 Changing Places Week 142 W/C 9th November 2008
What is the worst criticism that can be levelled against you? Mine is that I am accused of suffering from Pollyannaism. Let me help you before you reach for the dictionary it means a state of `extreme optimism'. Our company Sun Search Recruitment is the same as all companies in Mallorca in that it is suffering the effects of global introspection. I hesitate to use the word recession because it brings everyone out in a rash. As a Recruitment Agency it means that we have many clients using our services - they find it beneficial to go straight to a specialist to find qualified people actively seeking work. We have glowing testimonials to prove that when time is of the essence key vacancies can be quickly filled by introductions from us. The problem comes when it's time to pay the bill; somehow the rules seem to change. The clients that usually love to talk are mysteriously unavailable or in meetings. Calls to remind them of our payment terms and the contracts they willingly signed are met with a stone wall. This is where Pollyanna comes in, optimistic in the face of adversity - surely those lovely clients will honour their word. I firmly believe they will and keep that smile and upbeat vibe going come what may. My colleagues look at me as if I am mad when I relate the latest excuse for non-payment, they can't believe I am giving the pathetic words time of day.
Pollyanna is still alive and well - she has been with me too long to give up now but she is enlisting a little help - in the shape of the Debt Collector. There have been many `firsts' in my life since relocating to Majorca and having to appoint a legal Debt Collector for my company is the saddest of all.
Soller folk like us use the tram for our morning commute to work. In the winter months the tram reduces in size to being one lonely carriage going up and down the line every hour. Standing in the dark waiting for the ghostly light to appear illuminating the track always makes me smile. It is as if we have stepped into another world. The tram is a world of its own with its different price tickets for locals and its stops on demand so that the elderly can get off a bit nearer to their homes. The summer days of open windows are over now and the enclosed carriages are back keeping us warm to the end of the line.
It trundles past the gardens of town and provoke interesting comments from tourists because nothing is as it seems. Our village houses and gardens give little away from the outside. Huge wooden front doors, shutters pulled tightly to keep the sun or rain out mean that the glimpses through an open door is as good as it gets if you are nosy!
Recently a comment overheard on the tram underlined the mystery. A tourist called my little area between town and sea as `where the peasants live' presumably because of the farms and orange groves. The local concert pianist whose music delights us as she practises lives just up the road. The talents and professions of my neighbours are inspiring and the tourist was so wrong. Soller these days is a mixture of local people who have always lived and worked here and increasingly commuters into Palma and beyond. There are Soller people who do not understand the concept of working anywhere other than on their doorstep. They want to go home at lunch time and have their main family meal; they accept that they have to go back out to work again at 5pm to finish their working day. For others that lifestyle is over and an eight hour day preceded by travel to and from Palma (taking thirty-five minutes) for work is just fine.
Times change and the visitors that regard Mallorca as an unchanging museum full of `peasants' need to bring themselves up to date - or do they. Perhaps in an uncertain world regarding Mallorca as a lovely place where time has stood still gives them comfort and that is currently in short supply.
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