How long would it take your boss to notice your absence? This guy had it for 6 years!

It took six years for anyone to notice he wasn’t there (Picture: Getty Images)

Would your boss notice if you hadn’t been to work for six years?

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The answer is probably yes, but that wasn’t the case for this civil servant in Spain.

Joaquin Garcia, 69, allegedly dodged work for that amount of time after taking advantage of a mix up between his bosses at a water company in Cadiz and the local authorities.

Joaquin Garcia worked in Cadiz (Picture: Google Maps)

The organisations apparently thought that the other was supervising him when none of them were.

He has now been fined €27,000 (£21,000) as punishment even though he was paid €37,000 (£28,000) annually before tax.

This was the maximum the court could give.

He was only caught after he qualified for an award for 20 years’ service and the deputy mayor realised he wasn’t at work.

Mr Garcia, who has apparently gone into hiding because of the publicity, denies the allegations.

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He added he was purposefully put in his job as punishment for his family’s political leanings and there wasn’t actually any work to carry out.

Sources close to him told Spanish newspaper El Mundo he did show up to work and spent his days reading philosophy, .