Like You'll Never See Me

The things that get mentioned over a coffee or whatever. Some of you will know Grizz, in fact many of you will know Grizz, aka Minty for those who have ever been to the Alcúdia Beach. So Grizz says that there has been something bothering him for a couple of days. It is - why do you never see Indians, Chinese or Africans in bars? You do of course see them in the street, but as he raised the question, it occurred to me, no you don't see them. Siraj, from Puerto Alcúdia's Taste of India I once saw in the Eroski café, and there was once a couple of African chaps at Café del Món, and only the other day two Chinese guys were playing pool at Sandra's Bar, and of course Izzy from what was then Agra used to have his "pure beef sausage" at Foxes, but otherwise ... Working, I suggested. Or maybe they are beamed in to the place of work and then beamed out somehow.

I guess though it is that they do work, and that's more or less it. I found out a while ago that there is this cadre of Indian restaurant waiters and kitchen personnel knocking around Spain, most of them actually from Bangladesh, who get whisked over to take up posts locally. The assumption I have is that they put in the hours and then look after their wages rather than going out and blowing the lot, unlike many of the Brit seasonal workers who could, in theory, save up for the fallow winter months but don't.

The reliability of staff is an endless problem here. There are those who come for some bar or other work who see this as a means to an end, the end being to go out on the razz and to get the end away, and find it hard to struggle in (if at all) at nine or ten in the morning, having been at Bells or wherever till six or so. This reliability thing is not just a problem among the Brit workers, it is also very much a Spanish one. A shopowner in Puerto Pollensa who I know well told me yesterday that this guy he'd employed had gone off on a sick as soon as he got his contract sorted out. When he returns, he will - in all likelihood - find himself out of a job. I was once in the office of a company that has a number of cafés. The desk was littered with documentation relating to personnel, and the girl there was moaning about the lack of responsibility of people (Spanish) that they take on and then lose or have to lose.

So perhaps all bars etc should employ just Chinese staff. Grizz has maybe hit on something.


QUIZ
Yesterday - The Stranglers. Today's title - very recent (the title finishes with "again"). Who?

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