4 ms·

It is not just the tax dodging though. The greek people are, at least in Europe, known for being lazy and many of them are in government positions where they ge

by calloc 15y ago

It is not just the tax dodging though. The greek people are, at least in Europe, known for being lazy and many of them are in government positions where they get paid a lot but don't work a lot. That they dodge taxes on top of that is just icing on the cake. The other issue is that Greece couldn't keep up with exports in terms of cost with other EU member states. It isn't able to keep up with other high export countries for the same goods.

ovi256 15y ago
All Greeks I've met that had a government job made it a point of pride of how little they worked and how they spent their days openly in leisure or working a second job on government time. The private sector employees envied and cajoled them. It was surreal. Maybe it was the alcohol.
- StavrosK 15y ago
  This is a real problem, as far as civil services are concerned. If you want to go to some service to do some work, their opening hours are frequently 10am-1pm. It's ridiculous, and really makes things hard for the public. I'm not familiar with any service that stays open to the public after 2pm, post offices, hospitals, whatever. Meanwhile, employees in the private sector work 11-13 hour days, 6 (sometimes 7) days a week, so calling Greeks lazy is unfair. Most of my friends are amazed and envious when I tell them I don't work on Saturdays.
- _delirium 15y ago
  I've heard that kind of boasting from Americans working at dysfunctional large corporations also. Get people over beers and they'll tell you about how in all of last month, what they did is played 5000 games of Bejeweled Blitz, made 3 bullshit Powerpoint presentations, attended a few bullshit meetings, and carefully tweaked their .vimrc while pretending to work. It seems to be the sort of culture that crops up when people are in dysfunctional settings and cynical about whether their job is actually doing anybody any good; kind of a coping-mechanism I guess.

by calloc 15y ago

ovi256 15y ago

All Greeks I've met that had a government job made it a point of pride of how little they worked and how they spent their days openly in leisure or working a second job on government time. The private sector employees envied and cajoled them. It was surreal. Maybe it was the alcohol.

StavrosK 15y ago
This is a real problem, as far as civil services are concerned. If you want to go to some service to do some work, their opening hours are frequently 10am-1pm. It's ridiculous, and really makes things hard for the public. I'm not familiar with any service that stays open to the public after 2pm, post offices, hospitals, whatever. Meanwhile, employees in the private sector work 11-13 hour days, 6 (sometimes 7) days a week, so calling Greeks lazy is unfair. Most of my friends are amazed and envious when I tell them I don't work on Saturdays.
_delirium 15y ago
I've heard that kind of boasting from Americans working at dysfunctional large corporations also. Get people over beers and they'll tell you about how in all of last month, what they did is played 5000 games of Bejeweled Blitz, made 3 bullshit Powerpoint presentations, attended a few bullshit meetings, and carefully tweaked their .vimrc while pretending to work. It seems to be the sort of culture that crops up when people are in dysfunctional settings and cynical about whether their job is actually doing anybody any good; kind of a coping-mechanism I guess.