Because, Spain

[RETAC21]

On 8/26/2023 at 5:57 PM, sunday said:

Lol - not even the most work-shy civil servant does that from Madrid up north, AFAIK. I do not know enough of southern Spain to report on the situation there, however.

I could believe that of some southern aristocrats, OTOH, like the ones caricatured by Alfonso Ussía in his Marqués de Sotoancho series. 

Except on Fridays

[DB]

On 8/27/2023 at 1:34 AM, Ivanhoe said:

 

I've noticed that when northern Yurrupeens and Americans write about Spain, they often seem to be writing about some notional Spain circa 1967.

 

The prevailing US stereotypes of the UK are evenly split between Edwardian, WW2 and Austin Powers' 1960s, so it shouldn't be a surprise.

My 5 months contract work in Madrid in the mid 90s had little of this. Lunch was one hour, San Miguel was in the drinks can dispenser but frowned upon unofficially. Evening meals in restaurants typically could be started about 21:30, earlier and the kitchen prep wasn't finished so you could order but you'd have to wait.

In the summer, evening activities, particularly vigorous sports often started after dark. Horse racing in the summer days would kill the nags, so that would happen much later.

Work typically started around 09:00, but ESA was probably different to more normal jobs.

[RETAC21]

2 hours ago, DB said:

The prevailing US stereotypes of the UK are evenly split between Edwardian, WW2 and Austin Powers' 1960s, so it shouldn't be a surprise.

My 5 months contract work in Madrid in the mid 90s had little of this. Lunch was one hour, San Miguel was in the drinks can dispenser but frowned upon unofficially. Evening meals in restaurants typically could be started about 21:30, earlier and the kitchen prep wasn't finished so you could order but you'd have to wait.

In the summer, evening activities, particularly vigorous sports often started after dark. Horse racing in the summer days would kill the nags, so that would happen much later.

Work typically started around 09:00, but ESA was probably different to more normal jobs.

The article is correct in that Spain is not in it's "natural" time zone, which should be GMT and that the change was enacted by Franco, but it was kept by democratic governments for the same reasons, to be in the same time zone as France, Italy or Germany, synchronizing the work day (typically 09:00-18:00 with a one hour lunch break 14:00-15:00, enterprising souls can have a short siesta there).

That said, that lunch break means that exit time becomes optional in most works and consultants and such will work past dinner time (around 21:00) routinely.

Only recently, our local Che Guevaras have started to enforce overtime regulation somewhat (it's on the books but ignored by just about everyone) and the pressure from Gen Z/Gen X has shortened working hours a bit.

Anyone having dinner before 22:00 is a barbarian, IMO.

[Ssnake]

1 hour ago, RETAC21 said:

Anyone having dinner before 22:00 is a barbarian, IMO.

It's absurd and crazy. 😜

[RETAC21]

5 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

It's absurd and crazy. 😜

That's why we should be the master race and not the Russians, but we are too lazy to implement...

[seahawk]

On 2/13/2024 at 11:45 PM, urbanoid said:

I hope those responsible for this will hang one day, alternatively go into the woodchipper. 

Could it be this reportedly nonexistent slippery slope?

As I expected from the date it was posted. That was part of a carnival event. And the children belonged to a carnival group and simply wore the same outfits as the adults.

Skip to around 27:00

[bojan]

4 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

That's why we should be the master race and not the Russians, but we are too lazy to implement...

Brother works for international software company that does banking software. They have special online meeting scheduled at 4pm, but only if they are doing something with Spanish and Portuguese team. Reason? Otherwise both will get offline after 3pm siesta and will not get back until next day...

[Ssnake]

Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to have the same costumes for the children in the first place. This isn't the first time people pointing out that the sexualization of children is a terrible idea - thirty years ago we had the "Mini Playback Show" with pretty much the same problem - eight year-olds dressed like hookers and sluts just to match the outfit of the original artists (which raises the question since when dressing up like prostitutes became a desirable thing for non-prostitutes ... but OK, this is hardly a "Because, Spain" thing).

[sunday]

13 minutes ago, bojan said:

Brother works for international software company that does banking software. They have special online meeting scheduled at 4pm, but only if they are doing something with Spanish and Portuguese team. Reason? Otherwise both will get offline after 3pm siesta and will not get back until next day...

Looks like the Spanish team is on some ministry that only works mornings. Time ago, we knew civil servants in Ministry of Public Works ended their daily shift at 14:30 so no chance of finding them after 14:20.

[Roman Alymov]

6 minutes ago, sunday said:

Looks like the Spanish team is on some ministry that only works mornings. Time ago, we knew civil servants in Ministry of Public Works ended their daily shift at 14:30 so no chance of finding them after 14:20.

