From a Dishwasher in Nazareth to a Developer at NYSE?
At the age of 17, during my final exams in high school in Nazareth, I applied for my first job – as a dishwasher in a coffee shop(Greg) in Nazareth (Big-fashion Mall) – through a “friend bring a friend” technique.
I managed to last for almost two months there. Eleven years later, I could look back and observe that hell has an elevator.
That period of my life was just on floor -1.
In the beginning, there was a 3-day trial period – They are “testing” you before they can “officially” hire you. I actually thought that after these 3 days, I won’t hear from them, and my un-negotiated pay won’t be collected – I understood from my friend there that they pay close to minimum wage.
Not that they paid 30% less than the minimum wage, but nothing legally was covered – no insurance or anything official. They just hand you the cash, at the end of the month when they feel like it – sometimes even don’t acknowledge additional hours.
Taking breaks outside the dishwashing corner wasn’t allowed. If there are no dishes, go clean the kitchen walls they said. I didn’t understand why other employees treated each other badly, and why the waiters thought themselves to be “higher” than the dishwashers – I told myself because at the time I couldn’t speak Hebrew and communicate with the customers outside.
The worst part was that sometimes I counted on them to drive me home late in the night, for there was no transportation and the owners didn’t care. I hated to return home from walking for 1 hour with wet shoes, back pain, and red hands.
I made the managers furious one day when I accidentally by mistake dropped the storage key just between the space of the (actual) elevator doors – I burst into a nonstop laughing that day at their faces, which made them angry why was I laughing about it? I just couldn’t believe that life could go any worse.
I heard a laughter which was no human laughter,–and now gnaweth a thirst at me, a longing that is never allayed.
My longing for that laughter gnaweth at me: oh, how can I still endure to live! And how could I endure to die at present!– Nietzsche
In my own head, since the early beginning, I thought myself to be a fallen king – like in a fantasy novel- that is on a journey to return to his natural tower. I didn’t really feel belonging to the surroundings and people around me, their ways of thought, behaviors, and beliefs.
two months later, I continued to floor minus 2, which I thought to be a better place to work. A plastic factory near Nazareth – Afula – but this time, I lasted for 3 months.
To be continued