A 69-year-old civil servant named Joaquin Garcia has managed to skip work for at least six years without anyone taking any notice.
Officials running the investigation believe that his time skipping work could possibly stretch up to 14 years although there isn’t enough evidence to support it.
The man was supposed to supervise the construction of a water treatment plant and while the water company believed the city council was in charge of him and vice versa, Garcia claims that he was given a job with no actual work to do due to his socialist politics and instead used this time to become “an avid reader of philosophy and an expert on the works of Spinoza,” The Guardian quotes.
Funnily enough he was discovered as he was supposed to receive an award for 20 years of “loyal and dedicated” service back in 2010. Suspicions started to raise when the deputy mayor at the time who was supposed to hand him the award couldn’t find him. Joaquin Garcia was taken to court that very same year, only to retire a year later.
The trial ended this week as the 69-year-old man was fined $30K, the equivalent of a year’s salary after taxes and also the most that could have been claimed.
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