A Tower for Women in Thessaloniki

Lefkos Pirgos -- The White Tower of Thessaloniki.

Networking is still something a foreign concept in Greece. Not in an informal capacity, of course: there's not an empty bar stool to be found during the summer. But business and professional networking is still something of a novelty, especially for female entrepreneurs.

So I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon the Thessaloniki Organization for Women's Employment and Resources (TOWER), an expatriate NGO of foreign women seeking to connect with one another. Run by women from the US, Bulgaria, Greece and other countries, the organization acts as a platform for networking women across a variety of industries, including tourism, business and even holistic medicine. "Our primary aim is to make women feel more welcome in Thessaloniki so they're not alone," says Lambrini Nassis, a lawyer from New York who is TOWER's current chair.   

Lambrini Nassis, Tower Chair.

Begun in 2002 after a conference on female immigrant labor rights, the organization is now something of a go-to for all issues. A small, but telling example: we're sitting at cafe one night discussing the local economy. A female friend tells us that a 73-year-old lady got kicked out of a coffee shop the other day because they didn't want to serve "old people who order juice and take up space for hours". TOWER rallied: one woman asked the name of the shop to begin a boycott; another contemplated filing suit against them for discrimination. What I like about these people that they get things done: a ray of can-doism amid a climate of apathy.

Is the efficiency due to the fact that the organization is run by expatriate women, I ask Nassis? (The American in me is analyzing; the Greek tells me to not to worry about it and have a coffee). "We're made up of very motivated people, and I think that helps us execute things in timely way." A diplomatic answer, but a telling one nonetheless. I've spent the better part of the summer hearing excuses, complaints and reasons for why Greece is faltering. TOWER is one of the first organizations that I've come across to present solutions.

Martha, Music and Civil Society

Student musicians in the town square.

It is 2am at the annual Music Village Festival of Agios Laventrios, and the local square pulses with life. Students crowd around tables, reviewing tomorrow's rehearsal schedule. Musicians tune guitars and discuss this week's upcoming classes. Proprietors whisk away empty tsipouro bottles, filling tables with local liquor and meze. Around 3 or 4am, someone will strike up an impromptu performance, and the music will last well into the morning.

It is an atmosphere of shared community that Greek performers here have come to increasingly embrace as they struggle with the everyday hardships of recession. "There is a strong need for communities now," says the acclaimed Greek performer Martha Frintzila, who leads a theatrical workshop at this year's festival. "You see it daily that people gather together in their houses; they cook together, they share cars. Now that Greece is under the microscope, people try to bond with one another as they face the world."

Greek musician, actress and theater director
Martha Frintzila.

'One Cuckoo Alone Cannot Bring Spring'

Frintzila has become an increasingly vocal advocate of community-building at a time when corruption, job loss, and distrust have all but destroyed the bonds of civil society in Greece.

Along with her husband Vassilis Mantzoukis, she headlines the Greek rock-band Stacy, and performs regularly at festivals throughout the country. She also teaches at the National Theatre Drama School in Athens, and is the founder of Baumstrasse, an art space in Athens that hosts plays, poetry readings, music rehearsals, art therapy, and event the occasional bazaar. The central theme to much of her work is community -- shared space, shared ideas, shared success.

"Collaboration only forms around large projects, like the Olympic Games," she says. "Projects like this are done to show that Greeks can be united. But when an artist tries to do something himself, generally everyone waits for him to fail." The crisis has helped to partly change this mentality, she notes. "Nowadays, no one cannot succeed alone. People are beginning to understand that 'One koukou [cuckoo] alone cannot bring spring'."

Nevertheless, Frintzila says she has seen the arts shrink in stature a country where the education system prioritizes technical fields such as engineering and medicine. Indeed, for a country that is rich in history and culture, there is little support for those wishing to be professional performers and artists.

Martha and Vassilis lead a workshop this year on the
"Seven Deadly Sins."

