Work Life

I was sitting in class today, early as usual, just reading over the papers we were to review for this lesson when the Av HaBayit (Father of the House - the building caretaker) came in pushing the portable projector setup. As usual he asked if this was Finkelstein's class, then he seemed to recognized me - he has been asking me the same question every Sunday and Tuesday for the whole semester so far. He started to chat. We spoke about what it's like to work at the university - he said he's new here, only 10 years. He worked for Elite making chocolate for 35 years before that. He decided not to move with the factory when it moved from the center of Tel Aviv to Nazareth. He is looking forward to retirement in 14 months time. He is overall happy with his life at the university, I guess he also likes watching the young studentiot walking around in their minis and tights.

His conversation got me thinking. It's the boy's first day of work today. He has 48 years to go till retirement. I hope he too will be happy with his lot. I wish him luck and and can only hope he is as lucky as I was with the people I have worked around. There have been times when I enjoyed my work so much I would have worked for nothing and times when no money in the world was enough. I wish him luck, the marathon has begun.