Transcript
Speaker: on zencastr Hello and welcome to Rest and Recreation, the work-life balance podcast from Abbasida. I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida.
Speaker: Today, I'm going to be finding out how to manage family work and volunteering commitments and responsibilities from Noam Marcos, a member of the Israel Defense Force.
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Speaker: As with every episode of Rest and Recreation, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Today's Rest and Recreation guest, who I met on matchmaker.fm, is Noam Marcos.
Speaker: a father, the director of demand generation at LTX Studio, Lightrix, and a member of the Israel Defense Force. Obviously, Noam is based in Israel.
Speaker: It is not a country I have visited, but it is definitely on the list. When I make my travel arrangements, they will be with the Ultimate Travel Club. because that is where I can access trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays, and all sorts of other travel related purchases.
Speaker: You can also access those trade prices by joining the Ultimate Travel Club. There is a link and a discount code in the description. Now that I've paid some bills, it is time to make a podcast.
Speaker: Hello, Noam. Hi, Michael. How you doing today? ah Not bad. Can't complain. It's actually how I feel today. you know We've got the the blinds drawn because the sun is shining on my screen, but I suspect it's a lot sunnier in Israel than it is here in Yorkshire.
Speaker: It is sunny today. We had our one week of winter last week where it was cold and rainy, and we're back to to normal weather for this this part of the world. All right, sounds great.
Speaker: Please could we start by giving us a bit of a summary of life and how you ended up as a director at LTX Studio and a member of the Israel Defense Force? ah Sure. So those things actually happened in the in the opposite order.
Speaker: My family moved to moved to Israel when I was seven years old. So I basically grew up here ah in Jerusalem, went to high school here and joined the IDF at age 18, like most young Israelis do.
Speaker: And I did three years of mandatory service plus one extra year that I signed on for being an officer. Went to school, went to university in Jerusalem, studied business and psychology and ended up getting into the marketing and online advertising world.
Speaker: In 2012, I think was my first job at McCann, a big advertising agency, you know, kind of had a ah ah string of different positions in in the same area.
Speaker: Two years ago, in June 2023, I made a move to Litrix, which is a Jerusalem-based company. ah So especially for the purposes of this podcast of balancing work and life, this was the first time that I was working in the same city that I was living.
Speaker: So I had been a ah commuter, ah commuting between an hour and an hour and a half each direction ah to all of my previous workplaces and making this move to An eight minute bike ride ah was huge for me, for my family.
Speaker: Besides the fact that Lightrix is ah is an amazing company and doing some very, very interesting things. Yes, I've been looking at your website. It certainly is doing some very interesting things.
Speaker: And I recommend anyone who's involved in content creation to take a look. It's very interesting. But the IDF, Israeli Defense Force, is it Israeli Defense Force or Israel Defense Force? Make sure I get it right.
Speaker: Yeah, the Israel Defense Forces. And the majority of Israelis join at 18. Correct. What's the process for joining? If you are in a population who is eligible to join. So there are several populations in Israel. You know, we know we have kind of the general Jewish population, be them secular or religious.
Speaker: And we have the ultra Orthodox population, which is kind of a sect of. ah the Jewish population and we have the Arab population. So it's it's ah a bit of a heated debate that we we don't have to get into, but the ultra-Orthodox and Arab populations by and large are exempt from military service.
Speaker: So if you are not in one of those populations, usually towards the end of 11th grade or the beginning of 12th grade, depending on your your age at the time, it's ah at around age 16, you get your first letter from the army calling you into an initial screening process where they assess you both mentally and physically and kind of give you a grade in order to determine what type of unit you could be drafted into.
Speaker: So that happens over the last couple of years of high school. Also during those years after the initial screening, you get called to various ah acceptance exams or additional screening for different types of units and in the Army, be it intelligence or pilots training course or ah elite commando units.
Speaker: And you do that over the course of eleventh and 12th grade. And usually by by the time you're graduating high school, you know what type of unit you will be drafted to ah Your draft date is set based on ah the day that that unit calls kids up.
Speaker: And when you're 18 or 18 and a half or 19, your army service starts, you're in in You go in with long hair and they cut it all off and give you a set of a set of uniforms in in the olive green and you're a soldier. one the The key point is that people know that they're going to be volunteering in this way in the IDF.
Speaker: It's not a surprise or anything. It's part of life and you know that it's you it's going to happen. Correct. And it's actually not for for the most for most 18 year olds. It's not volunteering. It's mandatory.
Speaker: Like there is a law and there are there are circumstances or repercussions if you ah decide you don't want to go. Right. And if your exemption is not approved. Does every 18 year old then end up in a in a military uniform or are there other forms of contribution to the community that they can make?
