Your experiences in Madrid

I worked as a self employed in Madrid for one year. What surprised me? Administrations close at 2 pm. Shops are closed from 2pm-5pm then they open until 8pm.

I appreciated working there, very good ambiance!

I like to work hard and archive something because I think it is good idea. I am 27 years old from Ghana living in Spain Andalusia. I made diffrencs kinds of couses in Spanish languege so that I would have more professional in my life, is it good idea? I still need advice so any one who wants to advice me can contact me in ayawuza@gmail.com

Hello newabrefa and welcome to Expat.com!

Don't you think that you are a bit off-topic?

Harmonie.

The first training I did, I proposed the 'usual' daily agenda, which means more or less:
. start at 9 (usually 30 mn late)
. do a pause at 11 (usually 10 to 15 mn)
. lunch between 12 and 13: I knew this would be early for Spain, so I said we stopped between 13 and 14 and go to lunch all together
. start after lunch and make a pause in the afternoon
. finish at 17:00.

At 11:00, when I proposed a pause, everybody looked at me like 'finally...' or 'I thought he would never let us go'.

I did not know that spanish people do not take a breakfast at home but have a 15 to 45 mn breakfast in the morning. I must say that the 9:00 starting hour was respected every day.

Which reminds me off this: spain is listed as one of the country in europe where labor day is longer but also among the less productive country. I worked with people who looked at me as not working hard because I went at home at 19:00 while they were taking 30 mn for breakfast, 2 hours to go back at home for lunch and one dozen breaks during the day to go outside and smoke a cigarette.
One friend who was used to work until 20:00 told me once that in fact he was just surfing the web at that time, and when I asked if he would not prefer to go back home, he said me 'no, because I would have to help my wife on domestic tasks'.

There is a lot to say about the difference of culture