On Hold
December is the month of doing nothing. Do not expect a letter to reach its destination until two weeks have passed. Unless you are drowning in your home, do not expect a plumber to come the same day you call him. If you need to get in contact with someone in their office, do not expect to find him there until January. It is a month of holidays, too many holidays.
In Spain the Constitution was ratified by the Congreso de los Diputados on December 6th, 1978. December 6th is therefore a holiday. And for some strange reason in an aconfessional state, as atested to in said Constitution, the day of the Immaculate Conception is also a public holiday. That's the 8th of December. On the week those two holidays concur, many people take extra days off and make it a mini vacation or an extraordinarily long weekend. Then there's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Most people go home early on Christmas Eve, others don't even go to work. A week later it's New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. With the same habit of taking both days off. But until January 7th normality is elusive, because Twelfth Day, or Epiphany, is a public holiday.
If you order things on internet for Christmas, in Spain you have to take those holidays into account and plan accordingly. Like, ordering in September. Companies I order from give me an estimate of around two weeks at the most for things to arrive in the mail. If something reaches me two weeks after I put in the order, I go ring the churchbells. Anywhere from three weeks to two months is to be expected. True, the Spanish postal system is not what it was. It used to take a letter three weeks to travel thirty kilometers. Though that is no longer the case most of the time, it's still not efficient. Nor are some of the package delivery companies that try to rival it. Sometimes it seems they are in a race with the postal system to see which is more incompetent and slow. I have called to ask about packages that were taking too long to appear on the horizon, and told to wait a couple more days, "because it's December and there are holidays." And they assured me that if they still hadn't shown up by the middle of January, then the order would be cancelled and I would be refunded. So much for ordering Christmas presents online.
You might also assume that plumbing companies and electricians would rely on each other like pharmacies. Pharmacies have a rotating system in which one of them remains open nights or weekends for emergencies while the others close. I mean, if a pipe bursts in your home on a Friday night, it's not nice to have the water shut off in the entire house until the next work day, which might be Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the holidays. Well, no they don't have a rotating system and it turns out that they're all closed until the next work day. So you go and beg a neighbor's brother who happens to be a plumber, to come succour you. And pay extra, a lot extra, for the favor.
So, despite having extra days off from work in the dark days of the year, there will be times in which you wish normality would return, with Monday through Friday hours without so much merriment. This turns out to be a month of putting things on hold, much like August used to be and still is in some workplaces. If you have to do something or go somewhere, you have to work around the holidays in almost each week. And then you look at the wasteland of summer and wish the holidays were more freely sprinkled across the calendar instead of concentrated at one end. You'd appreciate them more.
In Spain the Constitution was ratified by the Congreso de los Diputados on December 6th, 1978. December 6th is therefore a holiday. And for some strange reason in an aconfessional state, as atested to in said Constitution, the day of the Immaculate Conception is also a public holiday. That's the 8th of December. On the week those two holidays concur, many people take extra days off and make it a mini vacation or an extraordinarily long weekend. Then there's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Most people go home early on Christmas Eve, others don't even go to work. A week later it's New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. With the same habit of taking both days off. But until January 7th normality is elusive, because Twelfth Day, or Epiphany, is a public holiday.
If you order things on internet for Christmas, in Spain you have to take those holidays into account and plan accordingly. Like, ordering in September. Companies I order from give me an estimate of around two weeks at the most for things to arrive in the mail. If something reaches me two weeks after I put in the order, I go ring the churchbells. Anywhere from three weeks to two months is to be expected. True, the Spanish postal system is not what it was. It used to take a letter three weeks to travel thirty kilometers. Though that is no longer the case most of the time, it's still not efficient. Nor are some of the package delivery companies that try to rival it. Sometimes it seems they are in a race with the postal system to see which is more incompetent and slow. I have called to ask about packages that were taking too long to appear on the horizon, and told to wait a couple more days, "because it's December and there are holidays." And they assured me that if they still hadn't shown up by the middle of January, then the order would be cancelled and I would be refunded. So much for ordering Christmas presents online.
You might also assume that plumbing companies and electricians would rely on each other like pharmacies. Pharmacies have a rotating system in which one of them remains open nights or weekends for emergencies while the others close. I mean, if a pipe bursts in your home on a Friday night, it's not nice to have the water shut off in the entire house until the next work day, which might be Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the holidays. Well, no they don't have a rotating system and it turns out that they're all closed until the next work day. So you go and beg a neighbor's brother who happens to be a plumber, to come succour you. And pay extra, a lot extra, for the favor.
So, despite having extra days off from work in the dark days of the year, there will be times in which you wish normality would return, with Monday through Friday hours without so much merriment. This turns out to be a month of putting things on hold, much like August used to be and still is in some workplaces. If you have to do something or go somewhere, you have to work around the holidays in almost each week. And then you look at the wasteland of summer and wish the holidays were more freely sprinkled across the calendar instead of concentrated at one end. You'd appreciate them more.
Comments
Post a Comment