Speaker: If you are drafted to the military, then yes, you you are obviously, you end up in the military for you know two or three years or more. There are other paths ah such as national service or other various volunteering opportunities ah for people who either are exempt for physical reasons, for health reasons, or for other reasons from military. And the the the IDF does approve such exemptions.
Speaker: And then you can volunteer volunteer in the community, volunteer in schools, at old age homes, you know all sorts of various ah community involvement. And there's a structure to that that's considered, you know, part of your community service that you do. And and you are not then considered someone who ah kind of got out of military service. You did something that is that is equal to that.
Speaker: Right. and Okay. So I get the feeling then that country is organized along community service lines then whether it's mandatory or not doesn't really matter it's just part of the culture that this is something that people do and the the system that makes it possible just makes it more organized and more equal and more efficient for getting people involved in their communities yeah very much and i you know the idf started as a necessity uh when the state of israel was established in 48
Speaker: That same day, Israel was attacked by all of our all of our neighbors. And the i the IDF was a necessity. we If we wanted to survive, we needed to defend ourselves. As the decades progressed, it became an integral part of Israeli culture.
Speaker: you know Workplaces who are looking to hire often screen based on ah military service. you know There are many even kind of entry-level jobs that the basic requirement is a full military service.
Speaker: It's very, very much part of ah the Israeli culture. And it's turned from a necessity into just kind of a piece of the culture and of and and of Israeli life that is inseparable.
Speaker: Yes. It reminds me of working in Asia and meeting people from Thailand. The guys that I met would all have had experience of being a Buddhist monk because that was part of their culture. And you say, what what's it like? right And they'd say, well, Thai girl is going to want to date a Thai man unless he's actually been a Buddhist monk. It's sort like part of the culture and part of what means that you're contributing to society in a very constructive way.
Speaker: The idea that when you say that entry-level jobs require the military service to have been completed, to me with my ah HR professionals hat on, it means that the employer may be saying, I don't want you unless you've done your military service, but actually there are all sorts of advantages, things that are learnt when you have that structure of military life, that which get transferred then into the work life as well. So I'm sure that there will be lots of 18 year olds who will have started their military service, who will then look back on it and say, that's when I became an adult, stopped being a child and became an adult and responsible for my own decisions, all those sorts of things.
Speaker: Absolutely. I attribute a lot of who I am today, a lot of the my process of maturing as an adult to my military service. There's one specific thing that i that I always look back at is is learning,
Speaker: that what I thought I was capable of was not really my limit and that I can push my limits even further. Just learning that about myself is something that I take, you know, in every, in every part of life now, after that period of my, in that period of time. Yes, I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker: It's like having done military exercises and things and realizing that I can stand on the, well, I can do things because it was part of the the exercise. The team relied upon me to do something which I'd never done before, which...
Speaker: I didn't believe I could do, but I did do, and it does equip you for later in life. But you're a lot older than 18 now. You had to military service finished when you were 22 because you were an officer.
Speaker: Right. Right. So, but you're still involved with the IDF. Most combat soldiers and also some others are required to do reserve duty after they are released from their mandatory service.
Speaker: ah So the the majority of the IDF actually in when Israel is in a state of war, which we some would say we've been since 48, but had we really have been since October 7th, 2023, year and a half ago. the So the majority of the IDF depends on its reserve units, ah which is made up of you know people who have been released from military service and are living their lives, you know, parents, people in the workforce ah from across all industries.
Speaker: ah kind of come back to to reserve duty, usually between two, three weeks and two, three, four weeks a year ah for training purposes. I am 38 years old now, so I've been out of the army for 20 years and i still do reserve duty probably for the next seven months.
Speaker: maybe more years. And in that time, obviously you've built a career. You're a director of a company, which is an eight minute bike ride away from where you live, which is fantastic. And you've also got married and started a family and you've got four children.
Speaker: Correct. Four. the key The key thing, I suppose, or the thing that's interesting is you are on formal military service for two weeks a year, which is not that different to what would happen here in the UK for someone who was a member of our territorial army, the reserves.
Speaker: But you're also, like you say, the moment we're in March 2025. Israel was attacked in October 2023.
Speaker: You've been a state of war since then. and So you don't know really when you could be called up and to do anything, I suppose, at the moment. So it must make planning family life, work life, work commitments a little bit difficult.
Speaker: Yeah, it definitely does. i mean, the the events of ah October 2023, and I guess for me, the year that followed, or 13 months that followed, were an extreme situation, ah a juggling act that I had been trying to manage for you know the previous 18 years of doing reserve duty.
Speaker: Both my wife and I work full-time, and both of us you know try to divide up the the homework and the work work as evenly as we can ah so that we can both be fully committed to work and so that we're both as involved as we can with ah the kids in the house.
