Each season, style magazines publish guides on how to dress for summer in the office and survive the commute, or how not to freeze when the air conditioning is on full blast. For instance, a year ago EL PAÍS journalist Amaia Odriozola advised readers to keep a knitted cardigan in a drawer and also noted that if so many office-set television shows like Mad Men or House of Cards repeat gags about women freezing at work and managers turning the air up to maximum, it’s because “that connects with an almost universal situation in corporate life for women: while it’s scorching outside, the workplace feels like the Arctic.”

Among men, when the heat arrives, the debate about whether wearing shorts to work is acceptable resurfaces, and the answer, like that to so many other big questions, is: it depends. It depends on what others around them are doing and on their individual boldness, because mimicry remains one of the main mechanisms for surviving at work, despite managerial rhetoric encouraging risk-taking.

In any case, whether wearing a cardigan, bermuda shorts, or the usual stifling suit, not everyone hates going to the office in July and August, not even when advertising relentlessly reminds you it’s summer and everything seems to push you toward the beaches. In fact, if summer is still a huge collective ritual, part of that seasonal exceptionality spills into many offices (and workshops, newsrooms, and other workplaces) and helps make these the months some salaried employees prefer to be at work. The concrete reasons are multiple: rhythms change and deadlines are extended; bosses disappear because they’re on vacation and fewer meetings are scheduled; split shifts turn into the much more reasonable summer schedule, which frees up the afternoon; traffic drops and, additionally, some fun customs crop up, boosting camaraderie.

It is a growing phenomenon. A recent study published by economists David César Heymann and Eduard Alcobé indicates that the decline in seasonality of tourism spending in recent years is due, among other factors, to greater labor flexibility after the pandemic: “By increasing the possibility of choosing vacation dates with fewer restrictions, the age groups most active in the workforce can take advantage of more competitive prices, less crowding and, in general, a more comfortable tourist experience. Likewise, low birth rates reduce dependence on school calendars and, therefore, could make travel easier during less traditional periods.” If more employees take vacations in the low season, summer euphoria also spreads to offices. How is that change in atmosphere experienced?

Curious customs

According to Herman Melville’s story, Bartleby — the quintessential rebellious office worker — began his one-man revolt during the summer. Perhaps to avoid reaching the point of that famous scribe, journalist Gonzalo Aguirre explains that, in his work, he has always followed an important rule: “Find out which days my boss takes vacation so I don’t have to work when he’s around.” “The boss’s absence, combined with that general laid-back atmosphere where everything seems to be running at half speed, turns summer days at work into little vacations in and of themselves. Yes, you have to get up early, you have to work just as hard, and tasks must get done, but with the offices only half-full, the fact that many other companies you have to deal with are also running at half-speed or are closed altogether, and the fact that it’s hot, all of this creates an atmosphere of relaxation in the office,” he notes.

María Torralba, who works from Madrid for a multinational company, describes a similar situation, although she notes that, since her workflow depends on foreign offices, her workload doesn’t change much: “In Spain, seasonal patterns are generally respected — or at least everyone thinks along the same lines — but when you work with other markets, there’s nothing unusual about working in the summer. Maybe from now on, when the Germans and the French start feeling the heat, things will change.” The young woman explains that, even so, there’s a certain vibe in the air: “You run into a lot of people who are already burned out and need a break. But there are also fewer people in the office, and it’s much easier to build stronger connections or have slightly deeper conversations. That’s really nice: the conversations get better, and some pretty interesting opportunities arise. With the relaxed summer vibe, it’s easier to talk about different ways of approaching everyday life, and you notice that summer fosters certain dreams and hopes. It’s a time for intimacy, for going out to eat, or for sharing a little more.”

In some places, that relaxed atmosphere gives rise to unusual customs — and, once again, unusual attire: “I have a tradition with my colleagues on the editorial staff: every day, one of us brings a snack to eat mid-morning, since the intensive workday drags on and some of us don’t get home until 4 p.m. for lunch. Many dare to come in shorts — unthinkable the rest of the year — even if the temperatures allow it. You see flip-flops, and you see bags with a bikini strap hanging out or a towel or sunscreen peeking out because they’re heading straight from the office to the pool. At 3 p.m., the same colleague always plays a Georgie Dann song on his computer to remind us it’s time to head out,” Aguirre says.

