TYPICAL SPANISH

Since I entered University of Valencia, I’ve yet to see a ticket inspector on the bus. I know they exist thanks to the occasional headlines that read “more ticket controls due to financial crisis”, but they’re nowhere to be seen. Once in blue moon, a man dressed in a black uniform boards the bus and stays next to the driver, casually leaning on the cab and chatting with him, directing his glaze briefly at whoever gets on the vehicle. I suspect them to be ticket inspectors, though never once do they actually inspect tickets. Three stops later, they wave goodbye to the driver and get off the bus through the enter door. “What a low-stress job”, I think to myself.

There are many invisible professions to the average citizen’s eye. Everyday we meet sweaty workers, stressed teachers, burned-out waiters and many more persons who struggle in their daily life to earn half the money those invisible beings do. It’s no wonder most workers are slowly fading out. In times of prosperity, prices rise faster than salaries and, when things start falling apart, it’s they who are to blame. Take the recent measures announced by Zapatero: less money for the working class, for the pensioners, for the students. “We are together in this, and so all of us must make sacrifices”, he says. Yet nobody mentions SICAVs and its infamous tax advantages. Nobody remembers the Church and how much money it takes from a secular state. Canal 9’s debt (€1.2 thousand million) alone should be enough to keep pensions intact. Meanwhile, the government makes an astronomical effort to reduce their salary by a 5%. Their other salary, which in most cases comes from a private company, doesn’t falter. Where do they find time to combine both jobs? They must be superhumans! Maybe that’s why we can’t see them, they work too fast.

As fast as people take the streets when their football team wins a competition. A human tide forgetting their problems and enjoying like barbarians the victory of a handful of people with six, seven and eight figure salaries.

Who is looking forward to the FIFA World Cup the most, football fans or Zapatero?