Speaker: I was trying to think of an analogy today of of how to kind of describe it. I thought of an hourglass. So if you can imagine, ah you know, an hourglass, when you tip it on one side, the sand flows from the top to the bottom. So if you can imagine each side as work and and family, let's say,
Speaker: When i am tipped towards work and more of the sand is flowing or more of my energy and my time is dedicated to work, then i have less of it to give to home.
Speaker: And same thing, vice versa. So if I am dedicating more of my time and taking time off to be with the kids and, you know, picking them up from school or from preschool on a given day, then i might have to miss some meetings at work. I might, you know,
Speaker: not get something done that i should have that that I should have had done at work. And it's kind of ah a back and forth, kind of a balance, but it works.
Speaker: yeah you know Work is understanding of the my obligations at home and home is understanding of my obligation at work. When I have to go to two or three weeks of reserve duty in the middle of the year,
Speaker: It's kind of like poking a hole in the and the glass part of the in the clock. Yeah. The sand kind of just rolls out and I'm depleting both the time that I spend with family and the time that I'm spending with work.
Speaker: And it it creates kind of this deficit on both ends that I then need to make up when I come back. So what do I do? I come back and do I spend more time at work because I missed three weeks at work? Or do I spend more time with family or, you know, and and holding my end of the of the bargain so that, which my wife has been holding up by herself while I've been gone.
Speaker: So that's that's kind of the ah the struggle of of being removed from, you know, this delicate balance for weeks at a time. On October 7th, it was an extreme situation because basically on the day of of the attack,
Speaker: hundreds of thousands of reservists were called up immediately throughout Israel, not knowing how long we were going to be gone, not knowing when we were when we were coming home, not knowing what... Or if you would come home. Yeah, for many not knowing if you know if we would come home, and unfortunately many didn't come home.
Speaker: It was just a much scarier situation that kind of was... it It was more do or die. So kind of that balance and thinking of, oh, when I get back, I'm going to have to you know return this debt to work or return this debt to home. That kind of took ah took a backseat in both my wife and I and and my thoughts.
Speaker: It was a more extreme so situation. But, you know, I was in from October 7th till the end of December straight, basically with a few visits to home in between. Getting back after that was was a shock.
Speaker: ah getting back to home life, getting back to work life. It was very much a process that took several months to kind of get back and into routine. Is that sort of like the decompression from ah military environment, being in a military environment and all the the pressures and the strains and the commitment that comes with that is very different to a domestic environment, very different to a commercial environment.
Speaker: And there's a big mind shift, I suppose. I'm reminded that you know after the Second World War, it took, for example, American troops a long time to get back from Europe to North America because they were traveling by ship.
Speaker: But after the Vietnam War, people got on planes and within a day where back in North America, the similar sort of thing with the the campaigns of recent years with Afghanistan and various to other places.
Speaker: Your frontline is the end of your street. So you don't have that, that distance, that separation of those three parts of life, do you really?
Speaker: No, the separation is very minimal. the The base where I serve is about an hour and a half to two hour drive from my home in Jerusalem. what i What I did during those months on base was shift work.
Speaker: So I did 12-hour shifts in kind of a ah ah command room. And so I would do 12 hours on and then 12 hours you know resting and sleeping and and and whatnot.
Speaker: you know Often the thought crosses your mind, okay, I've been here, let's say, seven, 10 days in a row doing 12-hour shifts. Maybe this 12 hours off, I'll drive home you know, take a nice hot shower, see my wife, see my kids, and then go back.
Speaker: Often, while I would have loved that as a recharge, I had to consider what was going on in the home while I was gone. More often than not, a short visit like that, we discovered, ah you know, after doing it a couple of times, was more disruptive than it was helpful.
Speaker: And often I wouldn't go home so as not to disrupt the routine that one that my wife developed while I was gone and the routines that my kids got into while I was gone and just popping in to give them a hug and then having to say goodbye again and, you know, having them all lose it and and act out and get upset was was's just not worth it.
Speaker: So that was also very challenging for me that I'm so close to home and I could just, you know, get in the car and and drive back. But, It's better if I don't for for my family's sake.
Speaker: And that was something to to deal with on an ongoing basis. And I suppose the this can't be easy at all. And it really brings home the impact, what it must be like for a child.
Speaker: to see their parent in a military uniform when the news is all full of military action. Quite distressing for them. yeah It must be the same with with work as well, though. You're only ah couple of hours away.
Speaker: You could pop in to do this little piece of work. We just want you to look at this. You could you could pop in, couldn't you? So work was actually very, very considerate. no No one is really expected to work while they're in active reserve duty to the point where the the state pays your salary or pays your workplace ah the equivalent of your salary while you're in active reserve duty.
