Shul is a cool place to work

There was clearly something about the old, familiar melodies — You Are My Sunshine… My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean… that struck a deep chord with these people for whom everyday life had become bewildering and impossible to navigate. One elderly lady was beaming so hard, it was as though she was lit up from inside.

After watching and joining in for fifteen minutes, I reluctantly slipped away and returned to my desk: I had a thousand things to do. As soon as I sat down, two colleagues wanted to talk about the logistics of an upcoming community weekend — a conversation I myself had started earlier in the day. I stared at them vaguely, completely unable to engage with what they were saying, my head still in the room with the singers.

“Are you OK?” one of them — Rhiannon — asked, and I explained what I had just seen.

“It’s pretty cool working in a synagogue, isn’t it?” she replied.

For 20 years, until not very long ago, I was a children’s book editor. Over that time I worked for almost every major children’s publisher in London, some of which were based in startlingly fancy offices in the centre of town.

One of my offices had a lift system that knew which floor you worked on. My desk there looked out over Tower Bridge, and when the sun got too bright the blinds would automatically lower over the immense, plate glass windows. Another, right on the river, had a top floor balcony with a totally magnificent view stretching from Big Ben to St Paul’s and beyond.

At lunch time, depending on where I was based, I would buy street food from Borough market, or stroll along the river, or pop into the National Gallery for a lecture. (Well, OK, I only ever did that last thing once, but it was fun, and made me feel extremely smug in a “being the sort of person who goes to art lectures in her lunch hour” sort of way.)

Now I work in Finchley.

The shul office is rather crowded so I often have to plan a circuitous route from the door to my desk, depending on what else is going on in there. During my lunch hour I stroll up Ballards Lane to the sandwich shop.

The working method is somewhat different, too. In one of the publishers, for example, the senior management team would hold a regular stand-up meeting. The idea was that the discussion would be shorter and more focused if everyone stood. The reality was that the meeting would take exactly as long as usual but just be much less comfortable.

Fortunately, I was not of a high enough status to be included in these gatherings; my lower-ranking colleagues and I would watch the proceedings from our desks through the glass meeting room walls (because everything was made of glass), laughing to ourselves.

At FRS, our meetings take place round the office table, where we get to finish off the cake or biscuits from the previous night’s shul event, before dashing back to our desks because everyone has such an extraordinary amount to do.

It would be easy to draw some trite conclusions here about corporate life being materialistic and shallow, while working in a community is important and fulfilling. It’s not that simple, though.

I used to make children’s books for a living; that was a pretty great and privileged thing to get paid to do and my colleagues were hard working and passionate.

Now my work is meaningful in quite a different way and my colleagues are equally dedicated.

In my first week at FRS, a member called Margaret walked into the office. “I’ve come for my shredded paper,” she said.

“Ah yes,” said Rhiannon, and helped Margaret empty the contents of the office shredder into the large shopping bag she’d brought with her.

“It’s for my garden,” Margaret explained to me, seeing my bemused look. “For making compost.” Some discussion followed about needing to bring a bigger bag next time, and then she went on her way.

This seemingly unremarkable incident made me unaccountably happy. I loved my old career, but nevertheless, Rhiannon’s comment after my Singing for Memory experience merely echoed something I had already discovered for myself: it is pretty cool working in a synagogue.

Singing for Memory is sponsored by Jewish Care. To find out more, email FRS.