False Dichotomies

I realised this wasn’t exactly going to be a regular office job while we were in the process of moving offices. I opened a cupboard to begin schlepping some books. I wasn’t looking down, and my hand was soon roaming over something odd but at the same time familiar. I crouched down to look closer. Of course, it was my commander’s M16, and it would have to move office just like everything else.

As I mentioned last week, my department is responsible for arranging visits to the Israeli Home Front by senior officials from around the world, as well as trips abroad for Israeli officers. This week, for example, I sat in on a briefing given to the heads of British Search & Rescue. Now, during my twenty six years on this planet, I’ve brilliantly managed to avoid ever having to do what is drearily referred to as a ‘proper job’. But, as Justin Timberlake reminded us recently, what goes around comes around. This isn’t a proper job. It’s a proper job on speed, taken to its logical and mind-boggling conclusion.

Our working hours are from 8.15 to 5.30, with the lunch-hour coming between 12 and 1. Sometimes, if it’s a quiet day, we might be allowed out a little early, but that entirely depends on the whim of our commander, and he’s just as likely to make us sweat it out to the end. Everything is done according to strict procedures, procedures which may fit the army ethos, but arguably don’t actually lead to maximum efficiency. This is a point I’ll develop in a future post: it (obviously) makes sense to run fighting units on military lines. But perhaps it makes less sense to do so with the jobniks, who are primarily engaged in what would typically be described as civilian work.

I’ve been wondering what a top management consultancy firm would make of it all. From my time working with the youth movement Noam, for example, I know that a daily meeting of all the staff is a basic idea to improve communication and efficiency. There are four of us in my new unit, so it’s pretty easy to implement. Here we are apparently lucky if we meet once a month. And I wouldn’t even know where to start regarding suggesting changes. At a certain point, people becoming impervious to change. Institutions all the more so. When my commander tells me that he is supposed to do an interview with me regarding my background and current situation, but then tells me that he’d prefer me to write the answers down – because it’s a waste of time to sit and talk about it – I realise that point was reached long before I arrived. There are going to be many things I’m just going to have to grin and bear.

But the work is stimulating. There’s a lot to be done, and it involves interesting topics and interesting people. I just think it would be so much better if it was done in a civilian atmosphere. But those who opt for an army career believe civilians to be a different species. “Civilians sometimes don’t understand things,” was one nugget I heard this week. So the 5.30 wake-ups will continue. And the reporting my every movement to the commander. But so will the ongoing food for thought.