Hey all,
I usually don't say much here on eye on Spain, but I read every word and as you all know I speak and e-mail with a lot of people. As a lot of you write: this is getting quite a mess. Apart from all the breaking-in issues etc, it just seems time to set a few things straight.
First of all: WeTakeCare is MY company. It is in MY name, I own it, I get the earnings, I pay the debts, if someone sues the company they sue ME and I will be held responsible. If the company goes bankrupt (which seems unavoidable at the moment), I will personally go bankrupt. Max does a lot of work for my company, but it's not his. The house in Don Juan is his however and not mine. Therefore I am formally NOT part of the community. We chose this construction very carefully so not to get a conflict of interest and not to jeopardise our house. We have always agreed that if there were ever opinions voiced that Max' vice-presidency and my company would cause a conflict of interest, he would step down immediately and as this is now the case there is no other choice.
There seems to be a general idea that we are earning lots of money in Don Juan, and that Max' position as vice-president helped a lot in that. Both things are very untrue, more the oposite. We hardly earn anything, and the main reason (except for the difficult financial time in the whole of Europe) is Max' vice-presidency. The promotor has tried from the first meeting on to break down our company by telling bad stories about us, personally contacting all lawyers and clients and tell them they wouldn't do anything for them as long as they were our client. Luckily we have some very loyal clients/friends who stayed with us nevertheless, but I also have a lot of testemonials from (prospect) clients who decided because of this to work with someone else. I can't blame them, probably in their situation I would have done the same.
Besides that, most of you don't seem to realise how much time Max (and all the other members of the board of the community) put into work for the community. UNPAID, I must add because a lot of people think he gets a wage for that. My company suffered a lot from all the work he did for the community, because a starting company needs a lot of time and attention but the community issues somehow always were more pressing, more urgent, more time-consuming. Maybe, once at the beginning, we thought Max' position in the board could be a help PR-wise for the company, but as soon as Nuria started to play up we knew it would be the opposite. We talked about it then for a long time, but he decided -with my consent- to stay on as vice-president because we love this urbanisation, and we like the people in it and want the best for it. Some of you may be a bit sceptical about this statement, but let me tell you that Max has always been in the board of our community in Amsterdam, where his area of work was completely different and could in no way have profitted from it.
We have all been through rough times in Don Juan and we're all getting at the end of our patience and understanding and frustration. I DO understand that. I dare say we have suffered even more than most of you. We had to move from rental to rental because the completion got delayed (we moved 6 times in one year, in the end my daughter just asked "where is my bed today mommy?"). Every single time the urbanisation was without water or electrics or whatever, WE were there to experience it, while trying to continue our daily life. So yes, we DO understand your frustration, your worries, your anxiety to get things clear asap. We've always tried to be as friendly as possible, as informative as possible, as helpfull as possible.
But very few of you (apologies to those who DO understand and have always been so supportive through e-mail, PM, mail, in person, that is very very much appreciated) understand the strain that is sometimes put on us in our position. We are "in the know" about a lot of things. We speak Spanish. We know most of the people here. We can organise things. While you are here on holiday, we LIVE here and have to deal day in day out with LOTS of people asking questions, airing complaints, demanding things, requesting our help. On all times of the night and the day. While we are sleeping, while we are having dinner, while I am bringing my girl to bed, while I am trying to get my administration done. It is not uncommon to be called out of bed at 4am to explain in Spanish to someones taxi-driver the way to Don Juan. We don't get a dime for all of those things, because these people are no clients,and hardly ever a thank-you. While you were all demanding your English television and becoming sometimes abusive about it, the board of the community was trying to prevent Arrohabitatge from taking over the community and costing us all thousands of euro's. While you were shouting about the blinking pools not being open, or dogmuck on the grass, the board was busy to prevent all our houses from overflooding and/or collapsing. But all we hear is "more that 70% of the community thinks you're doing it wrong". "you're attitude is not right". "You're just making a lot on money out of this."
There is a group of people that whenever they are overhere, like to group together and gossip about us. I don't mind that so much as the fact that they choose to always do that right below our balcony so we can hear every word they have to say about us.
The ironic thing is this: we are always busy to defend the English-speaking community towards the Spanish residents here. WE shushed down the complaints about Andy's noisy renters. We explain to the Spanish here how important English television is for you and how from your point of view that matters more than the communities' war with Nuria and that's why Max went great lengths to get this deal with Gemsat and saved you all a lot of money (and no, he didn't get anything for making that deal, not even a free setup box). But still people complain and think we are just working on a big scheme to get rich.
So here we are. This company will go bankrupt very soon, so we're desperate to find another way to survive, struggling to make end meets at the moment. Yesterday the boiler of the neighbour above us came crashing from the wall and more than fivehundred of litres of water have streamed into our house. My daughters room is completely ruined so once again she has to sleep in another bedroom without her beloved princesses on the wall. And would you believe that even while I was standing there, crying because of the damage in my house, trying to save what I could save, people came to demand some key that I don't even posess because their connection to the Sky-dish is -as they say- more urgent then my overflooding house.
This post has gotten far too long already, and I doubt if any of you has come this far. I am not saying this to get your pity or even sympathy. Our troubles are our own and shouldn't concern you. But for a long time now I have wanted to once clarify OUR position here. Perhaps next time there is something to complain about, people could try to remember how very very much time Max puts in the wellbeing of the community and that all the problems you experience here, we experience even more. How big an impact all this has on our lives and that therefore we might not always have the time and patience to explain the same things over and over again to everybody.
We are not evil people, believe it or not we mean well...