But what time they were starting? As far as i was told, a lot of people in Spain start their working day extremely early, at 4-5 AM to make most of the work before heat hours. Tourists usually do not see this and caompain about lazy Spanish who are out of work too early.....

[sunday]

2 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

But what time they were starting? As far as i was told, a lot of people in Spain start their working day extremely early, at 4-5 AM to make most of the work before heat hours. Tourists usually do not see this and caompain about lazy Spanish who are out of work too early.....

That is summer hours, starting at 7:00, likely. But those are civil servant hours, 35 weekly hours. We on the private sector but working in the same railway industry usually did 14 hours days.

[seahawk]

13 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to have the same costumes for the children in the first place. This isn't the first time people pointing out that the sexualization of children is a terrible idea - thirty years ago we had the "Mini Playback Show" with pretty much the same problem - eight year-olds dressed like hookers and sluts just to match the outfit of the original artists (which raises the question since when dressing up like prostitutes became a desirable thing for non-prostitutes ... but OK, this is hardly a "Because, Spain" thing).

Spanish carnival has always been strangely queer.

[bojan]

14 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

But what time they were starting? As far as i was told, a lot of people in Spain start their working day extremely early, at 4-5 AM to make most of the work before heat hours...

In case of brother's company - standard 9am to 5pm job (Serbia is same timezone as Spain, so no issues there...), with 1h pause for launch included, so 7 work hours per day. In practice it is probably closer to 6&1/2.

Edited February 16 by bojan

[DB]

15 hours ago, sunday said:

Looks like the Spanish team is on some ministry that only works mornings. Time ago, we knew civil servants in Ministry of Public Works ended their daily shift at 14:30 so no chance of finding them after 14:20.

Back in the late nineties, I recall that there was a push to shorten working hours to attempt to force employers to hire more people (under 25 unemployment rate was, I think above 20% at the time). I don't suppose one needs to explain how well that works, especially noting the "overtime rules widely ignored" comment above.

[RETAC21]

17 hours ago, bojan said:

Brother works for international software company that does banking software. They have special online meeting scheduled at 4pm, but only if they are doing something with Spanish and Portuguese team. Reason? Otherwise both will get offline after 3pm siesta and will not get back until next day...

Bastards! I knew they were doing this on purpose! 

My personal pain is UKians scheduling meetings after their lunch hour... right at mine.

[RETAC21]

1 hour ago, DB said:

Back in the late nineties, I recall that there was a push to shorten working hours to attempt to force employers to hire more people (under 25 unemployment rate was, I think above 20% at the time). I don't suppose one needs to explain how well that works, especially noting the "overtime rules widely ignored" comment above.

That didn't got anywhere, except on the public sectors. Official hours remain at 40 for most sectors, but as Sunday points out, there's a lot of "seat warming" becoming overtime.

Only once I had to do that as my Big 4 had sold the client a number of hours, but trying to do 10 in the time alloted to 8 usually takes care of that, and overtime remained routine, until the recent law forced time tracking and then it became a serious matter. The problem is that the available work will expand to cover all the hours of the day, so there's a lot of time wasted. This is not exclusive of Spain, but the split day doesn't help a bit.

@Roman Alymov work hours are 9 to 18 pretty much everywhere but in commerce, where it's usually 10 to 22, in 2 shifts, and restaurants and such, where's is whatever waiters put up with.

[DB]

3 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

Bastards! I knew they were doing this on purpose! 

My personal pain is UKians scheduling meetings after their lunch hour... right at mine.

If the UK finishes lunch at 1pm, then that's 2pm European. it's quite understandable that they'd think yours was not only eaten, but half digested.

If you ever get to schedule meetings, set one at 12 noon UK time and when they complain, politely mention that they've been crashing your lunch for years.

[RETAC21]

14 minutes ago, DB said:

If the UK finishes lunch at 1pm, then that's 2pm European. it's quite understandable that they'd think yours was not only eaten, but half digested.

If you ever get to schedule meetings, set one at 12 noon UK time and when they complain, politely mention that they've been crashing your lunch for years.

There's always the decline button. Retaliation comes when I schedule meetings at 9:00 Local...🤪

[BansheeOne]

This sounds like Grenfell Tower all over again, if thankfully not with the same death toll magnitude.

Quote

Valencia fire death toll rises to 10 as questions swirl

6 minutes ago

Officials in Valencia say the death toll from an apartment complex blaze has risen to 10. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited the city, saying victims "lost everything in a matter of minutes."

The death toll from a devastating apartment fire in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia has risen to 10, officials said Friday. Initially, the death toll stood at four with up to 15 people missing.

"We can confirm that following a first inspection, forensic police have found 10 fatalities," regional administrator Pilar Bernabe told reporters.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday traveled to Valencia to see the damage firsthand and to meet with local officials. 

