Spanish worker skipped job he hated for 6 years, and no one noticed
Joaquin Garcia, a 69-year-old Spanish civil servant, has been fined $30,000, or one year's salary, for not showing up to his job for six years.
Garcia, tasked with overseeing the construction of a waste treatment facility, claimed he was bullied into a no man's land position that didn't actually require much work, but he reportedly chose to keep the ruse going to support his family.
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He did show up to the office for brief periods of time, but apparently devoted much of his ample free time to becoming "an expert on the philosopher Spinoza," according to The Independent.
(As one does.)
In the end, officials only learned of his long delinquency when they wanted to commemorate his 20 years of employment, only to realize he wasn't exactly an active employee.
Basically, he is the exact opposite of the stapler guy from the movie Office Space, who was fired, but kept showing up to work for years unaware.
Incredible as this incident may sound, Garcia actually isn't the first employee to pull off such a feat -- or even the first civil servant for that matter.
A civil servant in India was fired in early 2015 after not coming to work for 24 years.
All of that should make you feel a little better about playing hooky on a random freezing Friday this winter. (Not that we're suggesting anything).
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Seth Fiegerman was a Senior Business Reporter at Mashable, where he covered startups, marketing and the latest consumer tech trends. He joined Mashable in August 2012 and is based in New York.Before joining Mashable, Seth covered all things Apple as a reporter at Silicon Alley Insider, the tech section of Business Insider. He has also worked as a staff writer at TheStreet.com and as an editor at Playboy Magazine. His work has appeared in Newsweek, NPR, Kiplinger, Portfolio and The Huffington Post.Seth received his Bachelor of Arts from New York University, where he majored in journalism and philosophy.In his spare time, Seth enjoys bike riding around Brooklyn and writing really bad folk songs.
