{"id":129,"date":"2006-06-12T14:25:34","date_gmt":"2006-06-12T12:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/?p=129"},"modified":"2009-12-29T14:33:43","modified_gmt":"2009-12-29T12:33:43","slug":"not-my-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/2006\/06\/not-my-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"“Not My Problem”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe finally moved last week. After months of renovations that I began chronicling in the post Ka-Ching<\/a>, by the time you read this we will be firmly – if not entirely comfortably – ensconced in our new home.<\/p>\n

The process went remarkably smoothly. For the amount of work we had done on our new apartment, the timeline was quick (a fast three months) and the screw-ups were minimal.<\/p>\n

Except for one.<\/p>\n

We were about half way through the process. We had hired a carpenter recommended by our architect. He had come to install the cabinets under the sink in the children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bathroom. This required some drilling into the ceramic tiles on the wall.<\/p>\n

For reasons that I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand, Menachem the carpenter aimed his drill into the wall in a line directly under the sink faucet. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t watching at the time, but in retrospect this seemed as likely a place for a pipe to be placed as any. So it shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been surprising that, as the drill bit went in, water began spraying into bathroom.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Uh oh,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Menachem muttered to himself and then began calling out those three little words you never want to hear during a shiputz<\/span> (renovation): \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yesh lanu baya<\/span>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Houston, we have a problem.<\/p>\n

Tomer, the contractor \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who was standing a few feet away in the adjoining bedroom \u00e2\u20ac\u201c came running.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why why why?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he groaned, which is the Israeli equivalent of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153oy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you idiot!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you ask me first?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he demanded of Menachem who shrugged helplessly.<\/p>\n

Tomer immediately got to work with one of his crewmembers. They had to shut off the water, drill away the tile to reveal the plumbing guts within, patch up the pipe with several metal connectors, put a new tile in, and reapply the roba<\/span> (“grout” in English, which sounds to me more like a disease than a plumbing material) which seals the tile against moisture.<\/p>\n

While he was working Tomer turned to my wife Jody and me. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to have to pay, you know. 1200 shekels. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the cost of this.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Was NIS 1200 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c about $260 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the right amount? We had no way of knowing if it was too high or low. But the concept seemed fair. You cause damage, you take responsibility. The matter was forgotten for the next six weeks until it was time to settle up with the contractor.<\/p>\n

As Jody reviewed the bill for all the carpentry work we had done with Menachem, she deducted the NIS 1200 from the total and showed him the final number.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Menachem said as he looked at the paper.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6what<\/span>?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jody responded.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not going to pay for that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Menachem said matter-of-factly, pointing at the NIS 1200. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not my problem,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How can this not be your problem?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I interjected. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You drilled a hole, you hit a pipe, you made a mistake.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Menachem repeated. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How can I to know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s behind the walls?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The contractor was standing right there!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d My voice was getting louder. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You could have asked.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your house. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not my problem. I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pay.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Now, if it had been a matter of negotiating over how much to pay, I could have dealt with that. But for a supplier to clearly cause damage and then deny any responsibility whatsoever, that was beyond my comprehension.<\/p>\n

Of course, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard about this kind of attitude \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s typically Israeli. You see it among our politicians every day. One government office passes the buck to another.<\/p>\n

Remember the horrific tragedy in 2001 when the floor of Jerusalem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Versailles Wedding Hall<\/a> collapsed killing 23 Israelis? The owners blamed the contractors, the contractors blamed the inventor of the ill-fated \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pal-Kal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d system, and everyone blamed the vacancies in the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Building department for a shortage of inspectors.<\/p>\n

But up until today, I imagined this as a quaint anachronism to be suffered from a distance. Something to laugh about if it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t too personal.<\/p>\n

But Menachem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s approach was as in-your-face as it comes. And he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t planning on leaving until he got his money.<\/p>\n

All of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, there are two emotional elements at play in this drama. Resistance to being a freier<\/span> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Israeli epithet for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sucker,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d someone who gets taken advantage of \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and a strong distaste for conflict.<\/p>\n

For an Israeli, being a freier<\/span> is the worst possible outcome of any encounter. Jody and I, on the other hand, abhor conflict. We hate it when a previously positive relationship is marred by a disagreement.<\/p>\n

We hate being freiers<\/span> too, but if we have to choose between being a freier and conflict, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll invariably opt for the latter. We want to be able to run into our contractor if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re walking down the street and shake hands with a smile.<\/p>\n

You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re probably thinking, what are the chances of that? But Israel is a small place. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be surprised.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s split the difference,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Jody said to Menachem. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You pay 600 and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll eat the rest.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We were clearly being freiers<\/span>, but we also had a nagging suspicion that maybe our contractor, wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t being entirely fair either. NIS 1200 for a job that took a couple of hours while he was already on the premises\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that laying roba on the bricks a bit thick too?<\/p>\n

Again we were stonewalled. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want pay, what can I do?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Menachem said, disparagingly. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not agreeing to pay anything,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fine, if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the way you want it, you get nothing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said. In this battle of wills, we still had the upper hand: we had the money.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015335 years in the business and this has never happened before,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Menachem muttered under his breath.<\/p>\n

Sweat was pouring down Menachem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face. Our hearts were beating (well, mine was, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t vouch for Jody\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s).<\/p>\n

And then Menachem blinked. Just a little. He started scribbling on our page with the numbers. He wrote a new amount. It was the total minus NIS 200. He shoved it in our direction.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153And what, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re supposed to just absorb the remaining 1000?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I responded to his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153generous\u00e2\u20ac\u009d offer.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not my problem.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Not again\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/span><\/p>\n

Jody and I huddled but held fast. Menachem continued to sweat and then scribbled some more. He upped his proposal to NIS 400.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fair. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t right. But we took it. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d raise the issue of the remaining NIS 800 with our contractor. Maybe he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d come down. Or maybe we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just the biggest freiers<\/span> in Jerusalem. Probably not that either, though that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how it felt at the moment.<\/p>\n

Immediately, Menachem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face relaxed. He smiled for the first time in a long while. He asked for a glass of water.<\/p>\n

Jody pulled out the checkbook. Then we walked Menachem to the door and shook hands as if nothing had happened.<\/p>\n

And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the flipside to Israeli stubbornness and the absolute rejection of ever being branded a freier<\/span>. Israelis don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hold grudges. They are quick to forgive.<\/p>\n

Once Menachem had given in enough to feel he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153saved face,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the matter was closed. He never admitted any responsibility but at least he felt magnanimous. We could meet on the street or share a cup of coffee on the beach. It took a little bit of mental carpentry, but ultimately we were able to craft out our own happy ending.<\/p>\n

One worry remained: were we setting a bad example for our children…that one shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stand up for one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s convictions? Why should they fight for causes they believe in if their own parents give in over such a clear-cut open and shut case of negligence?<\/p>\n

Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not my problem\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

————————
\nHave you had an experience in Israel where you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve encountered the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not my problem\u00e2\u20ac\u009d won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t-take-responsibility syndrome? Post a comment on the blog and let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s share the misery!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We finally moved last week. After months of renovations that I began chronicling in the post Ka-Ching, by the time you read this we will be firmly – if not entirely comfortably – ensconced in our new home. The process went remarkably smoothly. For the amount of work we had done on our new apartment, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1229,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/1229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}