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An employee skipped work for 6 years — no one noticed until the company gave him an award

This is a cautionary tale for anyone looking to skip work or slack off during work hours as the man's absenteeism cost him a lot.

BY TIYASA BISWAS

PUBLISHED MAR 4, 2025

Corporate business people working in busy marketing office space (Representative Cover Image Source: Getty Images | PeopleImages)

Slacking off while on the clock is a universal employee shenanigan. A quick coffee break here and a longer than usual visit to the loo, or simply surfing the internet pretending to work are only some of the tactics a person may apply to cut back on the hours on a typical workday. But the question remains, how far would you push it? Six years? Impossible. A man from Spain probably took the challenge to heart and went on an extended holiday for more than half a decade all while collecting his annual checks. Dreamy. The odds were on his side, as BBC reported, his absence from work went unnoticed for years until an award ironically brought his insufficiency to light.

An adult man is working late at the office. (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Morsa Images)

As it appears, Spanish civil servant, Joaquin Garcia was embroiled in an interesting controversy after he was set to be recognized for his 20-year-long service to a local water company in the southwestern city of Cadiz in 2010. The celebration for his achievement went downhill when his boss, Jorge Blas Fernandez, was clueless about the man’s employment at the organization. He found himself wondering if the man had retired or was still working there. Upon investigation and speaking to other employees at the water board, Fernandez discovered that Garcia had not shown up to work for about six years.

A man resting at home listening to music on his couch. (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | ZGel)

"I wondered whether he was still working there, had he retired, had he died? But the payroll showed he was still receiving a salary," Fernandez, who is the deputy mayor at the company, told Spanish newspaper El Mundo, as reported by Indy100. Giving him a quick dial for clarification, the boss asked him about his day-to-day tasks of the week on a call. “I called him up and asked him, ‘What did you do yesterday? The month before, the month before that?’ He didn’t know what to say,” the boss disclosed.

An angry boss speaking on the phone at night. (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Pony Wang)

According to the source, Garcia was a local government employee working as a building supervisor for a water treatment plant for two decades. Then 69 years old, the man was apparently promoted to a position where little work was to be done, he claimed, and collected an annual salary of $41,500 before tax but no one had seen him for years. A miscommunication between two departments under the bureaucratic local government liberated Garcia from any supervision since each department believed the other was looking into his duties. After all, he could only stretch it so far.

A judge holding a gavel while passing a verdict in a courtroom. (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Chris Ryan)

The issue was settled in court after a judge fined him to pay $30,000, equivalent to his one year’s salary, the maximum fine allowed, for his absenteeism at work. Now retired, Garcia has tried to explain his side of the story. He blamed workplace bullying for his constant absence from the job and denied the allegations made against him in court. He also wrote to the mayor about his hefty fine. Meanwhile, close sources spoke to the local news outlet and said Garcia did go to the office but not for full business hours. A little too many half days then? According to a 2021 report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 114,000 part-time or full-time employees skip out on work on a given workday. Whereas, CDC estimated that constant absenteeism costs employees $225.8 billion annually.