17/12/99

The Pakid of the Year

Wait -- just wait -- till she finds out.

    What a day for the people of Israel, thought Job Cohen excitedly, as he picked up the phone. The press conference would come later; first, he had to call Sima Simantov to tell her the wonderful news.
    Sima, out of all the nation's hard-working clerks, had just been selected Pakid of the Year.
    Imagine!
    Job got through to Sima -- on the first try. But of course, he beamed. The Public Clerks Committee had chosen well.
    "Allo."
    "Hello, is Sima --"
    "Rega."
    Job waited patiently. She must be very busy with the public, he said to himself. He waited some more, and the line went dead. He blamed the phone company.
    He called back.
    No answer.
    Poor Sima. So much to do.
    He tried again. And again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
    The following week, Sima happened to notice her phone was ringing. She ignored it. Then she remembered her boyfriend said he was going to call. Quickly, she answered.
    "Allo."
    "Hello, is --"
    It was not her boyfriend. "Call tomorrow," she spat indignantly, and slammed the phone down.
    Job felt foolish. He must have been calling a wrong number all along. Or the wires got crossed. Somehow, he had to get in touch with Sima Simantov, the finest public servant in the land.
    Cursing the phone system, he put on his brown tie, and his hat, and went looking for her.
    It was easy. He found her building. He found her floor. He found her office. He found her chair. He found her chair empty. Job smiled. That explained it: she was obviously on a well-deserved vacation.
    "Nope," a co-worker said. "She's at work."
    Clearly, she had taken a break: there was a mob outside her office. Must've been a hellish day. Even a Sima can't go at it all day without stopping.
    One by one the mob gave up, so that when Sima finally came back, smiling happily, Job was the only one there.
    He jumped up to greet her. "Hello --"
    Sima stopped smiling. She glared at him as she brushed by. "Tomorrow. We're closed."
    "Y --"
    "Are you a moron or something? T-o-m-o-r-r-o-w!"
    The next day, it turned out, was Sima's day off, which Job and the mob only discovered at about mid-afternoon.
    "Could you ask her to call me?" Job asked a co-worker. Everyone in the office rollicked with laughter. "Sure," someone said, "how 'bout first thing in the morning?"
    That would be just like Sima, Job thought to himself.
    But the only call he got that morning was an angry one from the committee, demanding to know why he hadn't yet bothered to contact Sima.
    Upset with himself, he called her immediately.
    Busy signal!
    Job rushed right out: if her line was busy, it meant she had to be there, at her desk, at that moment. He ran to her office, holding down his hat all the way.
    "But I know she's here," he exclaimed to her co-workers, quite out of breath. "She was just on the phone!"
    They snickered. One of them jerked a thumb at Sima's phone. "Been off the hook for, what, four days now?"
    "Come to think of it," another worker said, "has anyone seen Sima recently?"
    It just didn't make sense. He was here to shower accolades upon the Pakid of the Year from an appreciative public, and she seemed to be avoiding him. Could anybody be that humble?
    Her phone was busy until the end of the week, and then it was disconnected. Worried, Job went to her office. Relieved, he could tell she was still there: nobody but a Sima keeps her desk so tidy, and this was one tidy desk: apparently, every scrap of paper that rained down upon her was instantly filed, or processed, or rushed to the appropriate department. Only a Pakid of the Year would realize that delaying the paperwork means delaying the public.
    Obviously, she did not believe in outstanding work.
    Sima's office went out on strike for the next three weeks, only no one was told. The mob and Job waited, not noticing. Finally, a guard, newly arrived from Russia, shooed everyone away. "Strike," he explained, though he didn't understand what that meant because he was, like I said, newly arrived from Russia.
    Well, Job thought with relief, that would explain why she's been absent.
    No one thought to tell Sima when the strike ended.
    It's certainly not Sima's fault, Job told the mob, which was getting a bit impatient. If no one called her, how's she to know? (She had left her home phone off the hook for just that reason.)
    He beamed excitedly when she returned (which she did, only because her air conditioner at home broke down), straightened his brown tie and presented himself. He had great news to tell her.
    He put out his hand. She shot him a look. "Come back in a month," she snarled, "Or maybe two. Don't you know we were on strike? I won't even talk to you until I get through the backlog. Get out, and close the door, I don't want anyone else bothering me."
    Job understood. But he was so close; if he could just get in a word...
    "I --"
    "Ya-alla!" she exploded. "OK, you win! Here!" She gave him a form. "Fill it out, mail it in, and come back in three months."
    Which he did. How could he argue with due process?
    When her maternity leave finished, she took another maternity leave, then finally returned to work, reconnected the phone, and took a sabbatical. "I deserve one, no?" she asked, and Job nodded.
    Most of the mob had given up and emigrated by the time Sima was ready to receive the public again (you can imagine the backlog after a year's absence), so Job didn't have to wait long.
    "Next?"
    Job rushed in.
    "Nu?" she said. "What do you want?"
    "Uh ..." Job blinked. He'd forgotten. 
    "Look, we've lost your file. Go, get all your forms filled out again, bring copies of everything, but hurry, I'm retiring on Tuesday. Next?"
    He raced about like a madman, collected every official-looking paper he could find, and made sure to be first in line Tuesday morning. He waited. And waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited.
    Sima peered out into the waiting room (for old-time's sake, really) and noticed Job. She sighed. "You." She glowered at him. "What do you want?"
    He bounded into her office. He cleared his throat, which was a mistake. She spoke first. "Nu. Gimme your papers."
    As luck would have it (Job could blame no one but himself), he failed to bring one vital document, without which, Sima assured him, she could not be of any help. She could not actually be sure which document was missing, only that he couldn't have brought everything because no one ever does, and with a shrug she explained, "kacha zeh."
    Suddenly he remembered. Digging deep into his briefcase, he pulled out a yellowed, frayed, old certificate. "Pakid of the Year" it read, in fancy script, and then on the next line, "Sima Simantov."
    She looked at it, wordlessly. Well, she didn't actually look at it. But no matter: she rubber-stamped it, put it through her hole-puncher, inserted it in his file, and said those magic words: "It'll do."
    Job broke down and wept.
    "But you'll have to come back tomorrow," Sima said. And then she left the office forever.