After Popular Demand....

...I have decided to create an English version of my Greek blog.So allow me to introduce myself.

I m 23 years old and I work since I was 14, I live alone since I was 19 and I m getting married On May ’08.I woke up one beautiful day of April and I decided to leave my hometown Serres (55k citizens or so) and go work in Athens.

You see in small Towns here in Greece usually you cannot find decent job opportunities. You will work for like 12 hours per day for pennies without health insurance and you will not be able to report it to a work inspector. Because if you do the following will happen:

a) You will get compensation as the law demands

b) You will get fired

c) No one will ever hire you at this town to work for them because you will be the man that brought the work inspector. And of course that is bad for every greedy bastard Greek businessman.

If you live in Europe you will wonder what the fuck? Why is that so? I will tell you why. You will sign a paper that says that you get paid for 680 euros per month (which is the average salary in Greece by the way) + health insurance.

So in total you should cost about 900-1k euros per month to your boss. But as we said before, no health insurance, remember? In Greek terms this means that they will never pay your health insurance money and keep them. But in the papers it will say that you’re getting paid. So the government will tax them less if they have more expenses. Do you get it? So if by any chance you will ask for your health insurance money because you have family and kids they will say to you “ok no matter what you signed if you want health insu money np get 500 euros and I pay from the rest 180 your health insurance”.

Amazing the Greek mind isn’t it? This is happening for the last 30 years in small Towns in Greece. Everyone knows everybody so news travel fast about who are you and where you worked. Cv’s have absolutely no power at all. It’s your previous employer’s word that counts and a decisive factor if you will get the job.

So the only place that you can demand your rights as a worker is Athens and Thessalonica at this moment. So this is why I left my town. But as you will see I have come across other problems. Big City Problems unknown to the eyes of the boy that came from the mountains ( :P).

From the first moment I was trying to have good relationships with every living person I met there because we are Humans after all and we might need our fellowman to help us.

Even so after 4 years I’ve been living into this damn city every passing day I’m getting more fed up and angry against society here. Sooner or later I feel my patience is going to crack and then I’ll get damn Molotov cocktails to throw against Government Buildings.

So Week by Week I’m going to write here true stories from Athens Greece so the world can see that this Capital (and country) has nothing to do with European Standards.

Ta ta.