First Day of Training
So far everything is going well. It's been pretty boring generally. I forgot that when you started a new job and everyone was busy that for the first few weeks you don't have much to do. Everyone has tons of stuff to do, and I don't know enough yet to be really useful. I don't think that I'll even get into the meat of stuff that I need to know until later this week. The pace of things is quite a bit slower than I am used to as well. It's not like, oh you are done early - so we will add this other stuff on. It's more like - this will probably take half an hour so we will schedule you for an entire hour.
Everyone has said that it is much more informal in Israel than the US. I would agree in some cases but not in others. If by information they mean curious about other people's personal lives and willing to openly ask them, then yes, they they are informal. There is not this need to but on a nice front face - but rather they are just themselves from the start. It's a bit refreshing. I'm so used to putting on the "professional" face - that its a bit of a hard habit to break. I guess I just need to learn how to relax a bit more with people I don't know as well.
Because of this informality here, everyone is extremely helpful - almost to the point of being annoying. Constant questions of do you need anything, how was the hotel, how was your flight, do you need someone to take you around the city, etc. I guess I'm used to being much more independent. It's a bit like having about 14 mothers all at the same time. What I really need right now is something to do so that I can feel useful, and not like they are paying me large amounts of money for updating my blog. *Sigh*
This general openness and friendliness opens up whole new areas as well - especially when it comes to boys. Yesterday, my hotel room was not ready when I arrived at 10am. So I walked around the city a bit, and then hung out on the beach (across the street from my hotel) and read a book. You can not believe how many people came up to me and gave me their phone numbers. Usually guys in the US are not quite so forward, after a few hours I gave up on reading because every ten minutes some guy would come up to me and give me his phone number and take 10 or 20 minutes to chat with me. Here I am, feeling horribly jet lagged, not having showered for >24 hours, looking and feeling gross, and all these guys are coming up to me. Surreal experience, I must admit. I was even invited up to the "penthouse" that some guy from Barcelona said he just bought. I politely declined. Maybe girls in Europe are that easy - but a 5 minute conversation with you telling me how beautiful my non-jew nose is - does not a third date make. There were even a few that say that it was "destiny" that made us meet. (Barf!) Vegas cheese.
I'm still not quite on the same time schedule everyone else is. Though I can't say that the lack of caffeine is helping at all. They have European style coffee here which is amazing. I'm all for it. Why can't the US get on the european coffee kick? It just tastes so much better than US drip filter coffee. It does take quite a bit longer to make and it can not sit around for a while before serving. Which means it's harder to mass produce.
Everything here is actually pretty cheap, even with the horrible US dollar. Pricing is slightly cheaper than the US for food, and quite a bit cheaper for lodging. The average wage here is a little over 24.3K/year, as opposed to about 38.6K in the US. So the pricing for things is about that percent cheaper. To compare: One of the engineers has a three bedroom with a roomate for $850/month total - which he said was pretty expensive for Tel Aviv. My 1/4 of the rent in Boston is $725. Yes, Boston is expensive, but even less expensive places in the US - $425/month is not a top shelf kind of place. Even mid ranged places you are probably going to pay $600+.
All in all, it has been a good time so far. I'm just a bit inpatient for this to really start. I guess I need to give up my time schedule and just go with the flow. I've never really been good at that though.
Everyone has said that it is much more informal in Israel than the US. I would agree in some cases but not in others. If by information they mean curious about other people's personal lives and willing to openly ask them, then yes, they they are informal. There is not this need to but on a nice front face - but rather they are just themselves from the start. It's a bit refreshing. I'm so used to putting on the "professional" face - that its a bit of a hard habit to break. I guess I just need to learn how to relax a bit more with people I don't know as well.
Because of this informality here, everyone is extremely helpful - almost to the point of being annoying. Constant questions of do you need anything, how was the hotel, how was your flight, do you need someone to take you around the city, etc. I guess I'm used to being much more independent. It's a bit like having about 14 mothers all at the same time. What I really need right now is something to do so that I can feel useful, and not like they are paying me large amounts of money for updating my blog. *Sigh*
This general openness and friendliness opens up whole new areas as well - especially when it comes to boys. Yesterday, my hotel room was not ready when I arrived at 10am. So I walked around the city a bit, and then hung out on the beach (across the street from my hotel) and read a book. You can not believe how many people came up to me and gave me their phone numbers. Usually guys in the US are not quite so forward, after a few hours I gave up on reading because every ten minutes some guy would come up to me and give me his phone number and take 10 or 20 minutes to chat with me. Here I am, feeling horribly jet lagged, not having showered for >24 hours, looking and feeling gross, and all these guys are coming up to me. Surreal experience, I must admit. I was even invited up to the "penthouse" that some guy from Barcelona said he just bought. I politely declined. Maybe girls in Europe are that easy - but a 5 minute conversation with you telling me how beautiful my non-jew nose is - does not a third date make. There were even a few that say that it was "destiny" that made us meet. (Barf!) Vegas cheese.
I'm still not quite on the same time schedule everyone else is. Though I can't say that the lack of caffeine is helping at all. They have European style coffee here which is amazing. I'm all for it. Why can't the US get on the european coffee kick? It just tastes so much better than US drip filter coffee. It does take quite a bit longer to make and it can not sit around for a while before serving. Which means it's harder to mass produce.
Everything here is actually pretty cheap, even with the horrible US dollar. Pricing is slightly cheaper than the US for food, and quite a bit cheaper for lodging. The average wage here is a little over 24.3K/year, as opposed to about 38.6K in the US. So the pricing for things is about that percent cheaper. To compare: One of the engineers has a three bedroom with a roomate for $850/month total - which he said was pretty expensive for Tel Aviv. My 1/4 of the rent in Boston is $725. Yes, Boston is expensive, but even less expensive places in the US - $425/month is not a top shelf kind of place. Even mid ranged places you are probably going to pay $600+.
All in all, it has been a good time so far. I'm just a bit inpatient for this to really start. I guess I need to give up my time schedule and just go with the flow. I've never really been good at that though.
Oh - just as a reminder. I'm not the only girl in the world who isn't willing to give up everything for a guy. The majority of guys are actually willing to do make more sacrifices for a relationship. Which I can't say that I disagree with, having a baby will not interrupt or possibly delay their career, so why can't they make some sacrifices up front? If I'm going to have to sacrifice parts of my career for having a baby - why can't they do the same? Equal opportunity right?
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