Going Postal
07 February 2015
or ELTA pay.
The Greeks have a (generally undeserved) reputation for idleness and profligacy. This is especially noticeable in the more rabidly xenophobic reaches of the British press. Here, the poor Bubbles are frequently accused of being work-shy parasites, sitting on their arses all day and living the high life at the expense of the poor, hardworking, Northern European taxpayer.
Contrary to these assertions, the Greeks (at least those few of them lucky enough to actually have a job) work the longest hours in the EU, well ahead of the UK and Germany (or behind of course, depending on how you look at it).
The sting in the tail, though, comes when you consider how productive they are. They may work all the hours God sends and then some, but they don't seem to get a lot actually done. If you order the EU countries by productivity the Greeks are well down - 21st out of 28 in fact.
The only countries less productive (and the more geographically ept amongst you may see a pattern develop here) are Bulgaria, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland and Romania. This lack of productivity is hardly surprising. Workers in all these countries work far fewer hours per week than the Greeks. In addition, most of the Poles' productive work takes place outside Poland anyway, mostly in propping up the British and German economies and helping to pay my pension.
I have a theory about this. Like most of my theories it is almost completely unsubstantiated by fact or evidence. It also shamelessly panders to my prejudices and preconceptions, but it's my blog and my theory so you're going to get it anyway. I contend that, despite the received wisdom on the combined effects of globalization and the EU, European culture is far from becoming homogenous. On top of the myriad extant national cultural quirks, Europe is divided into two opposing world views or Weltanschauungen if you want to show off and come over all intellectual. These are characterised by attitudes to work and rules.
On the one hand there is the Protestant work-ethic model which emphasizes individual responsibility and views work and obeying rules as an over-riding duty if not a sacred obligation. Such societies tend to cluster in the North and West of the continent.
The alternative view is the Catholic-fatalist model. This sees work as a heavy burden imposed by fate, and rule breaking as an intrinsic and generally unavoidable part of the human condition, which can be forgiven in return for penitence. These underlying assumptions permeate through most aspects of a society's culture, but if you really want to see it in action take a butcher's at a post office in action.
The initial impression on entering a Greek post office is that you've wandered into an amalgam of a refugee camp, a trading-floor bear pit and a run on a bank. Virtually every aspect of civil life takes place in a post office. Money and paperwork fly in all directions. Ever-diminishing pensions are paid out (avoid all Mondays in general and the first Monday of the month in particular). Permits and licences are obtained. Bills are paid in, as are taxes, the last-mentioned only on rare occasions and then only by those without enough money to avoid having to pay them. Which is most Greeks. Conversations are held across the melee at shout-level and people mill about waving forms, hands and money around like a convention of demented tic-tac men.
At the far side of this seething mass of humanity, dwarfed and overwhelmed by the chaotic free-for-all, sit two isolated female desk clerks. The scene resembles newsreel footage of famine relief efforts where heavily outnumbered volunteers gallantly fail to stave off the frantic predations of the desperate and dispossessed.
At first sight, you would expect them to be at their wits' end, run ragged and verging on total nervous collapse. You would be wrong. They have been doing this for years and have developed a coping mechanism. They appear to have entered a deep, Zen-like state and carry out their duties calmly, deliberately and infuriatingly slowly.
Their attention to detail is legendary. This, I suspect, explains their Zen state. Meditation at such an advanced level requires a mantra. Their mantra is probably all 27 volumes of the Greek Postal Service Rules & Procedures Manual. Every transaction in a Greek post office (and there are thousands of different ones) must be carried out exactly in accordance with a detailed procedure. Failure on the most minor point invalidates the entire process and you have to start over again.
As a result, the length of the average visit to a Greek post office is usually measured in geological time. Most Greeks therefore take food with them when they visit the post office and the Greek postal service recognizes this by supplying seats and tables. It also explains why almost all Greek men sport beards. Most of them grew to their current luxurious fullness while the owner was waiting in a post office queue.
The first reaction of the foreigner on encountering this phenomenon is that the office is horrendously understaffed. Closer inspection though puts the lie to this judgment. Our gallant clerks are not alone. For a start, there is Mrs Overall.
Mrs. Overall is not noticed at first as she is very highly trained to blend in with her background. She can be recognized, despite her chameleon qualities, by her faded floral pinafore. Her primary task seems to consist of listlessly flicking an ancient and battered broom into random and disjointed spots amongst the scattered boxes and files behind the clerks. Her trance-like reverie is occasionally interrupted by being asked for coffee or being dispatched to find someone's glasses. From observation, her entire day's workload could be completed in about half an hour by a semi-comatose three-toed sloth. However, she probably gets paid diddley-squat so it's not a problem in the grand scheme of things.
At least Mrs. Overall can be seen to be doing something useful, however small. This is more than can be said for the other three employees who become apparent on more detailed observation. These are all men of a certain age. One looks like a shelled tortoise. The second is seriously overweight and has thinning, wiry, salt & pepper hair tied back in a pony tail. The third is rotund with a bushy white beard. I mentally filed them as 'Gollum', 'Sleazebag' and 'Bagpuss'.
At first glance their primary task appears to involve flitting between computers, one in the tiny office and the others scattered strategically throughout the desks cluttering the work area behind the clerks. Once at a computer, they sit down, frown at the screen, waggle the mouse around a bit and make a few desultory clicks. Then they frown at the screen again, walk over to the next computer and repeat the process.
After you have watched them for a while it becomes clear that this is a feint, a cover for their true purpose which is to hinder the clerks and slow them down from a plod to an amoebic slither.
It soon becomes apparent that the three musketeers here, despite their seeming seniority, don't have the slightest idea of how to carry out even the most basic tasks associated with running a post office. As a result they frequently interrupt the clerks with queries, waving a piece of paper under their noses and demanding its immediate completion. The clerk then loses her concentration. Her Zen-like repose shatters and she has to go back to the beginning of the interrupted process. Her current customer seriously considers strangling himself with his own small intestine.
That is not to say that the three musketeers here do no useful work at all. They serve a very valuable purpose for their friends and relations. These favoured few breeze in, elbow their way through the assembled hordes and cheerfully hail their chosen musketeer. After an animated few minutes of handshakes and conversation, the interloper hands over his or her paperwork to the musketeer, who looks at it, decides he has no idea how to process it, and promptly hands it to one of the clerks and gets it sorted out on the spot. The clerk then goes back to square one of her interrupted procedure. Her interrupter triumphantly returns it to his friend with an air of indulgent magnanimity, smug in the knowledge of yet another favour notched up on the social scoreboard. The assembled hoi polloi seem hardly fazed by this brazen favouritism, and can't even be bothered to raise a resigned sigh.
It did, however, give me an idea for a business plan. I shall set up franchise for a stall in every post office. It will sell wax effigies of the three musketeers or their equivalents and long, sharp pins. Not only will I make a shedload of money, but if the voodoo actually works then the productivity of the Greek postal system will quadruple overnight.