By Glenn Maffia

The weather is finally becoming more clement now the heat has subsided for another year. One can understand why the days of late September and the month of October sees Didim’s appeal to those who have a preference for things which are not extreme, at least weather-wise.

It is also noticeable that in many places the hostelries staff are fading and wilting. Their attention spans are diminishing and their eagerness less enthusiastic. It is a long, constant period of work for so many months, no weekends off here. I know of many who have returned immediately to university. One can but wonder when they get time to breathe.

The headline news in ‘Voices’ a few weeks back reflected the chorus of the business people’s mantra that the season could be extended. This proposal prevails every few years. I have heard this clarion call on so many an occasion from various merchants of ‘progress’. They are the ones whom reside over the cash tills and the credit card transactions.

Such opportunities present financial allure. Though does anyone notice or care that the staff, working up to 16 hours per day, are visibly flagging by the conclusion of the current duration of the season?

Their early season verve and energy has diminished into this sleepy lethargy. Simply they are tired. I know of few that ever receive a rest day. Whilst if they do, they wish not to waste that precious free time on sleeping to regenerate. They are worked to the bone, can one blame them that any free time they receive is taken up by ‘self-indulgence’?

Many of these kids, and most are kids, were, years back, not registered and therefore were placing themselves outside of the employment rights and laws. We once saw these kids, laden with heavy rucksack, going to every café/bar along the old seafront seeking ‘casual’ work.

I am in the dark as to if that legal requirement is still being flouted. I no longer frequent such establishments along the seafront, though they do appear to have improved a classy notch or two.

I vividly recall, many years afar, that in one particular bar whenever a tax inspector’s car pulled up three quarters of the serving staff immediately dived to seat themselves next to foreign customers. ‘Innocently’ trying to present the illusion of being a part of the customer crowd.

The reason for this charade was that bar owners would only employ them on condition that those owners did not have to pay their insurance (as was proscribed by law). It was hilarious and a chilling insight into the illegal depths some people delved.

A professional façade

Observing the current situation, Didim has become, seemingly, more professional, and hence acceptable. Though I continue to perceive the ‘early season’ enthusiasm gradually draining away.

One would think that a business person of any standing would notice this decline in performance and endeavour to correct such a failing. Seven days a week eventually takes its inevitable toll over eight months. Is it merely a lust for money on the part of these establishments?

Could this be perceived as the reasoning why they rarely employ enough people to operate a rotational system of staffing? Possibly many smaller concerns are family run, thus different ‘fresh’ members help to relieve the challenging burdens.

It just makes me laugh when these ‘captains of industry’ begin to pontificate upon Didim’s potential to extend this crippling workload, thus enabling the few to salivate over yet more profits.

I would be more impressed if these people considered their workforce with more empathy, rather than apathy. One hopes that they can see a way to be more humanitarian along this path to improvement.