Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts

Wednesday 29 September 2010

Chasing paper 2





I am a bureauphobe, a papyrophobe, I am macrophobic, I am frightened of the wait before a rubber stamp thumps a form, even strip lighting in civic offices gives me the heebie-geebies. And yet all I wanted was to go swimming at the new local pool, an innocuous ambition with the goal of putting some shape to the amorphous silhouette that had begun to greet me each morning in the bathroom mirror.



Here it is necessary to get a piece of paper to get a rubber stamp to procure a form to make an application to make a declaration that you require to lodge a petition to get a piece of paper. Trees all over the world shudder at the sound of the Greek language and if you are worried about the greenhouse effect stop hounding Jeremy Clarkson and his cronies, you only have to look to the Greek civil service. The whole world could go to Tescos in Hummers and it would not touch the damage they do every day. Not only is it the obscene consumption of the rainforests but the petrol that is burned collecting and recollecting reams of stamped paper at offices dotted all over the city to find that one has been incorrectly stamped or that that law has is the meantime been changed to include the requirement of 10 years back-tax declarations from your great-grandparents or an autograph from Elvis.
Thank-you very much!


The nice young lady at the pool gave me a booklet and a list informing me that I would be required to obtain a certificate from my doctor and a dermatologist. I didn't have a GP, another phobia, so I had to go to the national insurance offices to have one signed up. The new GP informed me that she required a cardiology check-up and some blood tests, back to the insurance office to sign up a cardiologist.

Well now I'm sitting here with the faint smell of chlorine and a satisfying pertness in my muscles, all my tests were good and I've forgotten most of the road that got me here. Greece has become an a addiction, just as the obese head I carry in the morning doesn't stop me having a couple of glasses of wine at the end of the day, coughing hasn't stopped me smoking and I'm still married. Masochistic tendencies, maybe but at least I get to do it to me before they do.
   

Monday 30 August 2010

Chasing Paper

Clear instructions indeed! 


So, there we were wandering around IKEA as you do, enjoying the fact that the kids were in the play pen and we could complete entire sentences without fear of interruption when my wife’s phone rang. It was one of the nice ladies from the daycare with glad tidings for any overstretched parent, “A program has be announced whereby parents could get free daycare.” The nice lady had scant details but she did give us a name at the town hall of someone who could fill us in from Monday morning. This was not an opportunity to be sniffed at, as like most overstretched parents free daycare would relieve a huge dent in our expenses. We were duly elated and the wedding present that we had intended to buy there gained a revised budget. 


Monday came and my good wife called the Town hall to garner more details as to our application. The nice lady told my wife that she herself was privy to scant details at that time but would call at some point with definitive instructions. She then took the kids off to my mother-in-law’s. The sun shone quietly and I got down to some serious writing, but noticing the worktop overpopulated with breakfast debris decided instead to tackle the feeding of the dishwasher first. Remembering that Top Gear had shown a new episode, I decided that I should have a quick look to see if it held any interest. I’m sure my laptop needed a format but of course this would interfere with my writing schedule. My bowels moved slightly and I harked back to the last time I had an uninterrupted movement. My phone rang. I could not have been more moved, so I didn’t. The number was withheld so I decided it must be the Town hall. “Could I please speak to Ms So-and-so?” I enquired, Britishly in Greek.

Keep your eye on the paperwork
but don't fall in the shit.
“She can’t speak now call back in 15 minutes...” kerderrrrrrr. My gratitude was cut off with a dialling tone, which incidentally sounds like a British engaged tone; nuff said.

The Top Gear team baffoond around on the screen in cars that cost more that my mountain abode for another quarter of an hour when I paused and called Ms So-and-so.
“She’s unavailable call back in half-an-hour,” seasoned in the ways of Greek protocol I smelt a runaround brewing.
“!5 minutes now 30 minutes,” I riposted “Can I leave a message?”
“No.”
“Should I give up hope now?”

