I always find it ironic that here in the expat community in Spain there are so many people looking for work, but when you need someone to do a job they are practically impossible to find.
The wages are low of course which doesn´t help. I have lived in Spain for 23 years and it seems to me wages have never gone up, in fact maybe have gone down. “La crisis” ( the recession) and lately Covid have stunted economic growth. Contracts are few and far between as it is so expensive in Spain to put your staff on contract, so few small business do it.
So it is quite depressing when you advertise for work as you receive hundreds of applications, few of which are appropriate. The first problem are people who have recently arrived in Spain. They have high UK – like wage expectations, (or wherever their country is) and they have not realised yet they will never be met. If they are, they will be expected to work practically 24 hours and sweat blood, especially if there is a contract on offer as well. Sometimes they will be lucky to get paid what they are promised at all, and may find out the contract they thought they were on in fact doesn´t exist.
My experiences of working for other people I will leave to another post. But basically bad experiences working for other people in Spain is the reason a lot of us work for ourselves. If you are going to be insecure anyway you may as well be insecure working for yourself.
So when Judy came along for an interview for a part time receptionist she was one of these. She had recently left her job working for a big and quite prestigous company in the UK and relocated to Spain. I should have been prepared because if she mentioned this company once she mentioned it a thousand times, so much so that a student who was there at her interview actually messaged me to say it takes a bullshittter to know one and he recognised her certainly as one.
I gave her the benefit of the doubt as I thought she was probably trying to impress, and she seemed to have a cheery personality and be very willing to please. Another clue I should have noticed however was that she seemed to have brought lots of things from this company with her, stationery etc. Anyway she seemed like the best of a not so brilliant bunch and she began work.
I am a very small business with a fluctuating income, even without Covid. Sometimes we are very busy, other times not so much. The job is varied, a little bit of anything that basically makes my life easier and Judy was aware of and agreed to this from the start. Some receptionists like the variance as I think it means the job is not boring, but maybe it wouldn´t suit everyone.
This is always made clear from the start, as it was to Judy, and she agreed enthusiastically. I did come to realise however her favourite part was sitting at her desk on the computer. In my experience people agree to everything in the beginning then try to change the parameters as they go along to suit themselves and make the job about them rather than you. Judy was one of those.
She “friended” nearly all the students on Facebook starting making a register even though that was something I did anyway, was glued to her phone often. In my opinion I don´t feel I should have to tell a woman of over 40 that this is not acceptable at work. She only worked part time so she had plenty of time outside work to sort out her personal life. However, in other things she was good no one is perfect so I turned a blind eye to a lot of things in the beginning.
As time went on, she started asking for more hours. She said that she liked the job but needed more hours. I tried my best to find them for her. Sometimes it is easier than others, depending on the time of year and how busy we are. After a while it became a constant strain so I had to admit I could only guarantee the part time hours she agreed to in the beginning, and I understood if she needed to look for a full time job. She said she would but she would give me plenty of notice. So things continued and I gave her as many extra hours as possible.
I constantly asked her if she had enough to do there is always something to do if you run out of work just let me know. Yes, she agreed. Another little irk I had was that she was always late. She did travel a long way, which was a concern I expressed at the beginning but of course she said it wouldn´t be a problem. The classes start at 9 and I wanted her to be here when the students arrived so I even started paying her from 8.45 to make sure she was there on time. Otherwise she would always arrive at gone 9.
This sort of boiled over one day when I had to be somewhere and waited until 8.50- no sign- and came out to find her sat in her car texting. I was a little miffed. The worst thing however was the day one of my (then Skype-now Zoom) students had to leave the class briefly as someone arrived at their house. It turned out to be longer than they though so I was amusing myself on the computer. The computer I use for Skype is the one Judy normally used.
So I clicked into the “history”
Very interesting-
Weeks of visits to various sites: Latest on X-Factor, Facebook, Google news, Colleen Rooney bust up, houses for sale. job applications, various entries to her personal gmail account etc etc. On one day there were 22 visits to it.
I was very hurt, as I had tried my best to give Judy as many hours as possible and it seems she had used many of those hours for her personal life. I did not mind the job applications etc but in her own time. If she had asked me to use the computer for an hour I would have agreed of course. But honesty is everything. That she had done this while telling me she had plenty of work to do to me was unforgivable. Or if it had only been a couple of personal things in one day- but not the extent it was. She only worked 3 days a week, she had plenty of her own time to see what was happening in the X Factor.
When I challenged her, initially what she said was: Oh, ok I went on the computer in my lunch break… Er you are paid straight through, you only work part time you do not get a lunch break, but 15 mins to eat something is fine. Anyway looking at your emails 22 times in your lunch break that you don´t have? Needless to say we parted company. I wish Judy well, she bought my books to learn Spanish and then immediately blocked me on Facebook and Whatsapp. Presumably she has enough friends now with all the students she added. She never apologised, I think she thought she was “entitled” to do that. At the big company she had worked for before it would have gone unnoticed.
Luckily, I have had nice receptionists too 🙂
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CONFESSIONS OF A SPANISH TEACHER 