 "The problem these days within the country is that people say: 'art is a hobby'. It’s not a hobby. It’s a very significant and basic method of expression." She hopes to re-introduce the dramatic arts to a Greek audience in a way that allows dying art forms to be appreciated once again. Eventually, she hopes to export ancient Greek theatre to the world. 

Music as Community Building

A 650-year old village founded by a monk would seem like an unlikely venue for Frintzila and others to encourage musical collaboration. The streets are treacherous cobblestone; musical instruments are nearly impossible to drag up; there are no buildings that are made to host more than a dozen workshops, and few places save the square are lit at night.

Yet, the town's small size encourages the type of networking and sharing its creators had in mind. The main organizers -- Thymios Atzakas, Kostas Makrygiannakis and Giorgos Lazaridis -- can always be found somewhere in the main agora. Local landmarks such as the high-school and caravanserai serve as workshop venues. Locals make way for the trucks and vespas carting up amps, instruments and electrical gear, while the cafeterias in the square have provided wi-fi for festival guests.

It is an innovative music festival, to say the least -- a unique collaboration between local town organizers, the artistic community, and municipal government. Supported by a grant for the Prefecture of Magnesia Social and Cultural Council (Ekpol), the Municipality of Artemida, as well as arTree, a musical collaborative, Greek Music Village is one of Brokeistan's rare gems; proof that where there is a will to collaborate, there is a way -- albeit uphill and treacherous when done in heels.

Martha, Music and Civil Society

Student musicians in the town square.

It is 2am at the annual Music Village Festival of Agios Laventrios, and the local square pulses with life. Students crowd around tables, reviewing tomorrow's rehearsal schedule. Musicians tune guitars and discuss this week's upcoming classes. Proprietors whisk away empty tsipouro bottles, filling tables with local liquor and meze. Around 3 or 4am, someone will strike up an impromptu performance, and the music will last well into the morning.

It is an atmosphere of shared community that Greek performers here have come to increasingly embrace as they struggle with the everyday hardships of recession. "There is a strong need for communities now," says the acclaimed Greek performer Martha Frintzila, who leads a theatrical workshop at this year's festival. "You see it daily that people gather together in their houses; they cook together, they share cars. Now that Greece is under the microscope, people try to bond with one another as they face the world."

'One Cuckoo Cannot Bring Spring'

Greek musician, actress and theater director
Martha Frintzila.

Frintzila has become an increasingly vocal advocate of community-building at a time when corruption, job loss, and distrust have all but destroyed the bonds of civil society in Greece.

Along with her husband Vassilis Mantzoukis, she headlines the Greek rock-band Stacy, and performs regularly at festivals throughout the country. She also teaches at the National Theatre Drama School in Athens, and is the founder of Baumstrasse, an art space in Athens that hosts plays, poetry readings, music rehearsals, art therapy, and event the occasional bazaar. The central theme to much of her work is community -- shared space, shared ideas, shared success.

"Collaboration only forms around large projects, like the Olympic Games," she says. "Projects like this are done to show that Greeks can be united. But when an artist tries to do something himself, generally everyone waits for him to fail." The crisis has helped to partly change this mentality, she notes. "Nowadays, no one cannot succeed alone. People are beginning to understand that 'One koukou [cuckoo] alone cannot bring spring'."

Nevertheless, Frintzila says she has seen the arts shrink in stature a country where the education system prioritizes technical fields such as engineering and medicine. Indeed, for a country that is rich in history and culture, there is little support for those wishing to be professional performers and artists.

"The problem these days within the country is that people say: 'art is a hobby'. It’s not a hobby. It’s a very significant and basic method of expression." She hopes to re-introduce the dramatic arts to a Greek audience in a way that allows dying art forms to be appreciated once again. Eventually, she hopes to export ancient Greek theatre to the world.

 

Martha and Vassilis lead a workshop this year on the
"Seven Deadly Sins."

