When my visit to fix paperwork or the lift ride was over, so was the uncomfortable situation and it felt like a relief to all of us attending a burial. In nowadays’ offices, almost nobody smiles either, save the security guards or the receptionists, who are not usually members of the public service payroll, so they haven’t been ‘rotten’ by officialdom yet. It could be that working for the Spanish State is a synonym to being chronically embittered and angry, which sounds like an oxymoron, because everybody longs for being a civil servant in Spain and they celebrate if they get it. Nevertheless, after a while and for some unknown reason, civil workers appear to get infected by a strange virus, get a long face and turn into funeral parlor workers.