4/11/99

Israeli service with a smile

    Some years ago, I needed an additional mortgage to clinch a dream home. Well, I must have been dreaming. I went from bank to bank, and was turned away from each. When there were no banks left to beg, I turned to AACI for guidance. "Go to Bank Yerushalayim," they said.
    "Been there," I said. "They didn't even say 'no'; some clerk clucked his tongue at me, that rude Israeli 'tz.' That's the last bank I'd go back to."
    Go back, they urged me at AACI, "and ask for Nechushtan."
    I did. Nechushtan, then the manager, was busy with someone else. We waited not five minutes before his door opened, and he interrupted his meeting -- to apologize for making us wait.
    When he invited us in, I told him my situation, which by now seemed hopeless. He asked why I hadn't come to his bank earlier; hearing my unsavory experience, he became upset. "People in my bank do not behave like that." He promised to speak to the offending clerk.
    He then explained that my request was, according to published guidelines, impossible to fulfill. But, he said, perhaps if he bent a rule here, pulled a string there...
    He called a bank down the block and, vouching for us -- total strangers -- he instructed them how they could finagle a supplementary mortgage. Joyously, we raced over there; we were about to sign, and the phone rang. It was Nechushtan. He had not yet done enough for us. "Come back," he said, "I've been doing some research, and I've found a way to help you better."
    Incredulous, we raced back. Nechushtan met us at the front door -- and apologized for making us run back and forth!
    By now it was past closing time, yet there was no suggestion we should come back the following day: over the next 30 minutes, his staff patiently saw us through the paperwork.
    I came away from that experience with more than just a home. My faith was buoyed by the capacity for Israeli businesses to be compassionate, conscientious, considerate. Yeah, even a bank.
THERE'S A travel agent named Yael who works at Ziontours Jerusalem. She once booked a flight for someone going to the US, but could not get him a seat on his preferred return flight.
    While he was still abroad, Yael happened to notice that a seat had become available on the flight he requested. Her company already had his money, she didn't have to bother any further; the client never would have known.
    But Yael is not like that. She called him, at the company's expense, to ask if he'd like to change his travel plans.
    Of course, that's the way it's supposed to be, but mostly, that's the way it ain't.

    RONIT STEIN is a reception clerk at Hadassah Ein-Karem Hospital. Seeing her in action is worth a visit to one of the most distressing wards in the hospital, the bone-marrow day-care clinic. (Believe me, I know.) Ronit is the most wondrous p'kida I've ever come across in the country.
    "Impossible" is impossible for her to say, as well as Israeli classics such as "come back tomorrow," "we're closed," and "what can I do?" Ronit is a can-do professional -- a whirling do-it-all-at-the-same-time buzzsaw, nonstop, all day, every day. Hadassah does not have a computer fast enough for her whizzing fingers.
    Clone her, you say? It's been done: she has an identical twin sister who also works at Hadassah. 
    She warmly greets every stranger in a continuous parade of strangers as if they were guests in her home. She smiles -- smiles! -- glowingly at everyone. She cuts through the heavy gloom with perky laughter. She never takes more than a lunch break, never has a bad day.
    That's just the way she is -- the happiest, hardest-working, most conscientious worker in existence.
ARLENE KAMMER immigrated from Toronto, arriving alone to a new life in Tel Aviv. She worked in Ra'anana, studied at ulpan in the evenings, and didn't have the luxury of time to waste. 
    When a sales representative from the local cable TV company pitched her the shpiel, she imagined it "a lifeline to the old country," and signed up. 
    "I lost half a day's pay to come home early to wait for them to connect it, but of course, they're a no-show. Happens in Canada too, I said to myself. So I arranged a new appointment, and it happened again. Now I'm upset, and I complained in my bad Hebrew how it's costing me time and money. They promised the next appointment would be ok.
    "The next day, I came home from work to find a beautiful bouquet of flowers at my door. The note read 'With apologies': it was from Tevel, the cable company!
    "This never happened in Canada.  To this day, seven years later, whenever I find life here starts to get to me, I always think of that, and I remember that this is indeed a land of miracles."