Among The Luckiest This Time

There are two days till the end of March and we're also about to close Q1. I can't believe 3 months of the year are gone, but this is reality. This is where people say I can't believe how fast time flies. I don't, as it wasn't fast at all but then again, I don't want it to be fast either. Time has it's own pace and you need to know how to use it to your advantage. However, unfortunately, things don't always depend on you and no matter how well you organize things, sometimes things get brutally delayed.

This may look like a quarterly report, based on the intro, but it's not. It's just a string of events that made me think of how things work and why.

The Bad

My ID was due to expire in March, so in January, I handed in a request to renew it. Although I had almost 2 months at my disposal to do that, I wanted to do it in time, just to be on the safe side. The process takes 5 days according to their website, which is reasonable in my opinion, but my request got rejected. The reason was my address, which should have been fine, but they didn't like how the land registry office mentioned the number on the document.

I was sent to the the urban planning office, to get a document that authenticates my exact address, which I did right away as I knew time was of the essence. So I handed in a request, which said the matter was urgent, got a registration number and a phone number. I was told it takes about three weeks, but I can phone after a week, which I did. Little did I know what was waiting for me.

Long story short, I had to phone them every other day, for 4 weeks, till I got the document in my hand. It took them FOUR WEEKS, to issue a document, which required only a check in the database, nothing more. It took them one week, only to sign it. Three signatures were needed in that damn document, although I'm sure two people had zero idea what they were signing as the work did not require several people.

In the meantime I got bombarded by exchanges, trading platforms, banks and not only, to submit my new ID. Should I fail to do that, my accounts would be frozen and only withdrawal would be available. We all know that without a valid ID, legally you are no one, you don't exist.

After I got the document from urban planning, obviously my land register certificate already expired as that's only valid for 30 day, so I had to require a new one, which meant paying the fee again. Money thrown out of the window, in plain English.

Then I was eligible to hand in my request again. There were a few extra requirements still, stupid and illogical ones, but at least my request was not rejected this time. I was told I'm going to be notified when the ID is ready and indeed, I got a text from them after two days. Excellent I would say, if it wouldn't have had the difficulties with the address.

After I got my ID, had to request the land registry office to modify my address and issue the right documents, to avoid further complications. That costed me another 15€. Money thrown out of the window because the land registry office decided to do stupid things when the building was built and registered.

This was just one case in which I had to face difficulties. There are other ongoing ones, in which I'm waiting for my ticket to be dealt with for 4 weeks now, but that's an exchange and not based in my country.

The Good

Most likely I'm the only one on the planet, who doesn't have Netflix and all the fancy movie channels, but I'm fine with it as have very little time to watch TV. However, yesterday I finally decided to upgrade my subscription and add an extra option of movie channels. It's not Netflix, but will do for now and perfect from price/value perspective.

I activated the extra option online at 9:30 am, got an email with the confirmation link right away and confirmed the order. Then I was wondering how long it would take for the extra option to be activated. I checked at 6pm, but there was still not active, so I submitted an online ticket at about 6:40pm. I thought they would call me in the morning and we get the thing sorted. Oh boy! Was I wrong? I was! Big time!

I got an email with my ticket number and the usual text that comes in these cases, letting me know they are looking into it as soon as possible. Fine! It's just that I got a call after 10 minutes from support, asking me to detail the problem, which I did. After a few checks, it became obvious we can't solve it over the phone, so the customer support lady told me she can send the team on call between 7pm and 10pm, right away. Imagine my surprise, but I said no as had other plans for the evening, so we agreed on an appointment in the morning, between 8am and 11am.

Needless to say, at 8am I was ready. Then I got a call at 8:33am from the tech guy, asking if he can come and he was at my door in 10 minutes. It took him 10 minutes to fix the problem.

The Difference

After the guy left, I couldn't stop thinking how lucky I am with this service provider, which is also my internet provider. As you can see, whatever problem I have, it gets fixed in the shortest time, meaning an hour or so. Look around on Hive, how many are complaining of crap services at exorbitant prices.

I was also thinking how the overpaid government employees, sitting in cozy offices are abusing their power and neglecting their duties. There's no alternative to what they do, there's no competition, complaints are just as neglected as official document requests, so your only option is to wait. Patiently if you can and if you can't, you can pull your hair but the end result is just the same, as you won't get your documents sooner.

We're in 2024, everything is digitized, no one should wait 4 weeks for a single paper.

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