Conversation with Pepe

After the sacking of Juan the Gardener on Saturday 31st March 2007, for the second time this year, ( Please see a previous post for details of his severance pay. ), I had the following conversation with Pepe.

I asked Pepe if he had managed to obtain a new Gardener, he answered no, but that he was searching in the Spanish equivalent of the Job Centre for one. So once again the Park has no Gardener / handyman.

I asked him what had happened to the new strimmer, that has not been seen since it broke down after a couple of weeks use. He replied that it was too badly damaged for repairs under guarantee and that he had to buy a new one.

Pepe was told that I had paid for the repairs to Juans´own strimmer, at a cost of 53.20 Euro, see attached bills. He asked why I had done that, in reply I pointed out that Juan had broken his strimmer whilst working on Mi Sol and that he could not afford to have it repaired himself until he received his next wages. Because of this I had agreed to pay for the repairs.

It is worth noting that Juans´strimmer is a Stihl, a good make, and as you can see, pretty easily repaired.

At this point Pepe berated me, saying that I had no authority to spend Mi Sol money. I answered that in fact I had not spent any money belonging to Mi Sol, this was a private arrangement between Juan and myself, and further that if Pepe had bought a "proper" strimmer as requested by the Committee, Mi Sol would not now be the proud owners of a scrap machine, bought only a few weeks ago. At this point the conversation ended.