Collecting a steady paycheck for six straight years without performing a single task sounds impossible inside a modern government office.
Yet in the Spanish city of Cádiz, a 69-year-old municipal engineer named Joaquín García managed to vanish from his workplace between 2004 and 2010 while still receiving €37,000 a year before taxes. Nobody in the local government noticed the empty desk until officials decided to reward him for two decades of dedicated service.
A Twenty-Year Service Award Reveals an Empty Desk
The discovery occurred in 2010 when Jorge Blas Fernández, the deputy mayor of Cádiz, prepared to present García with a commemorative plaque for 20 years of employment with the local council. García had begun working for the municipal authority in 1990 and was assigned in 1996 to Aguas de Cádiz, the city water board, to oversee the La Martona wastewater treatment plant.
Before presenting the award, Fernández contacted the water board director to ask about the engineer. The director stated he had not seen García in several years and assumed the employee had returned to city hall. Meanwhile, the municipal human resources department continued paying his salary because they believed the water board was supervising him.
Trading Municipal Engineering for Seventeenth-Century Philosophy
When Fernández summoned García to explain his absence, the engineer could not account for his recent duties. According to testimony from the head of the water board, whose office sat directly across the hall, García’s workspace had remained unoccupied for at least six years. Rather than managing water infrastructure, García spent his days reading philosophy, eventually becoming an expert on the works of the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza.
Claims of Workplace Bullying and Political Sidelining
Following the investigation, García denied skipping work entirely. His legal team stated that the city council had pushed him into a role with no duties at the water board due to his family’s socialist political ties.
According to associates speaking on his behalf, García visited the office briefly, realized there were no tasks assigned to him, and went home so he would not have to stare at the walls. He chose not to report the situation because he had a family to support and feared that leaving his post would leave him unemployed at his age.
The Court Ruling and Maximum Financial Penalty
A Cádiz administrative court rejected his defense and ruled in favor of the municipality in February 2016. Because García had already retired by the time the legal proceedings concluded, the council could not terminate his employment. Instead, the court ordered him to pay €27,000, the maximum fine permitted under regional law, which equaled one year of his net salary after taxes. García petitioned the mayor to forgive the penalty, but city officials upheld the fine.