on the same group about, uh, I think it was noise. I don’t remember exactly, but it lead me to share the anecdote of how I handled noise pollution from a neighbor who could not be reasoned with (when I’d asked him to turn down the volume after I had already lost my job because of the noise he had been making for months – he called me a whore). I got him to threaten me, so I called police because I was being threatened. When they arrived, I had gotten my face all red with crocodile tears, bleating that I was so scared. So Toni, the bimbo without pants, decides to call me a liar and threaten – yes, she did – to tell police that I had just admitted to a false claim to get a man arrested. What? When? When did I lie to the cops to get that neighbor arrested? Every word I said about him having threatened me after I yelled at him for his noise, was true. I may have exaggerated my reaction (the crocodile tears), but degree of emotion does not dictate degree of truth. Many people overreact, be it for emotional issues or on purpose. That makes the initial offense no less real. I never got the man arrested on false claims. He did threaten me. He just didn’t really scare, only slightly concern, me. That makes his threats no less of an offense. Which makes his arrest no less justified. Hence, I am no liar.

Now this psycho came at me again. This time I complained about a mover ripping me off by asking for several hundred Shekels more than initially agreed upon, while holding my belongings hostage. I mentioned him risking the integrity of an expensive piece of photography equipment. Also that I am currently struggling with money, so I needed a cheap one. So she’s like, “Oh she can’t afford expensive movers, but owns expensive equipment, she deserves to be ripped off for being a spoilt brat”. I would like to know how, if I were indeed a spoilt brat, I would deserve to be robbed, ripped off, and otherwise abused by business partners. Is being spoilt, a crime one deserves punishment for? Since her exact words were that I deserve everything I get, would I deserve to get gang-raped and infected with HIV, because in her opinion I’m a spoilt brat? Because being spoilt is a crime against humanity?

Why do people act that way? Why do they speak ill logic, why do they reach absurd conclusions, why do they do so with the intent of harming or “punishing” a complete stranger who has never wronged them for not even knowing them until they started their harassment campaign? Someone please explain. Oh, right, because, psychopaths. Eew.

When you have 3 cable boxes

In response to someone complaining that he had to cancel his science channel subscription in 1 out of his 3 cable boxes because he isn’t offered any “decent” jobs (as in, management positions with on-site cafeterias). Which is funny because he can afford to turn down jobs for reasons as silly as the baby starting to cry – which is usually not an omen so much as a full diaper or empty stomach, or maybe a tooth digging its way through sensitive gums. I can’t not respond to these snobs. I know it sucks to have to lower your life standards. I know it sucks to be used to more. I know it sucks. But come on, not being able to watch the science channel on 3 TV sets?

I mean… My god, the poor man! Somebody, open a GoFundMe for him! He can only watch all of his fancy channels on 2 out of his 3 cable TVs! That is horrible. That is one step away from dumpster-diving and prostitution. I am so, so sorry. And I am so sorry you can’t get a management position right off the bat…

I mean, I only need 2/3 of a page to list my hard-earned skills, and I could do so in 7 languages including Japanese and HTML. I can only do nearly every task there is to do on a movie/TV set or post-prod. My photography and videography have only gotten me an internship offer in Hollywood. My animal handling skills only span across every creature with fewer than 6 legs, including a grown-ass lion and no means of defense. I have only won literature awards for my polyglot writing skills. I have only won even more awards, and been invited as a honorary guest at conventions, for my art.
And yet, if it weren’t for my generous, supportive parents, I wouldn’t have any channels on any of my… uh… 1 TV. I would have to feed my beloved rescue pets to teach-other instead of buying them decent, non-lethal kibble. I would spend more than the current average week not having real meals but rather, a can of olives and a pita through the day. I would not have what little social interaction I can afford the bus to and have to beg for a ride home. Because with all my qualifications, and my really low standards for a job, let me think what I got here:

• no cafeteria and no management position in the dark, cold building I had to watch for 12 hours per night for close-to minimum wage so nobody would steal the dust there. Mind you, it was a bank building with exposed safes and I was not given a weapon; I am a vulnerable female. 
• no respect and not even a greeting at the training center whose snobbish course participants I guarded for that near-minimum wage, but at least I got to take home the leftovers because the manager and I were the only non-snobs there who could appreciate leftovers at all. 
• unpaid sickdays because my current near-minimum wage temp job is only, well, temp, so I won’t even be employed there long enough to get severance when the season ends and they kick me off the boat. My last paycheck was 700 Shekels, try living off that, but I was too sick to work for a week, and the holidays I hadn’t chosen to take (Pesach,..) weren’t paid, either
• I love that job anyway; I get to assist spoilt, sheltered assholes in organizing their FREE trip through MY country that I cannot afford living in decently, while they for some absurd reason get to call it their birthright

From his blog post alone, I’m thinking my list of qualifications is a lot longer than his, while I have been forced to lower my standards way below his if I want to continue not eating my dog. So yeah, I’d love to trade places. Except, I don’t, because while living dangerously close to the poverty line, I cherish what I have. One head-bump from my cat is worth a hundred of the vacations on Bora Bora I fantasize about.
You know, I’m used to better living, too. We used to own the 3-floor 500 squaremeter houses with the 600 squaremeter gardens we lived in, and the pet foxes and the weekly 500 dollar shopping sprees and my yearly party trips to and through Japan, or the monthly concerts in France. Nowadays, I crash parties to hamster as much free food as possible, I grab napkins wherever I’m invited for coffee because toilet paper costs money, I take as many naps as possible during which I preserve electricity and food, and I only move around where transportation is either free or not needed, so I usually have to tell my friends “I’m sorry I can’t come to your party, I have no money for the bus or to contribute that bag of Bamba”. I would urgently need my hormonal uglies treated, but beauty clinic would mean 300 Shekels monthly, and that is an investment I daren’t even speak out loud. 
Sadly, this country offersn’t the anonymity required for prostitution. LOL.

I am so sorry for him having had to cancel a TV channel in one out of 3 TV sets. If it weren’t for the support from my family, I would have to cancel my TV subscription altogether and I’m actually 1 step, 1 bill, 1 sick pet, away from that because TV is really the last thing anyone needs. But of course that’s no comparison to having to choose which one of your fancy 3 cable TV installations to watch a subscription channel from. My wet dream is to be able to afford NatGeo Wild on my 1 TV set, so I can see the lions I’m too poor to see in the wild because my life savings I wanted to invest in a volunteer program caring for orphaned lions in Africa, have been dissolved into cheap, crappy food and soap and asswipe. Had to trade in one of my biggest, teary-eyed dreams (wiping baby lion butts) for cans of pickles.

And I am so sorry this poor man can afford to turn down a decent job offer on a whim because his baby squeaked “ominously”.

And unless someone comes along complaining that he can’t watch all the TV he likes or has to decline a job offer because there is no goddamned cafeteria, I do not throw myself pity parties. I just try and adjust by finding cheaper hobbies, cheaper food, cheaper everything, and actually, it’s not that horrible. Who needs TV anyway?