August holidays: Cantabria for some, work for others

No Cantabria and no pool: August simply doesn't exist for the self-employed

They say half of Spain empties out in August. In reality, it's only the half with paid holidays that does. On one side, the holiday allowance, the week in Cantabria and the "life is good". On the other, those who confess that they look up the word "holiday" in their dictionary and find it starts with the S of self-employed.

The scene is always the same: the country split in two in the middle of August. An employee brags about his week in the north while the self-employed worker of the day doesn't even consider stopping. It's not a matter of laziness, but of structure. Those who work for themselves know that if they don't work, they don't get paid. Or, worse, that the pool construction won't build itself.

The most graphic case is that of someone who combines audiovisual and IT work —50 to 60 days a year— with the rest of the year spent on pool maintenance and construction, from bricklaying to plumbing. It's not moonlighting by vocation: it's the only way to stop the calendar from eating into their income.

Then there's the one who goes nowhere and still feels like they're travelling: a resident of Aluche, a Madrid neighbourhood, says his area transports him to South America without spending a euro. A way of saying that prices, or the scenery, no longer require a plane ticket. And meanwhile, the phone is still there: that "vice" that makes it impossible to switch off, whether you're on holiday or on a building site.

The underlying complaint echoes a classic grievance: in Spain "they squeeze us dry" and liberalism gets the blame for the last 200 years. With just a few days of holiday a year and the pressure of the phone, one has to ask: are we really on holiday, or have we just changed the place from which we answer our emails?