Music as Community Building
A 650-year old village founded by a monk would seem like an unlikely venue for Frintzila and others to encourage musical collaboration. The streets are treacherous cobblestone; musical instruments are nearly impossible to drag up; there are no buildings that are made to host more than a dozen workshops, and few places save the square are lit at night.

Yet, the town's small size encourages the type of networking and sharing its creators had in mind. The main organizers -- Thymios Atzakas, Kostas Makrygiannakis and Giorgos Lazaridis -- can always be found somewhere in the main agora. Local landmarks such as the high-school and caravanserai serve as workshop venues. Locals make way for the trucks and vespas carting up amps, instruments and electrical gear, while the cafeterias in the square have provided wi-fi for festival guests.

It is an innovative music festival, to say the least -- a unique collaboration between local town organizers, the artistic community, and municipal government. Supported by a grant for the Prefecture of Magnesia Social and Cultural Council (Ekpol), the Municipality of Artemida, as well as arTree, a musical collaborative, Greek Music Village is one of Brokeistan's rare gems; proof that where there is a will to collaborate, there is a way -- albeit uphill and treacherous when done in heels.

Public Policy Lessons from Spain

Sure, it may be on the verge of default. But Spain has its act together when it comes to small details on urban policy and design that can greatly effect how visitors interact with its cities.

Calorie-count walking routes in Granada.

1.Urban Policy Mini-Detail Uno: Exercise breakdown of principal walking route in Granada. Breaks down calories burned by gender, intensity of pace, and velocity. Some German-style thinking in the heart of Andaluica.

This would be a wonderful addition to Greek routes in Athens, Thessaloniki and other urban cities where walking is a favorite past-time, particularly at night when the heat has died down.

Near Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Spain.

To aid in these promenades, Urban Design Policy Mini-Detail Duo would be a great addition in Greece as well: heat-reflective tarps that cool down urban passages during the day. I know these are common. I know they're not new. But consider the case I heard of today that makes these sorts of urban design instruments impossible to implement: a business owner near the northern city of Leptokarya had bought $15,000 worth of this tarp in order to put up in the main plaza of a nearby town. (Previously, an industrial air-conditioner had been installed to cool down the city center, but it was deemed "too ugly" by the residents and taken down). This tarp now sits in the basement of this business owner -- not because it was ugly, but because he hadn't "supported" the proper official with the right amount of money for the ability to put up the tarps.

Lastly, Cultural/Literary Policy Mini-Detail Tres: a lending-book vending machine in the Madrid metro. How cool is that? People can return books they've borrowed from the Library of Madrid, and rent out selected copies of popular volumes.

Now, this may only work in Greece if a free coffee and cigarette is included -- but I can't think of a better way to offer reading material to the average citizen in a venue that often calls for a volume to pass the time with. If Thessaloniki's metro every gets finished -- construction has  been permanently since the crisis -- this would be a great addition underground.

A Day at Thessaloniki City Hall

Meeting Hall in Thessaloniki City Hall.

Around 2 pm, they said, was when the meeting would begin. At 2:40, a screen dropped with the day's agenda. At 3, the TV crews turned on their cameras. A female journalist beside me opened her sandwich. The smell of ham filled the theatre. Around 3:30, they trickled in -- PASOK, New Democracy, the Communist Party. Half of the representative's seats were empty.

It was the week before national elections at the monthly City Hall meeting in Thessaloniki -- "eh," a security guard had commented as I walked in, as if to say: what did you expect?

I quickly understand the absence of heads -- they were pacing themselves. The first few hours consisted of speeches. Interest groups, politicians, and last year's newly elected Mayor, Yiannis Boutaris . At one point, a man with a gnarled cane who had been sitting behind me stood up as a member of PASOK began to speak. "Sit down, dog!" He shouted. "The Communists will own this land one day again!"