But it’s not all Hawaiian shirts or beach-bar tunes by the desks. Mar Cabra, CEO of The Self Investigation, a consultancy specializing in mental health and work, says she personally finds it hard to work in summer and thinks talking about “summer euphoria” in these contexts is excessive. “I don’t feel productive when lots of people around me are enjoying themselves, when many are on vacation or social media is full of people sharing beach photos while I’m in Madrid […] That said, what I’ve found works for me is using summer as a period for reflection. In terms of work with The Self Investigation, the foundation I lead where we help companies work more healthily, summer is a slow period, so we’ve turned it into a time for reflection,” something she recommends to any professional.

Why not keep it up in September?

In The Book of Disquiet, Bernardo Soares, an accountant and heteronym of the poet Fernando Pessoa, reflects on his daydreams during “the summer tedium of the utterly quiet office.” Soares likes to watch summer storms arrive while he continues working slowly, though he then sinks into “feelings of desolation without space and the shipwreck of the whole soul” linked both to his work routine and his predisposition to melancholy. But it’s not only poets who feel negative toward repetitive or overly demanding jobs. In his essay Bullshit Jobs, anthropologist David Graeber argues that many contemporary jobs involve performing dozens of useless tasks (or tasks that exist only to justify the position itself) that also overload those who perform them.

“Most work environments suffer from excessive workloads and we see this throughout the year, but especially during the periods before vacations, both summer and Christmas,” Cabra explains. “I believe conducting regular workload assessments is one of the main improvements that could be made in all organizations, especially during peak work periods, which tend to be the ones I’ve mentioned. An organization should know, without fail, when its peak work moments are.” Thanks to this approach, summer becomes an opportunity to reconsider everything that doesn’t work in an organization, and to look at other ways of working.

In fact, in her essay, Cabra lists the principal ills of the contemporary office: meetingitis, urgentitis and interruptionitis. These common problems are precisely the ones that tend to disappear during summer, as Torralba has observed: “Because there are fewer people, meetings decline, making it clear that we continue to work well without all that micromanagement, that is, without all those control strategies imposed on us the rest of the year. Without any of that the company doesn’t collapse, so it’s proven that such meticulous control isn’t necessary. It turns out that when you have a bit more leeway in managing your own deadlines and projects, without so much paternalism, the result in the end is the same or better.”

In this way, summer allows us to test ways of organizing work that could be applied throughout the rest of the year and not just be a brief exception: “In our team as well — where there are about six of us — we’re much more flexible in the summer. For example, some people have decided to work remotely only in the mornings so they can spend the afternoons with their families in Cádiz. Remote work becomes more widespread in the summer, and if things go well… Why aren’t we more open to remote work throughout the year? Well, unfortunately, in Spain it still has many detractors, whose arguments aren’t backed by any evidence at all. So the big question for me is why, as soon as September rolls around, it seems like the world is a different place,” wonders Torralba.

That’s what Aguirre has observed as well: the festive atmosphere in his newsroom not only doesn’t reduce productivity, but actually increases it: “Someone might read this and think: That office is a total mess — doesn’t anyone work there? But they’d be surprised to learn that yes, we get the work done; we work in a relaxed manner, wearing light clothing, and knowing that there will be food and, later, the pool. We work happily — if those two terms can even go together — or at least close to happiness. And we’re very productive that way. Big business leaders should think about it: maybe creating a sort of eternal summer in the office would give productivity a boost,” he concludes.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition

Not even United Nations envoys, with their escorts and armored vehicles, can land in Port-au-Prince and move safely around Haiti, a country dominated by gangs since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. When he travels to the island, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ designated expert on Haiti, William O’Neill, lands in Cap-Haïtien and then travels by helicopter. “I cannot go to most of the capital,” he says.

Gangs control almost all of Port-au-Prince and much of the country. The violence from their clashes has displaced more than 1.5 million people, deepening the humanitarian crisis that Haiti was already facing. Families survive on remittances sent by relatives abroad: billions of dollars that pay rent, healthcare, schools, funerals, taxes for a weakened state and the fees demanded by the gangs.

And now the United States, the Dominican Republic and other countries that host most of the diaspora have set out to deport them to an island that is not able to receive them.

“Nobody should be deported or forced to return to Haiti,” O’Neill tells EL PAÍS in an interview from New York. “The human rights situation is catastrophic and there is no way any forced repatriation at this moment could be safe, dignified and durable. Therefore, they should not do it. It violates international law and, morally, it is terrible to send people back into this situation,” adds the lawyer and human rights expert who is documenting the escalation of the humanitarian and security crisis in the country.

