Spain's Secret Strike

Posted: December 8, 2012 | Categories: Miscellaneous

I was in Spain for a conference back in November and I was there during a nationwide strike against the austerity programs that the EU is putting in place to help enable economic recovery. My employer is international (we have offices and employees everywhere) and very organized, so we knew a lot in advance about the strike and were given very specific instructions on how to stay safe during the… unrest.

After I'd been in Spain for a day or two, I realized that there was a Secret Strike happening right in front of us. The purpose of this post is to bring information about this secret strike to light so others can learn about it.

Spain's Secret Strike is all about Heat!

I'm one of those people who like to stay cool. Being hot, especially too hot for no reason, drives me crazy. I don't mind making myself hot – through activity or exercise, but being hot simply because someone has the furnace on too high simply demoralizes me.

Right about the time of the strikes, all of a sudden everywhere I went  the internal temperature in my hotel room and in the conference center was much higher than I found comfortable. When I arrived in Madrid, my hotel room was comfortable and the rooms at the conference center were actually cold (which is surprising).  Starting Tuesday, the public strike (not the secret one) was supposed to be on Wednesday, all of a sudden the conference center got much warmer and the same for my hotel room.

I asked at the conference desk Tuesday afternoon if it was hot on purpose and I was told no and that they'd been asking repeatedly to have the heat turned down. At this time, it was 26 degrees C (78.8 degrees F) which is mighty uncomfortable when you're wearing a suit all day. Ugh.

That night, my hotel room was hot, too hot for me to sleep. Of course I couldn't open the windows (locked) so the next morning I politely (or at least I thought it was politely) asked at the front deck if they could make my room a little cooler. When I arrived back in the room that night, it was a balmy 29 degrees C (84.2 degrees F). Ugh – by asking to make my room cooler – they made it unbearably hot. Double ugh!

Needless to say, I was unable (through multiple attempts) to get my room or the conference center where I was working to a temperature I could sleep/work in. I thoroughly enjoyed being in Spain, but unfortunately couldn't wait to get out of the country simply so I could stop sweating for no reason.

Diabolical those Spaniards – keep the world's media focused on the 'public' strike while secretly wearing us down by refusing to turn down the heat. Simply diabolical!

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