'Jimmy's'

I am sitting at a Costa coffee house having a cortado. I drink this frothy drink because it is a small beverage of coffee and froth. Unlike the other gigantic and gut bloating concoctions on offer, this is just enough of a drink without the gaseous aftermath of a cappuccino. The young woman who served me made a beautiful little drink. On the froth a sweet little flower. My toasted cheese sandwich, also lovely. Fresh and hot. Maybe a little bland, but really quite perfect. A small beautiful oasis of corporate food and coffee. A place for those of us who are ' self-employed' and can regulate the start of our day and can avoid the weekend crowds.

I grew up around a more leisurely way of life on a Greek island.  For the last 40 years, living and working in the UK made cafe-culture feel alien and unnecessary. Indulgent. A bit lazy.  That feeling is hard to shake off, regardless of the fact that I know how hard Greek people work. Funny thing, conditioning, and habit. And cultural stereotypes. If not careful we absorb them and we reflect them back at ourselves and others. I am sure that I have over-compensated for this image of southern Europeans, working longer and harder than I needed to.

So, anyway, there is not enough space here to explore this, so back to today's theme.... I am looking over the road at the new 'Grill- Seafood and Sushi 'restaurant.  Ambitious, I think. Imagine being the chef there. All those hygiene rules and all that cross contamination to consider. I relax knowing that they would have thought all this through and all will be quite exemplary in that respect. The man who works there, perhaps the owner is looking at the uneven flashing above the glossy black and orange sign, with a big prawn. The prawn has something like steam rising from it or the graphic equivalent of steam. Over the sign, on the first floor, a beauty parlor is advertising painless exfoliation and laser hair removal.  I look for the door to the first floor and can't see it.  Must be around the side.

The man all in the standard black shirt and trousers is having a fag.  He looks a little anxious. He solicits a response from what seem to be passers-by and engages in a  discussion about the sign. I am taken back to a time last summer when another man was serving us seafood on the beachfront in Crete. He had been doing that for the last thirty years. I wonder how long this guy, all in black will last. I feel a sense of sadness and injustice, that his surroundings are not as inspiring, but more than that, I feel a  sadness that his job will not be celebrated in the same way as the Greek guy's.

It is common in Greece to be served by the same person all your life. There is no stigma to being a 50-year-old waiter, you see. Perhaps it is not the most desirable profession, but it has a lot of positives going for it in that culture. Socialising is the norm. Staying in at home of an evening is not.  Being a waiter is hard, exhausting work, but it is not as draining within a culture that thrives on social relationships and where being around people is not seen as exhausting, or stressful. Climate, of course, plays a big role, and it is harder to motivate yourself to go out of the house on a bleak midwinter evening, to eat or meet up with tired friends.  Climate is key to the way we interact and defines a lot about our social life and our character it seems. Whatever the reasons, working in the service sector is both less stressful and culturally more acceptable and desirable in a country such as Greece, as opposed to the UK.  Tourism is a lucrative seasonal addition to the mix, which allows for long respites in the winter, so this is another part of the equation.

A greek psychoanalyst Mathew Josafat spoke of the South to North European differences in character. He observed that Northern European counseling sessions tended to focus on the workplace and work-related matters as the sources of stress and dissonance in most cases where clients seek support in a psychoanalytic setting.  Southern Europeans and Greeks, in particular, according to him, did not focus on work as their primary stressor, but instead concentrated on themes involving people, friendships, and family relationships.

Back to Jimmy's new business. I felt a tinge of sadness for 'Jimmy' or the man in black. His surroundings are the main road, heavy traffic, and other small businesses; a local Tesco's, a red cross shop, student accommodation. Nothing wrong with any of those things, they are just simply not the same as uninterrupted views of the sea. He is going to work hard to keep this business going and he might not find his efforts appreciated quite as much as his Greek equivalent, but even if he is appreciated, he might see this as a short-term career, not his life's work.

I returned to my cortado. It was lovely. The waiter and waitress were new. I hade not seen them before and I guess given the fact that such jobs are not seen as long-term career choices in England, it may be the last time I will see them. Shame, I thought and looked at 'Jimmy' stub his cigarette out and return into the darkness behind the smoked glass of his restaurant. I really hope he makes it work.