Today I had one of my rare interactions with Romanian authorities. Not entirely unlike similar experiences with their Austrian colleagues, it was enough to elicit this well-known feeling of them …
- messing with me,
- being incompetent,
- just blindly following rules without giving them much thought,
- doing all of the above
So, there I was armed with my (Austrian) passport, all kinds of car papers, official documents showing that I am a Romanian resident, and … two kids (2 and 6 years old, respectively). After a refreshingly short wait, it went like this:
The Discussion
Me: “Buna ziua. Nu vorbesc Romaneste chiar bine … would English work?” (yes, that’s pretty much the extent of my Romanian skills)
Officer: (wiggling his hands) “so – so.”
Me: “Ok, great. I need to pick up some documents for my car.” (Handing over car papers).
O: (Starts looking through a stack of very official-looking papers and – to my enormous relief – pulls one of them out) “Do you have authorization?”
Me: (confused) “err … no. What authorization?”
O: “To allow pick up document.”
Me: “No, but it’s my car, registered at my company.”
O: “Aha. You have authorization?”
Me: (with a sinking feeling) “No, still not …”
O: “You need authorization.”
Me: “But … this authorization could only be given by me.”
O: “Yes”
Me: “… to myself.”
O: “Yes”
Me: “So, I need to write an authorization FROM myself FOR myself?”
O: “Yes”
Me: “Ok … can I do it here?”
O: “Yes”
Me: “Is there a form?”
O: “No. Just write paper.”
Me: “Cool. Is English fine?”
O: “No.”
Me: (against all reason) “German perhaps?”
O: “No.”
Me: “Well, I just ran out of languages.”
O: “Want me to write for you?”
Me: “Yes, that would be REALLY helpful. Thank you.”
O: (starts scribbling, asks for some personal details, then hands five lines of text over to me) “sign here.”
Me: (dutifully signing whatever he wrote) “Thank you so much.”
O: (hands over the much-desired document) “Please”
Me: “Thanks again, have a great day.”
The Conclusion
Don’t get me wrong: I am not blaming the guy at all. On the contrary: if he had not offered to help me write this “authorization”, things would have been much more tedious and complicated.
It’s the fact that you can – and indeed have to – authorize YOURSELF to pick up such documents, which gets me.
Image Credits
Cover image Business vector created by starline – www.freepik.com