Back in the 1980s, pop singer Belinda Carlisle topped the charts singing that heaven was in fact a place on Earth. Prophets are often ahead of their time, and notoriously underappreciated in their own land. But Miss Carlisle ended up being proved right. Heaven is indeed a place on Earth. It is called Greece.
It is possible, amid the recent footage of riots, tear gas, burning buildings, and pepper spray, to get the wrong idea. But if you have lived and worked there over recent decades, you know Greece is the only place to be. You are one of the blessed, a lotus-eater, a dweller in the happy isles.
Let’s say that you’re in your fifties, and have worked for 30-odd years in one of the world’s toughest professions — something sweat-inducing, a real ball-buster — on the front lines defending civilization as we know it. Hairdressing, for instance. If every weekday since leaving coiffure school you have been in the salon, providing first aid to split ends and sun-damaged hair, then from the age of 50 you could put your feet up. The state would support you for the rest of your natural life. And it’s not just hairdressers who enjoy this privilege.
Other hazardous occupations that the Greek government decided deserved decades in retirement clover included street peddling, radio broadcasting, and nightclub singing. I don’t doubt those nightclub crowds in a seaside resort like Faliraki can be tough, but why should belting out the hits to sunburned tourists for 35 years single you out for four or five decades of the good life on a full state pension? The answer is that you’re not singled out. Nearly 600 jobs are similarly rewarded by the Greek authorities. Pastry chefs and trombone players are also deemed at risk, the former from breathing all that flour dust, the latter from gastric reflux. Radio announcers are considered to be vulnerable to microphone bacteria, while the toilers in Greece’s hair salons deserve compensation for handling the lethal chemicals used in hair products.
It all makes Greece sound like a mighty dangerous place. Except that it’s not. It’s wonderful. Life expectancy is higher than in many other European countries, including Denmark and Great Britain. The average retirement age nationwide last year was 61, compared to 65 in Britain and 67 in Germany and Holland. What’s more, when they do retire, Greek citizens can expect to receive 80 percent of their final salary — not average or median, but final. So Greek retirees can live the rest of their lives in the manner to which they most recently became accustomed.
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Sassy Wire 