Deja Vu by Michal Hartstein Read Free Book Online Page B

in the field. I had been left behind. Amir couldn’t understand my unrest. I had a steady job; I had job security and wages that were slightly higher than the average. Although I’d said more than once that a managerial position would be more interesting, I didn’t know that for sure. I’d never worked in a management position. Amir didn’t understand the pressure on interns to move up the ranks. He wasn’t sure why there should be such pressure. I’d worked for my accounting firm for a total of four years, four months of which I’d been on maternity leave. “Aren’t there people in your office who’ve been there many more years?” he asked me more than once. There were veteran employees in the office, but in my eyes they seemed dull and uninspired. I wanted to thrive.
    Amir had worked for years as a software engineer. His job description and his rank in the company never interested him. He thought that, as long as I enjoyed the work and was getting paid better than before, the job description shouldn’t matter at all. He, of course, didn’t understand the meaning of job descriptions in my field of work.
    At Hanukkah, Inbal and David’s baby girl was born. Inbal was radiant while I’d never felt more drained. I knew that in order to return to my old self, I’d have to find another job. I couldn’t stand that searing jealousy that ate at me every time a friend from school or work got promoted. I hated myself for gloating every time I heard about a company closing and someone I knew got fired. Inbal's happiness blinded me completely. I couldn’t look at her and her idyllic family. I had to prove to everyone that I could fulfill my dreams.
    While preparing the annual reports for one of my clients, I learned that the company was looking for a new chief bookkeeper. The title startled me. I was a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), not a bookkeeper. The fact that they added ‘chief’ to the title didn’t make it any more attractive to me. The woman who was leaving was a bookkeeper by profession, although with the highest qualification in the field, but not a CPA like me. My reluctance to try for it disappeared when I realized that the job offered a salary that was higher by almost fifty percent than my current salary in the accounts office.
    Two years after I became a CPA, I’d finally found a new job. Smart Green, which engaged in the development and production of ecological goods for industry, was a stable company, and the work was very interesting. Shoshana, the chief bookkeeper I was replacing, was retiring, but sat with me for a month and patiently shared the secrets of the role. The accounts department included two other employees: the bookkeeper who worked with the customers and the bookkeeper who worked with the suppliers. My job was to supervise them, to work with the banks, make adjustments and prepare salaries.
    I’d found a job that was fun and challenging, and my salary jumped significantly. I should have been happy, but I was ashamed to tell people that I was employed as a bookkeeper (a chief, mind you) and not as an accountant. When friends or family members took an interest in my new job, I told them I was employed as head of the accounts department, and sometimes I just lied and said I was the accountant or even the CFO. I didn’t want them to know that the woman who had been on the Dean's List, who was sure she would become a senior manager by the age of thirty, was actually a bookkeeper, although a chief bookkeeper.
    I told Daria and Inbal that I was an accountant, a job I considered more prestigious. I knew they wouldn’t check, and for all they, or anyone else not in the field, knew there was no difference between a bookkeeper or an accountant or a chief accountant. Most people didn’t understand the difference between a CPA and a bookkeeper, so I didn’t bother to be precise and say that I was chief bookkeeper and not an accountant. I wanted to be considered