Three Strikes and You're in Greece

No school today. No buses either for that matter. Nor taxis nor postal service. Yes, the Greek economy is going down, but that doesn't stop Greeks...well, actually, it does.
A friend of mine who is studying for her Masters in Business Administration asked me how everything is over here. "Just fine", I said, not realizing she was referring to the economy, the topic of many of her economics classes. Apparently the media abroad has made it out to seem as though a lot of radical stuff is happening here in Greece. For me it has just been the same old, same ancient. This is the third strike in three weeks. I've already gotten used to things not functioning as planned; showing up for class -lesson plan in hand- and finding out a last minute change for the kids to go watch a play in the theater or race each other in Athens College Olympics (come on, we're in Greece!) has caused classes to be canceled for the umpteenth time. So when the buses don't work I now take it as another inconvenience, but not a surprise.
My business-minded friend asked what Greek people think about the economic crisis. I asked a Greek friend and got a description similar to sky-diving without a parachute. They know their country and quality of life is dropping rapidly, but nobody is doing anything about it, feels they can nor wants to...which is precisely why they are going on strike. What can they do? There is no point. Too late to go back and get the parachute and it's not their fault that there never was one to begin with.

About one out in three Greeks are employed in the civil service, a trend that began some fifty years ago to pull Greece out of a previous depression. Public sector employees have tenure; they cannot be fired and they are over-hired. What possibly could some 3 million people be doing in the inefficient Greek economy? I asked myself that question after reading these statistics. I got my answer at the National Library, but not from a book.
I pass the National Library every week and one day I decided to go in and check it out. This concept was quite foreign, or perhaps I was just foreign to the Greek library system because, while I was walking around perusing the books, I noticed that I was the only one doing so. Then I noticed a librarian stalking me. When I reached for a book she asked if she could help me and I told her I was just looking. She proceeded to tell me the biblio-protocol: if I wanted a book I could ask at the desk and a book retriever would get it for me. In that moment I realized how the Greek government is capable of employing so many people; Job title - Book Retriever.

I used to try to leave receipts at stores, that was until I found out that both the store and the customer can be fined for not having one. Now I get a receipt everywhere I go as businesses are being held accountable for paying taxes. But there still is the "receipt-less" discount. At a car rental place I got two different quotes - the one with the receipt was 50 euros more. With that sort of economic incentive, it's hard to say yes to accountability because it also means saying "Yeah, sure... I'll pay more for a little slip of paper".

So on strike days nothing works - and by nothing I mean not just buses and taxis, but people, too. This time off isn't too bad for me, especially with gorgeous islands just a ferry ride away (if and when the ferries aren't also striking). All things considered, I wouldn't mind working in Greece again next year.