A totally greek experience.
It’s been almost a month now that I took responsibility for moving offices of artnsports. We are currently working together on a couple of projects and thought that getting involved on the new building preparation will not only get some weight off their shoulders but it will also help me remember my initial occupation (that I have almost never practiced), interior design.
Needless to say, this decision had many surprises waiting in line for me.
Not that anything didn’t work or that I regretted it. In the contrary, coming from London to Athens, this was an opportunity for me to remember the greek way of working, talk to people and see how the market is functioning in terms of organisation, programming and quality of work.
Having worked on a couple of greek architectural practices before, I did have a vague idea of how much of fun a struggle this would be, and given the fact that this is August (it really is a dead month in Greece; everybody is on holidays), I was not expecting much of great results.
A list of actions, a list of contact numbers and a lot of courage were the three initial things I found myself having in the beginning of the task.
Contacting someone in Greece for work is a bit of a tricky thing. I mean you can definitely call them at work or contact them by email but try to find an electrician or an air-condition technician at his office and you are going to spend hours on the phone hearing that repetitive bipping noise.
The trick is the mobile. They are always on a building site and always busy. Always on the run and in most cases.. late. I have seen it with my own eyes. They are trying hard. I mean really hard. They are trying to please everyone and whenever in a job, they are always remotely helping someone else do another job or organising the next site visit (always in .. half an hour!).
But that’s ok. Really, nine out of ten people are so nice you can hardly believe it. There is no extra time, there is no extra charge or complains about work. As soon as you become friends with them (which happens in the fist half an hour in most cases..), the greek pride goes in full focus and no unsatisfied client should be left (at least for that very moment of each product delivery. After a couple of days probably nothing will be working but not to worry; you can always call them on the mobile!).
I also had to deal with the electricity company (ΔΕΗ) and the telephone one (ΟΤΕ). The later, was sorted out extremely fast, as the very kind lady decided that we are nice people too, so put us on top of the list. Poor other people; they are still waiting in line just because they didn’t say the right words. Everybody talks about pocket money that you should pay in such organisations for making things work faster (!). Honestly, nothing like this happened in our case except if the money fairy did it while I was asleep.
The electricity company was not such a pleasant experience though. Two ladies, BORED TO DEATH of their life, job, clothes, working environment, lack of holidays, the big Que waiting; bored of everything and everyone. No jokes, no funny talking, no smiles. Don’t you dare doing one of the above or else you are considered a psycho and most chances are you are not gonna get your job done on the day. I dared asking one of them to smile more and to be more happy and I got a feeling she weirdly translated this to an insult about her family and the way she looks, about her job and the whole situation.
‘I used to do that’, she said. ’In the first year.’ (Her face turned into a raging bull and I nodded my head in agreement while turning my head down looking at the floor).
Oh well, what can you do. Greece is a bit like that. People do not really accept happiness easily. There should always be a problem. Maybe so that we can find the solution and feel clever about that. The main thing is that everything works. With an extremely weird and undefined way.
But it works. And this is all that matters.