The past few months have been particularly violent, O’Neill says. Some of the groups that make up the Viv Ansanm gang alliance, which dominates Port-au-Prince, are fighting over key checkpoints on the roads. And north of the capital, Grand Grif and Kokorat San Ras have been expanding their territory toward the center of the country.

Haitians in the diaspora have nowhere to return to. “They arrive in Cap-Haïtien and the Haitian government gives them the equivalent of about $60 or $70, in gourdes, and says, ‘Good luck.’ Where are they supposed to go? If they come from gang-controlled areas, there is no way to return safely. And if they get past that, they go back to a neighborhood that has been burned and where everything is destroyed. There are no jobs, no opportunities, very little schooling, no medical care. Many Haitian families in Haiti were surviving on money sent back by Haitians working legally under TPS. And that money is already starting to dry up,” O’Neill describes.

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protected roughly 350,000 Haitian immigrants in the United States from deportation. The first designation was approved after the devastating January 2010 earthquake and subsequent administrations renewed it until Donald Trump entered the White House and moved to end it.

TPS for Haitian nationals expired at midnight on July 27, and on August 5 a court took the legal step that confirmed its termination. With the status gone, beneficiaries also lost their work permits and many began to be laid off before the deadline dates arrived. Employers are already feeling the absence of this workforce in cities such as Miami, New York and Philadelphia, especially in healthcare, hospitality and agriculture.

The worst place to be a child

Organizations that support Haitian communities in the United States estimate that more than 50,000 U.S. children with dual nationality have at least one parent or guardian who is a beneficiary of such programs and therefore at risk of deportation. The removal of protections forces families to face impossible choices: separate the family, risk detention and deportation, or return to the island together.

On every occasion in recent months when he has addressed the situation of children, the UN expert has said that Haiti is one of the worst places in the world to be a child.

“In eight years there has not been a single full school year for any Haitian child, not even in areas where gangs are not as powerful or do not have control, due to disruptions in the economy, prices, fees, displacement and stress on society. Teachers are not paid, they are at risk and some have been killed,” the lawyer says.

Although the exact number of gang members in Haiti is unknown, UNICEF and the United Nations estimate that roughly half are children under 17. Many of them do not even know their exact age and lack birth certificates.

“In gang-controlled areas children have very limited access to school, and they are also exposed to incredible levels of violence. They see it, they hear it and sometimes they are victims of it, or their relatives or close friends are,” O’Neill says. And both in those territories and in areas without armed clashes, girls, adolescents and women are exposed to sexual exploitation and abuse.

The displacement camps do not offer safety either: they are makeshift shelters set up in public parks and vacant lots, tents and cardboard-and-wood shacks where hundreds of people live without food, water or basic services. “Haitians barely have enough to live on or to eat. How can they be expected to take on more mouths to feed in places that are already so overcrowded?”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition

The event takes place every year, but the setting and the main figures change. This time it was July 30 and the temperature invited people to take out a fan, although it could do little more than stir the air of the Turkish-bath atmosphere Mallorca has become this summer. The bar at the Hilton Mallorca Galatzó hotel, in a privileged area of Calvià, was closed to the public, who frequently peered through the windows at the comings and goings of photography and video crews moving across the lobby. Inside the bar, accompanied by several advisers from her team, was Priscilla Presley (New York, 81), wife of the King of Rock and Roll first and ex-wife later, although they never really separated completely. A slim woman with a soft voice and very fair skin that contrasts with her red hair, the same color as the dress she will wear at the party later. She stands immediately to greet EL PAÍS. She had been in Mallorca in the 1960s, but says she doesn’t remember it like it is today: “I was very young,” she says, almost in a whisper.

It is 4.00 p.m. Five hours remain before Priscilla Presley, formerly Beaulieu, becomes the main attraction at the party that real estate businessman Marcel Remus (Hamm, Germany, 39) organizes each summer at a different island hotel, attended by industry figures and German socialites, and extensively covered by that country’s celebrity press. In his drive to extend his personal brand (he even has a waffle batter mix bearing his name) the party Remus — the businessman-now-celebrity who mainly sells ultra-luxury properties on the islands — throws is one of the most talked-about summer events in the Balearics and brings together a wide range of well-known personalities. Past attendees have ranged from Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank, at last year’s edition, to singer Janet Jackson and actress-writer Joan Collins, at earlier parties. This year, alongside Priscilla, the spotlight is shared by Mischa Barton, known for playing Marissa Cooper on the teen series The O.C., and Mónica Cruz, a dancer and sister of Penélope Cruz.