Speaking with reporters, Sanchez said residents had, "lost everything in a matter of minutes in this terrible fire."

Authorities investigating cause of fire

The blaze began on Thursday evening for as yet unknown reasons on the fourth floor of the 138-unit, 14-story apartment complex and immediately spread, accelerated by high winds.

Esther Puchades, the head of Valencia's Industrial Engineers' Association, confirmed that the building's cladding included polyurethane, and that this likely contributed to the acceleration of the fire.

However, the association for the polyurethane industry said in a statement that no polyurethane was used in the building's facade.

Observers were quick to draw parallels to London's 2017, Grenfell Tower blaze, which was traced back to the use of highly flammable facade elements and led to the death of 72 residents.

Now, only a skeleton of the former Valencia structure remains as firefighters and engineers seek to determine whether the complex will have to be razed due to structural damage the building may have suffered from extended high temperatures.

Firefighters on Friday battled falling debris and damaged infrastructure as they continued to look for survivors and identify the charred remains of victims. Officials say there is little hope of finding anyone alive inside the building.

A local magistrate has already announced an investigation into the incident.

[...]

https://www.dw.com/en/valencia-fire-death-toll-rises-to-10-as-questions-swirl/a-68356950

[urbanoid]

Quote

The life hack of all life hacks right here!

Men in uniform are changing their gender in order to take advantage of benefits which have been awarded to women as part of a positive discrimination campaign aimed at resolving inequality.

Yeah, read that again if you need to. It's 2024, and it's getting much harder to keep up with where reality is headed.

Just say you're a woman and you get extra benefits. Can't argue with that.

Spanish soldiers are changing their gender from male to female to earn certain benefits only available to females, including higher pay and better sleeping quarters, due to a self-identification law aimed at helping transgender people.

Forty-one men in Spain's north-Africa autonomous city Ceuta have made the drastic decision to change their gender on official documents from male to female since the so-called "Ley-de-Trans" or "Trans Law" was implemented in March 2023.

Of the men in Ceuta who've changed their identity, only four have also legally changed their name.

A majority of the now-female soldiers have kept every other aspect of life, including male genitalia, sexuality, and even facial hair.

I'm sorry, but we gotta give it up for these guys — err, I mean, girls.

These men are living out the dream that all men in today's day and age have had at one time or another: Stick it to the wokies by claiming to be a girl and then reap the benefits that come with it. It's amazing, and I am personally jealous of these men — sorry, wo-men. I'm struggling here.

Check out how wonderfully this guy is living his truth:

"On the outside, I feel like a heterosexual man, but on the inside, I am a lesbian," Army Corporal Roberto Perdigones told Spanish newspaper El Español. "And it is the latter that counts. This is why I made the legal change to become a woman" …

Perdigones says he was encouraged to change his gender because of "positive discrimination" and has since received a 15 percent salary increase.

"For changing my gender, I have been told that my pension has gone up because women get more to compensate for inequality. I also get 15 percent more salary for being a mother," he added.

The soldier is looking to use his additional privilege as a woman to sue for shared custody of his 16-year-old son, assuming the courts will give him a better chance ...

"I even have a private room in the barracks, all to myself, with a private bathroom. This is because I cannot be with men as I am a woman, and I did not consider it appropriate to be with biological women out of respect for them," Perdigones said.

Bro is living his best life!

And things are looking great for Spain's future, too.

Other law enforcement agencies are seeing a rise in their members changing their genders as a form of rebellion against the law, sources told El Español.

"I have already seen several cases among my colleagues, and it is going to increase," a Civil Guard source told the newspaper. "There are quite a few people who have requested it and are in the process. So, from time to time, the number is going to be much higher."

 

https://notthebee.com/article/these-spanish-soldiers-are-changing-their-gender-from-male-to-female-in-order-to-receive-better-benefits

Edited March 8 by urbanoid

[Ssnake]

State offers money for making a claim that's impossible to falsify.

 

Sounds like a great idea!

With the best of intentions!

What could possibly go wrong?

[sunday]

Exactly.

One could do that without changing his given name, even. So you could have a "female" NCO named José, with all the privileges a female soldier gets, like an individual room with its own bathroom in barracks. Better chances at promotion, too.

And a nice shield against frivolous "sexist violence" claims.

There are a bit too much inequality baked into modern Spanish laws.

Shades of this:

 

Edited March 8 by sunday

[sunday]

Inquiring little girl checking if the King was real by pinching him

 

[Stargrunt6]

Gasp, assault on the Royal Person! Guards, guards!

[seahawk]

47 minutes ago, sunday said:

Inquiring little girl checking if the King was real by pinching him

 

That is why I love Spain. People are laid back.