You walk into your first interview, all dressed up and polished. Your future employers start describing the position and you get nervous just thinking about how demanding and respectable these suit-clad people must be. A few weeks into the job, you realize just how far from the truth this first image is...
As social beings we feel the need to conform to society's rules and always try to reach success, popularity and happiness. After all this is when most people respect you and give you the time of day. In this country where "you are who you declare to be," people and businesses have put a new twist on things. As long as they look serious, they wear suits and use big words, many believe that they can actually become someone important. The background or what happens behind the scenes is irrelevant.
My first personal shock when I moved to Greece had to do with the American college that I transferred my credits to in Athens. The website showed an organized environment where education was taken extremely seriously, and the dean of the school attested to this image. Unfortunately, I witnessed several situations there that shattered my initial image. Other transfer or study-abroad students also expressed the same dissatisfaction during their first visit, and some even went back to their countries before the semester even started. Student housing was in decrepit buildings with the absolute necessities, a variety of majors were offered without any professors to teach some of the higher-level courses, rich Greek students showing up a day before finals for the first time and passing the class, and several other instances where greediness overpowered the need to educate. Despite these circumstances, I met some of the most reliable and brilliant professors there that were just doing their job.
The second shock came at my first job in Athens. Although my coworkers were pleasant and the atmosphere was excellent overall, the president of this organizational software company, that was one of the best of its kind in the country, seemed so stiff and demanding. After staying there for a couple of months, I learned that this oh-so-serious man hadn't paid his over-worked staff for over six months, while he was trading in his old car for a new one every couple of months. Another employer serves as a similar example of the latter. As the owner of a private English school, who preaches dignity, compassion and true interest in the education of his students, another employer of mine opted to spend money improving the physical image of his school, so that it would be more attractive to potential clients, rather than investing in the underpaid teachers, smaller groups of students per class, and better organization in the chaotic working environment.
But this is Greece's market in its majority at present. This is the country where a small electrics shop places an ad in the paper as "the biggest gas-supplier of Northern Greece." This is the country where a simple teller or cashier at a public office, claims to be his department's supervisor. This is also the country where a measly dentist that never spoke English can put up a big sign outside his office stating that he has a Masters degree from a major college in America, when in reality the most he's done is observe a few auditing courses there. How can we expect anything to change in this country, if we don't make a few changes ourselves?
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