Back at the bar, the clock is ticking. They allow 10 minutes for the interview, in which Priscilla does not answer questions about the death of her daughter, Lisa Marie Presley — the only child she had during her marriage to Elvis — who died in January 2023 from an intestinal obstruction following stomach surgery. Three years earlier the family had already faced the death of Benjamin Keough, one of Lisa Marie’s four children, who took his own life at 27, an episode his mother admitted she had never overcome. The matriarch had already recounted all the details in the memoirs she published in September of last year, and they will presumably continue in the new edition she is preparing. “I’m writing another book right now, the continuation of my memoirs, about the good and the bad,” she confirms.

Elvis is the axis around which Priscilla revolves. In the past four years, the life of the King and, by extension, hers, have been brought to the screen in film. Austin Butler portrayed the legendary musician in Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 feature, and director Sofia Coppola later adapted their romantic relationship for the big screen, from Priscilla’s point of view. “I felt very comfortable with Sofia. I wish it was longer. You know, we were given just so much time. I wish that we had even longer to talk. But, I was okay with it,” she says about the film. For the actress and businesswoman it is “difficult” to see herself on screen. It is also hard to talk in interviews, “living life all over again.” “The memories that come up and the questions that are asked, it kind of releases a lot that one holds in,” she admits.

For Priscilla, being with Elvis shaped her entire life: “It was a great lesson in life being with someone so famous and how he handled it, and what it did to him as far as becoming so famous and so popular… it was a lesson in life for sure for me.” The memory of the singer, who died in August 1977 at 42, remains vivid for Priscilla. She describes him as a man with a “very big heart,” very generous with his people and his family, especially his mother, whose death “took a little bit from him.” At this point she recalls a well-known anecdote she believes shows how the artist loved “giving and helping people.” The episode happened at a Memphis dealership, where Elvis had gone with the intention of buying a car. An elderly woman there was looking at some of the vehicles and stepped aside when she saw the singer, hardly believing her eyes. “And he looked over at her, and she’s looking at the car. And he went over to her, and he said, ‘You like this car?’ And she said ‘Oh, this car is beautiful.’ And he goes, ‘Really?’ And he had the guy come over with the keys. And he took her hand, put the keys in her hand, and said, ‘This is yours.’ And he bought it for her. That’s how giving he was. He never met her before,” Priscilla recounts.

The couple met in Germany in 1959, while he was doing his military service and she was living with her parents, who were stationed there because her stepfather was an officer in the U.S. Army. At the time, she was 14 years old, and Elvis — who was already a music star — was 10 years her senior. They married in Las Vegas in 1967 but divorced in 1973, though they maintained a good relationship until the singer’s death; he never remarried. At just 34 years old, and following the death of Elvis’s father — which occurred only two years after the artist’s own death — Priscilla took charge of managing the star’s legacy on behalf of her daughter, Lisa Marie. An artist who left behind more than 700 songs and 31 films, he is one of the music stars who has continued to generate the highest royalties after his death. “It means a lot to me. It means a lot. You know, I want people who know what a great man he was,” she says.

In 1982 Priscilla turned Graceland, the famous mansion the singer had given to his parents, into a must-see pilgrimage site for fans, and it remains year after year the second most-visited place in the United States, after the White House. The businesswoman defends her role in preserving the artist’s legacy: “I think it’s important that I have a role in his life because, basically, no one knew him like I did.” For that reason, and despite the articles, films, documentaries, and reports, Priscilla believes there is still much that has not been told about Elvis: “Yeah, a lot. He was something else.” Secrets, perhaps? She laughs. “Not everything has been told in the films,” she says.

Priscilla says that, in addition to being immersed in the second part of her memoirs, she continues to devote a great deal of time to animal rescue work, especially rescuing older animals in shelters. The encounter ends a little before the scheduled time so she can rest before becoming the focus of the roughly 600 guests who will attend Remus’s party and who are hoping to see her up close, or take a photo with her. She poses with the businessman on the red carpet and, later, spends the night in a reserved area of the party alongside Cruz and Barton. Meanwhile, magnate Remus is already thinking about his guest list for next year’s party.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition