Kafka, le purgatoire et l'enfer de la bureaucratie franco-allemande II

The beginning was very pleasant.

I guess that is how they try to lure you into their purgatory.

I called France Télécom and the man on the helpline asked me whether I was Madame B. who had left for S. When I confirmed, he was overwhelmed with enthusiasm: "Mme B., it's you! We have found you, after all those years!" I felt flattered. Be honest, would you ever expect such an ebullient reception at a formerly state-run company? At an Italian restaurant, privately owned and run by the kings of gastronomy, maybe. But at France Télécom?

He then told me about the Film he had produced about Moabit. He asked what I thought about the name ("Moabit" - I should think it would be a good description of his subject) and begged me to find an agent for him. It took me some time to convince him that I had called him so he could help me and not the other way around and that I was a dull number cruncher with no connections to the arts scene. Eventually he sold me a telephone line subscription and life was easy, life was good!

Then came Frau F. from the Administration.

Now, it is true that they pay you all sorts of generous allowances, when they send you abroad. Provided that you fill out application forms which resemble the collected volumes of "War and Peace" in size, that is. And of course you have to give them time to write long surveys, so they can establish the exact size of your allowances. The problem with work spells abroad, though, is that costs tend to peak at the beginning. So I asked Frau F. if she could not pay an advance like most organisations and private enterprises would do. No, she didn't have corresponding instructions. Instructions on advances existed only for employees moving to The Administration to start their job or moving between administrations within the country. Which doesn't mean you can apply the instructions analogously to analogous cases. Put differently, she crossed her arms in front of her, turned her head away in disgust and said listlessly: Whe don't know that, we don't have that, we don't want that.

One of the government's most important, self-declared goals is Bürokratieabbau, the reduction of bureaucratic hurdles. Somehow I felt they hadn't taken me on board.

I took a deep breath and submitted the collected volumes of forms.

As she did not transfer the money when it was due, I called to complain. She didn't answer the phone. I wrote an email to ask what happened and when I could expect my salary. In september, was the short answer. IN SEPTEMBER! I panicked and wrote that I was going to come back on the spot and ask for damages. She said, she was sorry she couldn't help me. As the payment hadn't been entered into the payments system earlier, nothing could be done. I calculated the full amount of what they owed me for her and asked her whether she expected me to go to the bank and borrow money to pay for the interest-free loan she expected me to give to the German goverment. I pointed out to her that a German bank, especially if state-owned, would very likely give me money to invest in securities backed by mortgages of Americans with neither income nor assets, but they wouldn't give me money to for an interest-free loan to the government. That was too crazy an investment. I explained that I was not a Russian coal miner in the 1990s and that I expected my salary on time and in full size. I copied all emails to her boss and asked her to explain how it was possible that she paid my salary with a delay of two months if she had received the collected volumes of forms weeks earlier.

She finally gave in and granted an advance on allowance A, "against her instruction". She even apologized "because for reasons that could not be reconstructed the payment had been entered into the payment system late". Note that there is no active in the language of German bureaucrats. Nobody ever does anything, things happen. Usually for reasons that cannot be reconstructed. Following the infuriated heartthrob's instructions I made a weak attempt to protest and ask for allowance B on time. Not to much avail.

Then came Gaz de France.

The landlady had called me in panic from France, because I had to ask for the gas to be switched on in person and it took 5 working days, before they would give you an appointment. She didn't want me to have cold showers. That was sweet. She gave me a number that was supposed to work from abroad. It didn't. I said to myself that she who could swim in the Baltic Sea could take cold showers for a week in Paris in July and called after I had arrived. They gave me an appointment for a week later. Each morning under the shower I felt brave, but full of hope. The day before the appointment I called to check whether the appointment was still on. I don't know why. This is a tool that Americans use before a date or when they are supposed to meet their best friend. I think it is because they want to show that they have very busy jobs and many other friends. I don't have a very busy job and when I am supposed to meet my friends, I am so much looking forward to it, I would never drean of cancelling it. The same goes for appointments with Gaz de France when the gas is turned off. Maybe I just wanted to make sure that my hopes where justified.

As it turned out, they weren't. The helpline-lady claimed that there was no appointment in their system and since it wasn't in the system, she was sorry, there was nothing she could do for me. I just had to wait. Note the analogy to German payment systems. My morale began to sink. I couldn't manage any more songs under the cold shower in the morning.

My girl-friends gave me all sorts of useful tips. I should make sure that I was the one who was going to prevail. Their only longing was to make me cry. I should call them every day to ask whether an appointment had been cancelled and I could snatch it. I should tell them I was seven months pregnant and risked premature birth under the cold shower.

When, heartened by this encouragement, I called again they immediately transferred me to a man who answered: "No, Madame, pas du tout", to any question. Could he give me an earlier appointment? "Non, Madame, pas du tout." Was this how they treated their clients? "Non, Madame, pas du tout." So I was going to go without cooking and warm showers for another week? " Non, Madame pas du tout." But I was going to go without cooking and warm showers for another week if he didn't give me an earlier appointment! He didn't answer. At least that convinced me he wasn't a tape. I am almost certain, though, that he was sitting in Bangalore and that "non, Madame, pas du tout" was his only sentence in French. They had taught him to pronounce it with an impeccable accent, so he could work as a specialist for difficult French clients. The ones who immediately begin to yell at them when things go wrong. I wished I was one of them. I hung up and wearily accepted my fate.

I don't know why I thought I still wasn't through with helplines and complaints. Yet, unbelievable but true, I did try again when failing to install my ADSL-Box. Maybe I was hoping to talk to the producer-helpline-man again who was so happy to have me back in France. I couldn't count on so much luck. The unnerved helpline-man who confessedno artistic ambitions drew deep, exhausted sighs instead when it became tricky to implement his French instructions on my German computer . I advised him that he would need to work on his patience given that it was his job to help people. He pointed out that it was a Friday evening, ten o'clock. When he finally concluded we had to give up because we were turning in circles, I couldn't help but advise him to ask for different working times. He said, he didn't really have a choice.

Then came the temporary employer where I asked for a pin number to be able to make my private calls. They couldn't do that for me, it only existed for regular employees, as the phone bill was directly withdrawn from their salaries. I asked the lady on the hone whether there wasn't a solution, if we shouldn't pave new ways together for all the people in my situation. She said no, we shouldn't pave new ways together, because then she had to offer this to all people in my situation and that would cost her three working days a month. The heatthrob translated her for me: "Make your stupid phone calls from the office and shut up as everybody does."

Maybe it is not the French-German bureaucracy after all that is hell by itself. It is I who turn it into hell with my approach to it.

People always create their own hell.

As you can seen, it is not only gardening that is like philosophie. Fighting for gas, telephone lines and salaries can be too.