“On Patmos, no one gets a day off,” the man who runs the Evignikos boutique closer to the front of town said. His family owns two stores in Skala selling Greek cotton and linen shirts and other Greek-island-vibing attire. He and his sister usually work one location and his mom and brother work the other.
“Everyone works everyday for the entire summer. There are no breaks.”
This came on the heels of me asking Vanghelis, our friend and waiter at Agriolivadi, when he gets a day off. The two men – who we both really like – were talking in from of Evagnikos when the kids and I ran into them coming back from dinner at Pantelis Friday night. Vanghelis confirmed, even though he’s an employee and not a business-owner like his friend, there are no days off from the beginning of May through September.
The flip-side is neither requires a job for the remainder of the year, though I know Vanghelis has been studying in Athens to become a plumber. He doesn’t want to continue spending his summers schlepping drinks on the beach – which at 33 years-old has sort of been a financially sustaining interlude between a professional sales management career and becoming a plumber, which is more lucrative than either job.
Though Vanghelis lives and was raised in Athens, his mom is Patmian, so he gets ahead financially by using the often empty family house – just up the “street” from ours – and of course, feels comfortable, at-home and accepted in the community.
The Evignikos man was raised here on Patmos and remembers cutting through my house’s yard as a short-cut to get to school. He would climb over the school’s back fence. He asked the boys why they were standing around talking to them instead of doing their real jobs which was to chase girls. They then shared which girls they were interested in, including “sea lion” following which Vanghelis – who is usually too exhausted at the end of a 10-hour day running up and down the beach to go out, but was meeting friends in the town square for a drink – shared his own dating advice. The boys had MANY questions for Vanghelis who was dressed rather stylishly and shared his own experiences at thirteen and into adulthood.
Yesterday at Agriolivadi, we were welcomed strongly by our friend Andreas who runs the beach chair concession and Vanghelis who was, as usual, waiting tables. I learned Vanghelis, who broke up with girlfriend of ten-years just a few months ago, did well with one of the girls he was meeting up with the prior evening – so it was time well spent despite being tired.
Andreas gave the kids a free hour on one the pedal boats he usually rents out – just because he likes them so much and was touched by Sennen bringing him homemade Mac n’ Cheese when Andreas wasn’t feeling well. The kids all got hugs too. Showing up at the beach felt like coming to hang out with friends.
At the end of the day, I asked Andreas – who was working hard cleaning chaise lounge cushions and stacking them – how many hours he works each day. Ten hours a day from May 1 to early October – no breaks or days off of any kind. Then he takes the rest of the year off, exhausted. By my rough count the other day, Andreas runs roughly 220 chairs in his concession plus rentals of things like paddle boards and pedal-boats. Vanghelis works for Stefanos’ adjacent cafe and taverna and this year is the only waiter covering all of those chairs. He has some runners, but he’s the only one taking orders and payments – and he runs food and beverage.
Deepening our relationships with our Patmian friends and neighbors means getting to learn more about how things really are for them. Getting hugs from Andreas, dating advice from Vanghelis, teased about chasing girls from the Evagnikos man, given free-treats by Eirini – the kids are experiencing Patmos in ever-deepening ways.
Because of Andreas’ recent illness, I suggested he have a back-up person who can manage things if there was ever an emergency. His dad, who used to run the business and occasionally hangs out because he can’t fully let go, is now too old for the physical demands. Andreas told me he realizes I’m probably right, but finding anyone – and he searched for the right way to say it – motivated enough to trust, is hard. I put my mind to it and yesterday Andreas and I were discussing a few teens around town who have jobs and good families and might be suitable candidates (one of my suggestions turned out to be his cousin, who he ruled out).
We also chit-chatted about things around the island. One woman – a friend of his mom’s, who he grew up around – whose cancer treatments have been effective and how the girl we brought the previous time was really the daughter of Matoula at Ta Kardasia – who he didn’t recognize and had never previously met (which was interesting because she told us she knew Andreas quite well).
Collaborating on business problems and talking about how a mutual acquaintance is doing better feels like friendship. So does emphasizing about a friend’s long days or giving my kids something fun to do when I’m writing. It’s cool to see local relationships evolve.
That said, the no breaks of any-kind work format is brutal and affects more than locals. While waiting for my pie order at Ta Kardasia yesterday, a woman asked me where I’m from. We chatted briefly. It turns out she’s a chef from Athens but trained in New York, at a local upscale restaurant. She too works May 1st through September 30th without break. She says often 15 to 17 hours at a time. Like the others, she then takes the rest of the year off. It’s an intensive system.
Our longtime friends Eirini and Alessandro run their shop from April to October, then spend the rest of the year traveling. At this time of the season, both are still smiling. By the thick of August, Eirini is usually exhausted and looking forward to a break.
Yesterday Theologia who owns the Proton Supermarket – which is a year-round business, but naturally peaks in the summer – told me she takes a half-day off on Sundays to go to church in the morning and a rest in the evening. Theologia is likely in her late seventies and her personality is a major reason to shop at her store.
In the past, I have always been perplexed by how much business-owners complain in late July and August when their businesses are earning the most money they make all year. That’s the big time when the year’s nut is made. I think I would be pretty happy to know I’m okay for the year. Now that I’m getting to know more people, I can see where they’re also exhausted by the time the peak of the season rolls around. The big money is back-loaded. August is THE main month, September sees a big decline and by October 1, at least half of the businesses close for the year. By the end of October, none of the seasonal businesses operate.
I can’t say I’d have the best attitude if I had been working every day without break for three months when it suddenly got REALLY busy. It also has to be easier if you’re a business-owner who gets to keep the profits rather than someone like the chef or Vanghelis who collect only wages.
In another light, perhaps working very hard for five months in order to have seven off isn’t so bad. You’re still not working most of the year. Or maybe you do take another, more reasonably scheduled job but have paid off debt or padded your savings?
Either way, Greece faces an unavoidable seasonality issue. Depending on whose statistics you go with, highly-seasonal tourism constitutes between 28 and 34 percent of the Greek economy. Island populations swell and boom. Patmos, for example, has 3,000 permanent residents and in August has roughly 20,000 people on any given night. Santorini – the Greek island on the tip of everyone’s tongues – has a much more dramatic situation: 15,000 permanent residents with 100,000 to 120,000 on any given day in August. That’s a lot of servers, cleaners, gardeners, chefs, hotel managers, day-boat operators, tour guides, tourist catchke store employees and more. Who become completely unnecessary from November 1st at latest until maybe April at earliest, but more often May.
The better jobs are taken by Greeks, but there aren’t enough Greeks of working age who are either willing to work seasonally or take the more menial jobs – which causes business owners to recruit from the Eastern European EU countries or employ immigrants who came as part of the waves of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Greece is also the fourth most aged population in the EU – meaning the need for foreign labor will likely only increase if it maintains or continues to improve its economic success.
In other words, Andreas’ conundrum isn’t likely to get better.
I suppose this just underscores something I had already picked up on in prior years – the best way to be a friend and neighbor is to have respect and compassion from how hard people work. Genuinely and meaningfully asking people how they’re doing matters. Listening to the answer matters. So does giving them time and slack too. Mohammad is much happier to fix things around my house if he can get to it on his schedule. With Andreas, I always tell him he can just point to the chairs we should use – he doesn’t need to escort us. He spends enough time marching up and down the beach.
