Some depressing facts 17/06/09
We went to see our lawyer about the work contracts we need for our employees. He wanted to get it sorted as soon as possible, warning us that certain people, like competitors, or previous staff might take a dislike to us and send someone to check up on us, that this is how it works here. How evil! No need for big brother, you’ve got your neighbours and locals checking up on you. He gave us the list of documents that our staff members need to bring us. When mio marito went to the bathroom our consulente immediately availed of the opportunity to have a good look at my legs and chest. Unbelievable. His eyes went back to more appropriate places as soon as my husband came back in the door. He advised that if the Work tax inspectors came to check up on us to remain calm and be nice to them as if would improve our chances of not getting fined! Fair enough though, as I can imagine tempers rising here in such a situation. The thought of someone being evil enough to actually send tax inspectors round made us depresses.
During the week the Mafioso man who was smoking on our opening night and asked me who I thought I was, came back. He showed up and bought drinks for all and annoyted everyone shouting around him. Then he didn’t want to pay! It came to €42 so mi mio marito said that €40 would do; but the Mafioso said, ‘But this is no price for me, for Francesco XXXX! Allora vuoi la Guerra? So you want to declare war?’ What an idiot, So my poor marito had to accept a lot less than it should have been. Just as well he was at the till and not me, I would probably have insisted on the full price! Apparently the guy then went to the bar down the road and hit someone and threatened to shoot them. It sounds like a joke, but it just might be serious and you don’t want to risk it. I came back from a wedding in Sevilla to find my husband totally depressed due to this incident. ‘What sort of place are we in anyway?’ he kept saying, ‘I can’t believe I have to deal with people like this, and worse still, tolerate such behaviour.’
On the mafia subject, our awning man says this is the reason he hasn’t been able to come and put up our awning. The mafia has asked him for money and he had to cough up and now he doesn’t have the money to buy the material he needs for our awning. Mio marito went to see him in his garage since he wasn’t answering his phone any more, and he was nervous with bulging Adam’s apple and staring eyes. So he believed him. We then got a shutters man to come round and give us a quote on putting up shutters on our front windows and patio door at the back, where the sun beats relentlessly all morning, and all evening respectively. But it turned out it would be very expensive and now we are a bit worried because the heat is rising in our little house.
We also had the photographer round, full of his own sense of being an artist. He had made us a Pachamama brochure, on nice card that folds in three with different images of the restaurant and bar on it and a list of items off the menu in different colours on the back page. The idea was nice, but the menu items had random numbers and letters in the middle, eg. Jkjkjkjkjkj, nlnslslnslnsksnj, and I suggested that it was more interesting to actually put on more of the menu instead of the random numbers. But he assumed I hadn’t understood the nature of his artistic play, and kept insisting and explaining it was part of his aesthetic. It took me about 40 minutes to convince him that I was well aware of the effect he was aiming for, but it simply didn’t suit me. He then appeared reluctant to take more pictures, saying the images he had, of wine bottles and cocktails being poured and small sections of the wrought iron banister were wonderful. I said they were nice details, but could be found in any bar in Sicily; whereas there were many other details which defined Pachamama which we had invented ourselves – there are more than ten years of travels in here, I had to tell him! I insisted I wanted the bar (made of long wooden planks and painted blue after the blue fishing boats down in Vacarella), the raw linen strips we have woven in and out of bamboo hanging parallel to the ceiling to give the effect of sails or waves; the collages I made using beautiful pictures of bossanova and 1950s Brazil, the way we had placed artisan Brazilian instruments and decorations around the locale. But I had to insist for about an hour to get him to take the photos. Why is it so exhausting to get people to do what you want here? He didn’t want any of our input at all, and especially not mine. It would appear for him I am just the girl working in her husband’s restaurant with no opinions worth hearing. In fact that is probably what a lot of the men think here. Hmmm. I find that depressing.
During the week the Mafioso man who was smoking on our opening night and asked me who I thought I was, came back. He showed up and bought drinks for all and annoyted everyone shouting around him. Then he didn’t want to pay! It came to €42 so mi mio marito said that €40 would do; but the Mafioso said, ‘But this is no price for me, for Francesco XXXX! Allora vuoi la Guerra? So you want to declare war?’ What an idiot, So my poor marito had to accept a lot less than it should have been. Just as well he was at the till and not me, I would probably have insisted on the full price! Apparently the guy then went to the bar down the road and hit someone and threatened to shoot them. It sounds like a joke, but it just might be serious and you don’t want to risk it. I came back from a wedding in Sevilla to find my husband totally depressed due to this incident. ‘What sort of place are we in anyway?’ he kept saying, ‘I can’t believe I have to deal with people like this, and worse still, tolerate such behaviour.’
On the mafia subject, our awning man says this is the reason he hasn’t been able to come and put up our awning. The mafia has asked him for money and he had to cough up and now he doesn’t have the money to buy the material he needs for our awning. Mio marito went to see him in his garage since he wasn’t answering his phone any more, and he was nervous with bulging Adam’s apple and staring eyes. So he believed him. We then got a shutters man to come round and give us a quote on putting up shutters on our front windows and patio door at the back, where the sun beats relentlessly all morning, and all evening respectively. But it turned out it would be very expensive and now we are a bit worried because the heat is rising in our little house.
We also had the photographer round, full of his own sense of being an artist. He had made us a Pachamama brochure, on nice card that folds in three with different images of the restaurant and bar on it and a list of items off the menu in different colours on the back page. The idea was nice, but the menu items had random numbers and letters in the middle, eg. Jkjkjkjkjkj, nlnslslnslnsksnj, and I suggested that it was more interesting to actually put on more of the menu instead of the random numbers. But he assumed I hadn’t understood the nature of his artistic play, and kept insisting and explaining it was part of his aesthetic. It took me about 40 minutes to convince him that I was well aware of the effect he was aiming for, but it simply didn’t suit me. He then appeared reluctant to take more pictures, saying the images he had, of wine bottles and cocktails being poured and small sections of the wrought iron banister were wonderful. I said they were nice details, but could be found in any bar in Sicily; whereas there were many other details which defined Pachamama which we had invented ourselves – there are more than ten years of travels in here, I had to tell him! I insisted I wanted the bar (made of long wooden planks and painted blue after the blue fishing boats down in Vacarella), the raw linen strips we have woven in and out of bamboo hanging parallel to the ceiling to give the effect of sails or waves; the collages I made using beautiful pictures of bossanova and 1950s Brazil, the way we had placed artisan Brazilian instruments and decorations around the locale. But I had to insist for about an hour to get him to take the photos. Why is it so exhausting to get people to do what you want here? He didn’t want any of our input at all, and especially not mine. It would appear for him I am just the girl working in her husband’s restaurant with no opinions worth hearing. In fact that is probably what a lot of the men think here. Hmmm. I find that depressing.
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