Now, this is a generous paid-time-off policy
You think absenteeism is a problem in this country? Check out what’s been happening in Spain.
Officials in the town of Jerez de la Frontera, in the southern part of the country, recently announced that a driver and a gardener on the municipal payroll were being fired — because they hadn’t shown up for work in 15 years.
The town’s HR department first discovered the two hadn’t reported for work in all of 2015 and so far in 2016. They were still picking up their paychecks, however.
And a little more investigation revealed that their “vacation” might have been even longer. “According to a written statement by the men themselves this situation could date back 15 years,” town officials announced.
According to a story on thelocal.es, an English-language website that covers Spanish news, the two men were union members and were “simply taking off their ‘accumulated days’ and those of other employees” — which, apparently, can be shared under the terms of the union agreement.
That’s a generous group of co-workers — giving up 15 years’ worth of paid time off.
At least he put his time to good use
The Jerez de la Frontera story’s rather disturbing on its own, of course, but it follows on the heels of the case of the engineer employed by the water company in Cadiz, Spain.
Joaquin Garcia was employed as an engineer by the municipal water board in Cadiz. As part of Garcia’s job, he was expected to supervise a waste water treatment plant.
At some point, Garcia simply decided to stop coming in to work. According to a report in The Guardian, Garcia didn’t go to work for at least six years — during which, of course, he continued to collect a paycheck.
Garcia apparently made the most of his “paid” time off by becoming a voracious reader of philosophy works. So how did the man the Spanish media dubbed “el funcionario fantasma (the phantom official)” eventually get caught?
He was — check this out — slated to receive an award for two decades of “loyal service.”
Garcia, doing what he did best, was a no-show.
This prompted a co-worker whose office was across from Garcia’s to come forward and admit he hadn’t actually seen the 69-year-old engineer for years.
Eventually the facts of the situation came to light, and a court imposed a fine of €27,000 ($30,000), the max an employer could legally reclaim.
