amideislas

Two things that bother me about this:

1. I pay the taxes that pay for that that office's expenses. In the course of business, you don't always know they need a copy of this, that or the other. In my opinion, it's incredibly cheeky to require me to unexpectedly carry copies of everything all the time, or have to pay a premium (not even considering my time and having to run down the street, and then stand in the queue all over again) for unexpectedly making a copy, just so they can save a penny, and cost me 100x that in the process. Worse than that, sometimes they end up not even needing them anyway.

2. This is just one small example of the trend that we are increasingly all obliged to accept: Living with less, taking on more burden, whilst paying more.

Government is supposed to work for us, not the other way 'round. It is overbloated, inefficient, lazy, and has precious little accountability (like any monopoly) and we already pay for that excess. Yet we are increasingly expected to take on even the most petty burdens which end up costing us far more, just so someone doesn't have to move their arse one centimeter more than they have to. There's probably some public employment law covering that.

In the private sector, the same condition could be referred to as "moral hazard". Look it up.

And we wonder why we are going broke.

Fredbargate

I think this is the time to repost this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXWZ3uAEKsw

me me

It makes a change to see someone who still has faith in the funkies and how they do their jobs, believe me it is quite rare.

My OH posted about a man who went to the dole only to find out that his employer had not paid his SS. he was not entitled to claim anything despite having a family to support.

"what did the funcionario say?"

NEXT.

me me

yes

cricketman

That's a very misleading post. If your employer hasnt been paying your social security then there are measures you can take against them, but obviously the funcionario who processes the paro application may not know what they are.

The problem is if your employer hasnt been paying the social security contributions and since then has gone bankrupt. In such cases employees are not entitled to government support until the social security payments have been made and they can then get the "finiquito" from their employer. There was a case on TV of a group of workers in Malaga who have been waiting for their case to go through the courts and hadn't received a penny from either employer or the government for over two years.

Of course because of this they have also lost their homes and relying on neighbours and friends for food etc. A very sad case

Lynn R

It may have something to do that I was one, in a former life, in fact a regional manager of funcionarios or civil servants, I should say. We had all the same problems as the Spanish ones do, believe me, with cuts in budgets and staffing and the public still expecting the same amount and standards of services. You get the few bad apples who are incompetent or rude or both in all organisation everywhere, but in general I find in Spain that they are no different to the people I was used to working with, and if I ask them for what I want, politely, and listen carefully to what they tell me I need to provide in order to get it, I have no problems. Although it may be tempting to rail at them and say why do I have to do that, it's a waste of time, or why am I not entitled to this or that, ultimately that really is a waste of time and will get me nowhere as it isn't the individual in front of me who lays down what I am entitled to or what documentation I have to provide to get it.

It is very difficult to be in a job where you are forced to tell people in a desperate situation, every day, that they are not entitled to any help because the Government of the day says they are not. My former husband worked in a Job Centre and was often threatened with violence from claimants because he had to do just that. When I worked for a trade union we had members in a local Housing Office who had someone walk in and set fire to himself in front of them (he died) because he could not get a Council flat. A colleague of mine had to go and visit a man in his own home and advise him that he was likely to lose his job because of long term ill health - he pulled a knife on her and she was lucky to be able to get out of the house without serious injury. We had to call the police because his wife and children were still in the house and whilst my colleague did not want to press charges, we were worried about their safety because of his state of mind. Of course, to the general public all these people are just officious pen pushers sitting in offices who take pleasure in treating people badly, that's the way it goes.

me me

Why is my post misleading?
You don´ t know the circumstances or the outcome.

What you are saying is misleading about payments made to see people through until things get sorted out. You must be joking.
Also aside from your new found empathy and crocodile tears (pinched that from Amideislas) I am sure you still don´t know anyone who is struggling or having any kind of hardship (as you WERE so fond of telling us) and now you seem to know how easy it is for the disadvantaged to get financial help from the government.

Well FYI it is not as you say, I see people who are going through hell, some self induced and others from no fault of their own.

I see people struggling to pay prescriptions, I see and hear of good charity workers doing all they can.

You have become such a virtual bleeding heart lately that it is just unreal, you seem to be all for the underdog, but then from time to time your true feelings shine through your posts, and you more or less call people liars who do have knowledge of these things happening to real people who they see on the streets.

Well my post is not misleading, and you are a fool.

me me

It was a typo, but now that I look at it, it does seem like a hybrid word, and the two words it was formed from seem pretty obvious once it has been pointed out.

HBG

It's nice to observe the chattering classes chattering with a bit of knowledge of the subject they are chattering about. I've got some knowledge of the Spanish funcionarios, evidenced by some large cardboard boxes containing hundreds of official forms all bearing those important stamps, obtained by blood, sweat and tears, and endless queuing, until I discovered what Gestors were for. And those important brown envelopes.

I think you have a simple choice in bureaucratic Spain, you either try and make sense of the system and risk serious damage to your mental health, or you go to your local newsagent and buy some brown envelopes.

But caution is advised nowadays, after Luis Barcenas, the guy who passed brown envelopes to our leaders until he pissed them off when they found out he couldn't count and had managed to salt away 48 million in Swiss bank accounts.