A Spanish civil servant in Cadiz who had regularly skipped work for "at least" six years has been caught by his employers after they were due to give him an award, according to BBC News. Joaquin Garcia, 69, had been picked to be honored for 20 years of service when it was discovered that none of his co-workers had seen him in years.
Garcia was sent to work at the Cadiz municipal water board in 1990 to oversee the construction of a water treatment plant, The Telegraph reported. After becoming eligible for a medal rewarding his years of service in 2010, Garcia was found by councillor Jorge Blas Fernandez to have been truanting from his position since 2004.
"He was still on the payroll," Fernandez told reporters, according to The Guardian. "I thought, where is this man? Is he still there? Has he retired? Has he died?" After investigating, Fernandez found that the employee who sat across from Garcia had not seen him for several years.
Garcia was fined €27,000 ($30,000) this week for his prolonged no-shows, which is approximately one year of his salary after tax and the maximum amount that his employers are permitted to reclaim. Friends of Garcia told reporters that the civil servant had endured bullying in the workplace as a result of his socialist political views but had decided not to report them because he "had a family to support" and was concerned he would not be able to find another job, The Independent reported. He spent the time off studying philosophy and becoming an expert in the works of Spinoza.
Garcia had escaped detection due to confusion as to who was overseeing him, with the water company and local authorities both assuming that he was the responsibility of the other, according to BBC News. He denies the allegations against him, claiming that his relocation to the water plant was an attempt to get him out of the way and that there was not any real work for him to complete there.