Yes, four weeks of sick leave. That's what you get with cataract operations when you have socialist health care and a still more or less working welfare state. In our regulations, the employer has to pay full salary up to six weeks of sick leave, after which health insurance sets in with a reduced salary substitute of 60% of the original salary. It's quite reasonable that no employer wants to hire a new employee when after two weeks he's faced with paying full sick leave. That's what's making my situation difficult. I therefore have to apply for unemployment benefits (a third less than the original salary) and, as I always had an income at the subsistence level, welfare benefits as well. A lot of bureaucracy, the mold of every functioning welfare state it seems, with enough politicians who like to emulate Milei and Musk.

The restaurant closes because it wasn't worth the effort any longer. First the pandemic, than a construction site nearby, both reduceding the number of customers; then the state claiming back its support payments from the tim eof the pandemic. As the costs have been too high the owner of the restaurant who is the chef called it quit. Which is reasonable. What I don't understand is why he only now told us and not a few weeks earlier so that we had more time to look for new jobs.