Hope?
“Sir , I’m afraid I can’t help you. She’s probably dealing with the subject that you are calling about. Call back and she’ll be able to help you.”
Well, Jeremy, James and the little one drew their conclusions at the Masarati (note to self: sell house, buy one, make sign “Bends for petrol!”)
Called again, “Ms. So-and-so is unavailable.”
“My wife called this morning, I have called three times now. Who can I speak to about the daycare program subsidy?”
“Oh, you need to call the citizens services.” (as good a translation as I can make: Basically an office that does all of the gratuitous bureaucracy that the responsible office has or will drive you to psychopathic or suicidal outrage before telling you that you are missing a stamp or that they are closing. They do exactly the same job but with a smile. ) She did, however give me the phone number. “Oh, you need to call the citizens services.” (as good a translation as I can make: Basically an office that does all of the gratuitous bureaucracy that the responsible office has or will drive you to psychopathic or suicidal outrage before telling you that you are missing a stamp or that they are closing. They do exactly the same job but with a smile. ) She did, however give me the phone number. “Hello, citizens services. Make it quick I’ve got a long queue here!”
“I’m calling about the daycare program.”
“Oh, the deadline is in 5 minutes you won’t make it, have a nice day.”
‘But, but I was told.”
“Sorry, can’t help, got lots of people here, bye.”
I called the Town Hall.



The conversation that ensued was in no way becoming of a cultured middle-class gentleman but I'm of Irish decent, born and raised in Essex and I learned Greek from the streets. I threw more than a few Փ’s in and demanded to speak to the mayor who was also unavailable for comment. So, I jumped on my trusty Vespa and buzzed down with murderous intent.
On arriving I was greeted by a nice lady who had all my details and was ready to pass me over to Ms. So-and-so who turned out to be a young nice lady, not at all offensive to the eye and was apologetic to the hilt offering the national mitigation of “well, this is Greece”. She explained that she didn’t know the criteria of the subsidy and she would simply be passing on the details to someone else, she wasn’t sure who this would be but that my application would be valid. I maintained a sustained level of aggression making it clear that I would not be fobbed off. She smiled in a please-don’t-hit-me type way and fobbed me off.
Some balls yesterday.









We’ll see...


Update: Everyone at the daycare got the subsidy... except us!

Thursday 15 July 2010

LONG AFTER THE HONEYMOON

Greece is a country with a troubled history with Turkish occupation and a Fascist Junta but the last 30 years have been the most insidious of all. The boom in tourism and international trade and Greece's entry in the European union has brought in huge amounts of revenue that the management had no understanding of how to use. Wastage of public resources, corruption and jobs for votes went, not only unchecked but accepted as the natural order of things. With no accountability in the authorities people learned to look after their own and lost sight of any national common goal. This mentality has infiltrated every facet and strata of the country with builders and tradesmen botching jobs to make a quick buck to doctors receiving gifts to ensure their diligence up to public servants taking too much "work" home with them.


When they joined the EU and eventually the EURO they did it the only way they knew how. A new source of income was tapped to the full and squandered, offices that did nothing were established, roads were built badly and on a diet of nepotism and cooked books some got fat and apathy gained a greater hold over the Greek people.

Last year an ad campaign called for "tax conscientiousness" a risible concept given the actions of the governing parties over the last 30 years. The misappropriation of public funds have been nothing short of criminal and yet the leaders still rest on rhetoric and pointing the blame at others. Until the people at the top are publicly held accountable the public will have no change to rally around, no common goal and will eventually fracture under the strain of too much energy in too many directions. If Europe is to remain a union it needs to take its responsibility in overlooking the details of Greece's entry into an economic partnership it had no intention of contributing to.

Greece's economy has become a Hell's kitchen of badly cooked accounts and Europe needs to send in Its Gordon Ramsay to put some more Fs in office. Some backs need to go to wall otherwise the Greek people know that next time, and there will be a next time, there will be no more to bleed from this stone.

From Under Dark Clouds

The Century of DIY