He was only mollified when a member of the Green Party took the stand to protest the lack of trash collection. There was a strike happening; trash was collecting in the city's dumpsters. "Shameful!" The representative said, shuffling through a PowerPoint presentation. "What is this government doing to fix the situation?"

Around hour three, I slid down to the row of seats occupied by the deputy mayors of the city and leaned into the one farthest to the right.

 

"So basically...people talk for a while," I began.

"Right," he said.

"And then someone argues. And then they talk again."

"Right," he said.

"And then?"

 He opened an agenda book and showed me pages of laws and motions. "We vote on these." 

"When?"

"When the speeches finish."

"When is that?"

"Depends. Sometimes 10. Sometimes 1 or 2 am."

I went out for a coffee.

The Mayor holds up a German "dog fine" poster

When I came back, Mayor Giannis Boutaris was at the podium. In his hand was a German poster depicting a small dog and a fine -- a new campaign launched to curb animal waste in the city. "We need measures like this to clean up our streets," he insisted. Guffaws and scoffs resounded throughout the room.

One of the journalists leaned into me. "We're going through a crisis and he wants to tax dogs? Mother Mary." She made the sign of the cross and shook her head.

It went on like this for a while -- more speeches, more motions to consider. At several points, Boutari went outside to smoke a cigarette; a break from the circus within.

The proceedings confirm thoughts I'd been reluctant to accept: that 21st-century governance still has little place in post-Soviet quarters. Architecturally, Thessaloniki's city hall is a modern marvel of recessed lighting, PowerPoint screens and electronics. As an institution, its representatives still have a long way to go.

Boutari takes notes.

Much buzz surrounded Boutari last year. Operationally, he's regarded as one of the country's foremost reformers. Since being elected into office last year, he's hired an auditor (unfathomable) to oversee expenditure, introduced a system of performance review (unthinkable) in the civil service, and has vowed to act not as a politician, but as a businessman trying to run the city of Thessaloniki.

Despite these moves, he has met considerable resistance from a system and a body politic entrenched in traditions of patronage, subsidies, and paychecks that are not based on how well one's work is performed. 

"You cannot understand how incredibly difficult it is to get someone to do something here," one of the deputy mayors confessed to me. "The phrase around the office is: 'It can't happen'. But it has to happen. So how do we make it work?"

Since elections have come and gone, proceedings have remained much the same. There's little surprise in this -- Europe's Troika and its Greek officials are concerned more with imminent default than the time-consuming process of lower-level reform. However, picking up the trash, fining animal waste, and seeing to the daily operations that make a system run are the very things that must be addressed if Greece is to rise up out of its dysfunction.

Alec Baldwin has a great one-liner in 30 Rock on the Greek crisis. "Since inventing democracy, those guys have been...coasting," he says. Correction, Jack Donaghy. They've been talking. And that's about it.

Greece's Crisis Solution: Flex Time?

Could flex-time be the 21st solution to Greece's Byzantine-era bureaucracy?

The question was posed last month at a Women in Business conference in Thessaloniki. Hosted by the British-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce, the seminar featured a presentation by the British author Alison Maitland, whose new book, Future Work: How Business Can Adopt and Thrive in the New World of Work, analyzes companies that have thrived on new models of flexibility -- pushed in large part by the need to retain women employees.

Maitland analyzes how organizations such as Ernst & Young, IBM, and Vodaphone are adapting new models of flex-time, allowing employees greater freedom in productivity. From creating a "virtual" office space via teleconferencing, to building networking lounges and removing cubicle space, to allowing employees to work from their local coffee shop, is changing the 9-5 office model on its head in many countries.

Gender has played a large role in developing this trend for two primary reasons, Maitland says: companies increasingly seek to retain women who become mothers in high-level positions, and women in leadership positions tend to be more adaptive, flexible and communicative than their male counterparts. "You don't have to 'act like a man' in order to be an effective leader as women once had to," she says.

