DAY 6: La economía

In the tough financial times that we've had over the recent years, some might ask why the Spanish economy is especially bad...I think I could give the explanation a fair go without going into too much detail about GDP and GNP and all that other stuff that I am meant to know from uni...

1. Everything in the workplace is done 'luego'. This means 'later'. You ask for something to be done and then ooh two days later they are working on it.
2. They all sleep in the afternoons - the typical Spanish 'siesta'. Does any work get done in this time? No. Instead, let's just have a beer over a massive lunch and then go to sleep for a couple of hours as working at 2pm is just too stressful.
3. The banks shut at 2.30pm. That means you have half an hour from the start of your siesta at 2pm to run to the bank before it closes. Does it reopen again? Very rarely. Can you go in your spare time at the weekend? Paha!
4. Work starts at 9am, but at 11am it's time for another breakfast. A good 45 minutes of work lost again.
5. Spanish women don't like English girls. Say you have a 20 year old English girl working as an unpaid intern for you, it is advisable to look at them with pity like an animal at the zoo. Teamwork - nah!
6. Spanish men like English girls. More time is spent looking at their breasts than looking at the computer screen.

Just an observation!

DAY 5: La Fashionista

Spanish exchanges who came to our school were always memorable for dressing poorly. They would arrive with their polo-necks, baggy jeans and rucksacks, whilst us girls, at the age of 14, would be wearing uggs, skinny jeans and a tighter-fitting top to highlight our then AA-cup breasts. I guess I assumed that the exchanges just hadn’t grown into what we saw as ‘fashion’, however, seeing the women in the office on my first day of work, I think maybe poor dress sense is a Spanish thing. Middle-aged women dressed in floral dresses that were all too short for their older bodies to pull off, combining that with make-up that looked like they hadn’t taken off since the 80’s. I arrived, business chic, being the ‘sexy businesswomen’ I had always wanted to be. There I was in my tight black pencil skirt, peplum top (highlighting my now D-cup breasts) and ‘office’ stilettos, looking more like I was going out for drinks than a day in the office. Maybe acceptable in London, but here, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

If I’m honest, my first day at work was crap. That’s the only way to put it. My boss, Raquel, looked at me like a piece of shit and told me to unpack her boxes into her new desk. As I stumbled around in my heels and tight skirt unloading these many crates, I thought to myself ‘Is this really a marketing internship? No’. So after my first day, I am referring to her as the ‘office bitch’, but hopefully this will change over time.