A Good Day at Work

Today was a great day at work, one of those days where I enjoyed every moment. I spent the morning at the warehouse just outside of Madrid, then returned to the office and spent a good 2 hours talking through some questions with the accounting supervisor in the office. He and I both enjoy peppering our work-related conversation with the occasional exchange of cultural differences.

Today's discussion (both work-related and personally intresting): vacation and other benefits. Everyone in the Madrid office earns 30 days per year, but this includes weekends. So, essentially, they earn 21.4 working vacation days per year. This is considerably more than I earn, but their extra public days off make the difference more pronounced.

Also, both vacation days as well as salaries and other benefits are negotiated on their behalf by their industry's trade union. Each industry has its own trade union, which negotiates many of requirements for salary and benefits from management down to warehouse workers.

And this is to say nothing of the 15.5 'monthly' paychecks they receive during a year. This is too complicated to explain on these pages!

Yes, it is these differences that sometimes enchant me and sometimes make me glad to call Chicago my home. Tonight, for instance, after appetizer, dinner, dessert, and coffee, we waited 30 minutes in a hot, smoky room for the bill. As I got impatient about leaving the restaurant after coffee, I realized that I am quite the harried American!

However, today, on our way out of the warehouse, I saw a warehouse worker driving a forklift with a few pallets of material on the fork. He was lackadaisical, not minding the bumps on the road up to the receiving dock. The best part of the moment was that he was casually smoking a cigarette as he drove the forklift into the warehouse. I wish I could have snapped a photo. It would have captured the Spanish carefree attitude, even if this same attitude is sometimes foolish, dangerous, and backwards, part of me admires it. All I can say is, "Viva España," and may the differences among nations and cultures continue to intrigue, inspire and make this world a wonderful place to live!