Working in Ra’anana

I am going to post some pictures  with possibly boring words talking about and showing where I work while in Israel.  This post is “self/life logging” at its worse…

Don’t hate….this is acting as my personal journal and I wanted to “remember” where I spent the majority of my time while in Israel.  Above is my work’s office building located in the city of Ra’anana  (it has taken me three visits here before I learned how to say the city’s name)

This is going to make me sound dumb but the first thing I had to learn in this office, to fit in, was how to operate the elevator.    Yes… I know how to push buttons and the numbers are in English… but it is different.   The picture below is the outside of the elevator.   They are “too cool” to have just an up arrow and a down arrow… they have an LED screen and a key pad.

In the elevator you have only five buttons… one to close the door, one to open the door, one to sound an alarm… and well two others that I have no clue what they do.  (see picture below)… Of course I had to push the other buttons several times and those two “dot” buttons did nothing.

On the outside of the elevator on the keypad you punch in the floor.   That sounds simple… but here is the tricky part… there are 4 elevators marked A, B, C, and D.   You have to watch the screen after you type in the floor and it will tell you what elevator (one of the four letters) will be going to that floor.

You can’t just get in the first elevator that opens the door… ummm like I did.   It may not be going where you need to go and once you are in the elevator there is nothing you can do… you are at its mercy.  I have no idea how the seeing impaired use these elevators.   While the outside keypad has braille, the letter that shows up on the screen is not voiced… nor touchable… how would they know which elevator to go into?  (see I am sensitive and  think about accessibility… and yes… I am trying to make up for the previous blog’s “cripple beach” comment)

The building has great flower beds, lily ponds, and even a roof top garden.   If it wasn’t so miserably hot and muggy I would have sat in the gardens during lunch.  I am not sure that I like the heat and humidity here… but the views are fantastic.  (Most of them I enjoyed from inside the air conditioned building.)

Very beautiful work environment at least when I am not “working”.  When I am working I am often “parked” in a bomb shelter that moonlights as a conference room.   I have to admit it kind of makes me think about where I actually am and my safety.  I have never felt unsafe while in Israel but I have also not had to work in a bomb shelter.  I keep thinking that there must be a reason for these.   I am not sure I want to experience that reason…. hmmm if you think about it what a scary place… (with bad cell phone reception).   As a side note…  These bomb shelters are on each floor and they have hatches in the far corners that lead either up to the shelter above or down to the shelter below.

My co-workers are fantastic… love to argue but brilliant.  The company is great and they are kind enough to give me a card that allows me to have “free lunch”… Everyone in the office enjoys complaining about the food but I found the cafeteria to be better than average(that is better than average for a cafeteria).  It is kind of fun not knowing exactly what you are eating half of the time.

I hope you have enjoyed a small peak into my work day.   Again I really appreciate you taking the time to read my words.  As a reward I will leave you with this picture of a blue cow in front of the cafeteria.