Step 1 – register as unemployed

Ok – that sounds weird. I stopped working on September 30^th, but I knew that it would take a while to organize myself as a freelancer and actually have any work, so the first thing I did was to go to the unemployment office and register myself as unemployed. I hoped that it would be for a maximum of one month, so I went there with a positive attitude and patience. Most fascinating was watching what was going on around me. Many mothers came there with their small children and it was fun to see them crawling around; you saw groups of people talking quietly amongst themselves, probably trading experiences, and in the far left corner we heard raised voices.

Let me explain. In the Tel Aviv unemployment office, they separate between academics and non-academics. The academics were quiet, some with a resigned attitude, probably harder to find work; but at the far left of the hall some people felt that the clerk in charge of their case was being unfair. One man was partially lame and he was shouting that they were not taking that into account with the posting they were offering him. Trouble is that if you refuse an offer they can stop paying you unemployment benefit.

The information clerk at the entrance had asked me a few questions and then told me which booth to go to. This turned out to be the head of the academics section – maybe because of my advanced age. Outside her booth there was a written list and I added my name at the bottom. Then I tried to find the person who was immediately before me. From that point on it was my job to watch her every move so I’d know when it was my turn. But she foiled me. Suddenly she disappeared inside the booth. I was really pleased – the line had moved much faster that I thought it would. But no, she had simply persuaded the two people before her on the list to let her in earlier. But by then I was standing up and near the booth, so people started coming over and drawing me into conversations. How long have you been unemployed? What do you do? What is the head clerk like (my question)? One girl, a lawyer by profession, told me that the clerk was very tough and never smiled – it really did look like that when you looked at her interacting with the people before me.

Finally it was my turn. She was really lovely, smiled at me and gave me advice. Maybe it was because I explained that I was hopefully only going to be unemployed for a few weeks. She told me to let her know when I stopped being unemployed, and that was it. I was free to go home. It took all of five minutes.