Other featured speakers of the night agreed. "In our organization, trust and communication is very important," said Georgia Aifadopoulou, the Head of the Department of Research for the Institute of Transport in Thessaloniki. She has bucked the traditional model of top-down management in Greece, giving her employees license to question her decisions and play an active role in the decision-making process.

Adapting new models of work are critical in a country such as Greece, added Linda Gouta, the Change Management Director for Hellenic Petroleum. Women can play a critical role in bolstering the confidence of stakeholders wary of taking risks during an economic crisis. "You know the classic joke, but I'll say it again: if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters, we would have never had these problems."

Caroline Turner, Secretary General of the BHCC, speaks.

So could flex-time be the solution to Greece's bureaucratic woes? It may -- but organizational change in a country low on funds and built on systems of patronage, wasta  and hierarchy will take time. For at the heart of Maitland's argument lies an inherent value system: people want to work -- they just want more freedom when and how to do it. As one local City Hall employee told me: "Work? A government employee will do anything he can to make sure he doesn't lift a finger until the clock strikes 3. He will work as hard as he can to do nothing." 

Flex-time may have to wait.

The "Taxitsou" of Rhodes

The sun is rapacious in Rhodes. It devours everything, including the shade I stand under as I wait for a taxi that is 20 minutes late to drive me to the airport. "Thirty seconds. I'm rounding the corner now," the driver croons into my cell phone. 

His tone makes me think he's sitting in a cafe somewhere, stirring his espresso. I look around in mild desperation. If I hotwired a Vespa, nobody would notice, right? There's about 300 in the parking lot. I eye the skiff floating to my right in the water. Maybe a boat would be faster... 

Sanity prevails as I spy a taxi behind the trees. An older woman in her 50s sits at the wheel of one, polishing her sunglasses. "Are you free?" I ask.

"Of course," she says. "Get in." She's a rare sight in Greece -- a woman taxi driver (or taxitzou). I tell her so as we speed along the narrow seaside highway, swerving through buses, scooters, Germans. She laughs. "I was one of the first," she says with pride. "There's about 17 of us now, but it's still very male-dominated." 

Originally from the Peloponnese, she was widowed when her husband died in his 40s. Left with three children, she has worked for Rhodes's taxi monopoly for over a decade. "You need to love this work in order to do it," the 58-year old says. "Because men still think it 'man's work'."

Has the crisis forced people to change their minds? "Some. Back then, they used to say: 'Go clean some dishes'. But now slowly men are letting their wives work more."

Though business is slow this season, her clients are loyal. "I have an American woman who wouldn't change me for anything," she says. She attributes this to her efficiency: she's always on time, always uses the meter, and scoffs at the "reckless" driving style of the men in her company. 

Female taxi drivers in Dubai share a laugh.  Courtesy Dubai Taxi.

Her story reminds me of the all-female taxi service in Dubai: so-called "pink taxis" that the Government had launched in response to harassment and safety concerns a few years ago. They've been extremely successful, and are now a popular service for tourists and families that prefer the "safe qualities" of a female driver. 

"I always thought I might like to have an all-female taxi service of my own," she muses as I tell her about the company. I've had this in my mind for so many years but, you know..."

The "you know" encompasses a lot: the difficulty in starting a business in Greece, the slump in clients, the ongoing crisis, her age. "I've been working since I was 12," she says. "At my age, to start a business..." she shrugs. 

I stop short of telling her it's possible. That these days, people often switch careers into their 50s and 60s. Because that's America, land of over-optimism, can-doism. This is Brokeistan, where these days, you're lucky to get a pension once you retire. We reach the airport and she rushes to help me with my bags. As I thank her, another car honks impatiently and yells at her to move out of the way. My last vision as I rush into the terminal is of a stout figure planted in the middle of the road, wagging her figure at an impatient (male) driver. I grin. Geia sou, re taksitzou! Eisai proti.