Do you remember the routine? The one everybody expects you to slide back into on command? The one that was locked up, put on unpaid leave, frozen and then unfrozen for the benefit of stakeholders, thrown under the wheels of the epidemic and consigned to oblivion?
That old routine, that even if it still exists, is by no means guaranteed to welcome you back, because you may not be able to afford it any longer.
It is a routine you’re expected to grab with both hands - even though they are currently full of the children who have not yet returned to school and parents who are still in self-isolation at home - while also trying to salvage the wreckage that is your job.
That routine is getting further way, even though it may seem like it’s having a comeback.
For all those who did not manage to snag a job in the public sector, there will be no routine. Only millions of shards of shattered achievements and shriveled aspirations.
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El Al workers on unpaid leave protest outside the Treasury in Jerusalem
(Photo: Amit Shabi)
These shards are all around us: Banquet hall owner, taxi driver, barber, dress designer, restaurateur, DJ, carpenter and millions of other average Israelis who only wanted to live and thrive.
These are the people whom the state ordered to stop everything, forget everything, and drop everything, now reduced to calling a hotline to wait for hours on end in a futile attempt to understand how to fill out a form on a government website that has gone down under the strain, while the finance minister half-heartedly assures them it will all be fine in the end.
These are the people whom the prime minister's economic adviser says on television don't actually look all that hungry, while the National Insurance Institute continues to send them demands for money on a regular basis.
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Small business owners in Be'er Sheva protest over their financial plight
(Photo: Herzl Yosef)
These are the people who have been promised reparations in the form of tax, debt and VAT deductions, that the checks are in the mail and will arrive any minute, but the Post Office remains closed even though the lockdown has been lifted.
These are the people who will not simply bounce back because they have nothing to go back to.
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Small business owners in Eilat protest over their financial plight
(Photo: Meir Ohana)
Their routine has been murdered, not by any cruel deity, but by a government that excels at talking, issuing declarations and taking airtime to pat itself on the back, all the while failing to act in practical ways.
The government should be saying: "Let it cost what it costs, we will make sure you keep going, do not starve or go bankrupt. We will provide 70% of monthly earnings to help those without a job stay afloat and pay the rent or mortgage.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Health Ministry DG Moshe Bar-Siman-Tov and Health Minister Yaakov Litzman make televised statements during the coronavirus lockdown
(Photo: Shalev Shalom)
"We will give grants and benefits and tax returns to businesses. We will give larger unemployment benefits and benefits to independent contractors and freelancers.
"We will provide a rescue plan for workers and business owners, grant farmers an emergency fund, give small businesses a loan. Here take the money, your money, the taxpayers' money."
There are endless ways to provide support, all of them by the way, have been implemented in the United States and in much of Europe.
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Traders at Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem clash with police during the coronavirus lockdown
(Photo: AFP)
In Israel though, it’s all talks and intentions as the government stands at its podium and watches the economy breathing its death rattle.
What we are left with are crushed dreams and ruined lives. Not because of the epidemic, but because the state’s policy of no policy.
We can try to return to routine, but we may find, after the dust has settled, that it is also beyond our reach.