Speaker: I'm being paid basically to to be in reserves. So I'm not expected to continue to hold my work obligations. Work was very considerate. I was just gone for three months, but coming back was was very difficult. When I came back to work in January of 2024,
Speaker: I had to continue to do shifts, like three shifts every two weeks or two shifts every week and a half or something like that. It was very hard going back and forth. I couldn't really you know take ownership of projects because I was gone and I would have to hand them off you know every couple of weeks anyway.
Speaker: And just in general, getting my work head back on, it took about a month until I was able to properly sit in a meeting, concentrate, follow what was happening. And, you know, I, I'm a very focused person, but yeah I was like a zombie for the month of January, trying to get back into the groove at work.
Speaker: it It was, I had never experienced anything like that in my, you know, 12, almost 13 year career before that. Yeah. It's the the change of mindset between the different environments again.
Speaker: Yeah. You talked about how joining the IDF was part of the the maturing process, but we've talked now about some of the issues that you face, the challenges that you face as a member of the IDF and the adapting between the different environments. But I'm thinking, like what sort of advantages are there of having this type of three parts to your life?
Speaker: There must be some advantages to it as well. Look, I'll say that There are no practical advantages. it In no way is it, for me personally, in no way is it helpful or supportive of my already busy life to be removed for weeks at a time ah to go do reserve duty.
Speaker: There are people who do enjoy the escape and who who see reserve duty as kind of a break from the the daily grind. And i I understand that. And I, you know, I've seen that before. And I can see how, you know, people who maybe need a break from their day-to-day life ah use reserve duty as that break.
Speaker: But the advantage, i guess, is I feel kind of a dedication to do this because it's so personal, because, you know, we're not being deployed to some country where,
Speaker: you know, that that we don't have a connection to. We're defending our borders, all of the bases that all of my friends and reserves are deployed within the tiny borders of this tiny country of Israel.
Speaker: We really feel, especially after October 7th, that if we don't do it, then nobody's going to do it. And, you know, we're doing it for the sake of the entire country.
Speaker: And that is a sentiment that is, that I have heard over and over again. from people who have done over the past year and a half, 150 and 200 250 days of reserve duty of active reserve duty.
Speaker: It's hard. there's no Again, I'll say there's no practical advantage, but there's a commitment and there's a dedication and there's a a strong feeling that if we don't do it, nobody's going to do it. If someone wants to get to to to be exempt from reserve duty or to not go, it's it's really not that hard to get out of it.
Speaker: ah The people who show up, show up because they want to and because they feel committed to. You know, I guess on a deeper level, you can say that being part of something greater than yourself gives meaning to life.
Speaker: And, you know, I feel that way about having kids. It's just something that's greater than yourself. and and And it gives an enormous amount of meaning to life. And i think, you know, serving your country falls under the same and under the same category.
Speaker: It does fill you up. It's hard, but it fills you up at the end. and And the community in Israel is very, very supportive of the reservists. Yeah, it's ah it's a comp it's a complicated answer, I guess, and a complicated issue, but ah that's that's my take on it.
Speaker: Yes, I understand what you mean. That... There is no real advantage when you have to put on a uniform and defend, essentially, your homes.
Speaker: It cannot be an easy situation to be in. But at the same time, like you say, it is part of the community. It is a a situation which binds people together.
Speaker: and brings out the best in them but it is also that i suppose no one really wants to have to do because we all want to live in peace yeah absolutely but it is great to get an insight into you an ordinary i mean in the best possible way but just an ordinary bloke in another country, which is very, very different to where we live here in the UK and that aspect of life where it's not something which I think most people in most countries can imagine themselves.
Speaker: having to do but like you say you are an eight minute bike ride away from work and you are an hour and a half away from the military base where you do your military service in the idf and yet ah you balance family life work life community volunteering military life in order to create safe life for you, your family and your community. So I know it can't be easy, but I do appreciate the time that you've spent with me today to just explain what that is like.
Speaker: I really do respect it and appreciate it Thank you very much. It was my pleasure. Thank you. Certainly a very interesting episode of Rest and Recreation. ah do say thank you again to Noam.
Speaker: I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida. In this episode of Rest and Recreation, I have been having a conversation with Noam Marcos, a father, a Director of Demand Generation LTX Studio, Lightrix, and a member of the Israel Defence Force.
Speaker: You can find out more information about both of us at abbasida.co.uk. There is a link in the description. I must remember to thank the team at matchmaker.fm for introducing me to Noam.
Speaker: If you're a podcaster looking for interesting guests, or if like Noam, you have something very interesting to say, matchmaker.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made.
Speaker: There is a link to matchmaker.fm and an offer code in the description. If you have experienced technical challenges whilst listening to Rest and Recreation, you will want to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data. So listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering.
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Speaker: Until the next episode of Rest and Recreation, thank you for listening and goodbye.
