The little lies that employees put in their resumes;
The queue for the microwave at noon;
The people who inform the whole room that you are pregnant and need to be forgiven;
Deciding whether to respond to emails sent late at night - Gili Yuval, a salaried employee living with her family in London, self-published a book of songs dealing with the day-to-day life of the office being, which was a success that surprised Yuval herself as well.
Recently, it even came out in a second edition, and an outdoor exhibition called "Unread Marker," based on its songs, is currently on display in Holon as part of the city's cultural season.
Yuval started writing songs about five years ago.
It was shortly after graduating with a master’s degree in art, and she had difficulty finding work in the field, and found herself in a public relations firm.
"I had to start from the bottom, and I felt a small and meaningless screw. There was no volume of work. The fact that everything around me was conducted in English, which is not my mother tongue, made me see things differently, think about their translation, observe. So I sat in the office, upset, "I wrote songs in the style of 'This boy is me' by Yehuda Atlas, which I posted on a Facebook page I called 'And this slave is me'."
There were those who criticized the tone of the complaint of some of the songs, including even Yehuda Atlas himself, who agreed to her use of his songs but remarked to her that sitting in the office was not slavery.
"Atlas is a childish hero, but I believe that high-tech people also have a right to complain," she says.
"Atlas told me, 'It's humor of ballers.'
"On the other hand, it's not 'Adbar' style 'bitterness' by Scott Adams, who was one of my sources of inspiration. We are not in this world anymore. Today it is no longer acceptable to be a bitter worker, we are all looking to initiate, move forward and do something meaningful. The directors' grief (Yuval runs the British Friends Association of Art Museums in Israel; KD) ".
From the songs you would think that you are describing a high-tech being, and in practice you come from the field of art.
"A lot of readers think I come from high-tech. But the work routine has long been not something that belongs only to corporate culture or high-tech, we all live it. The global language, the abusive boss - it can be in any field. A lot of the stories are not about me, but it happened to me. , For example, what appears in one of the songs, which a manager asked me at the end of a job interview, after an hour of talking on digital media, if I have children. It happened in the UK, not in Israel. "But instead I stuttered, I replied 'I don't have any,' and he went on, 'Would you like to?'
"My professional identity has been deleted"
"somewhere Over the Rainbow":
"Here's my morning routine, in fact:
pushed from the elevator, collapsed in a chair,
and before diving into exhausting exels
goes through all the necessary sites."
Although many songs are read as a complaint against the world of work, Yuval was working on the book during the Corona, when she really missed working life in the offices.
"I did not have a job during Corona, because my work is based on events, and all of the professional identity was deleted, I became a housewife. I thought the office world would never come back. Then I decided to take out the book. "I also offered office merchandise like coffee cups and pens with captions, and it worked out really well."
Towards the end of the interview, Yuval says that although the songs may be read as a critique of corporate culture, in practice her big dream is to work for a large corporation like Amazon or Google.
After everything you write?
"It interests me. Even though I have the best job in the world - I travel the world and drink champagne at events. But I might go to those places and come back with a tail between my legs. Maybe I just want what I don't have."