bktheirregular (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bktheirregular) wrote2008-05-13 02:33 pm
bktheirregular) wrote2008-05-13 02:33 pm
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Lucky number 42
Yesterday, I went to set up an appointment to get a Greek national identity card; I was told that among other things, I'd need an original ("προτοτυπο", from which the word "prototype" is derived) of the paper certifying that I'm the son of a Greek citizen. Since I'd gotten the paper from the consulate in New York, I didn't have an original or a certified copy, just a photocopy.
The paper had been issued by the Attica Periphery Office (about equivalent to a state government, though less powerful, I figure), and there was a telephone number on the copy of the letter I had with me. So I did the obvious thing: I called.
Same thing I did yesterday with the police office, as a matter of fact, and the same result, namely gornischt. So I found the address of the Periphery office and went down there on my lunch break today.
I got there, and there was a crowd packed into the building's lobby, waiting to do business with the Periphery offices on the first floor (that'd be the second floor to people in the US of A). A fellow came down and handed out numbers, deli-style; I got number 42. Then the crowd started to meander up the stairs, people in back trying to push forward, oblivious to the narrowness of the curving stair and the treachery of the steps on the inner circumference of its curve.
Greek style.
On the first floor of the dingy building, there was a notice: the Periphery Office is open from 12:00 to 14:00, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Three days a week, two hours a day; no wonder it's tough to get stuff done. I struck up a conversation with an Irish-Greek gent who ended up next to me in the crush (this after someone trying to cut in line by saying he only had to take care of one item; I responded by snapping "I only need one piece of paper; I'm number 42, and I'm waiting", leaving the "so shut up, fraktard" unsaid because I didn't know how to translate it into Greek). The Irish-Greek guy, number 21, offered to see if he could find out if I was even in the right place; some other people had inferred that I'd have to go to a different office to get the original.
I got beckoned in ahead of time; the Irish-Greek fellow hollered for "Mr. Bush", or maybe it was "Mr. Bruce", because the spelling of my first name in the Greek alphabet is mangled enough that people might make the mistake honestly. He'd found out who I needed to see, and the people minding the door waved me in. (I normally don't like queue-jumpers, but when you're beckoned in by the people guarding the door, it's not quite the same.)
After that, it got simpler. I found the lady whose name was on the piece of paper I'd gotten from the consulate, and explained that the police office wanted a "prototype". I handed her a printout of a PDF scan I'd made of the document in question. (Important note: if you've got access to a scanner, and critical documents you may need, you may find it saves an awful lot of time to make scans of those documents, so you can print them out as needed.) She rummaged in the files, found the originals of my records (including a birth certificate with the image of the state of Wisconsin on it, which I realized had to be my father's), and made a couple of copies of the authorization letter, stamped as true copies and signed.
It was actually fairly simple.
Maybe a bit of good karma coming back my way after the meat-grinder that's been my experience with the Greek bureaucracy to date.
The paper had been issued by the Attica Periphery Office (about equivalent to a state government, though less powerful, I figure), and there was a telephone number on the copy of the letter I had with me. So I did the obvious thing: I called.
Same thing I did yesterday with the police office, as a matter of fact, and the same result, namely gornischt. So I found the address of the Periphery office and went down there on my lunch break today.
I got there, and there was a crowd packed into the building's lobby, waiting to do business with the Periphery offices on the first floor (that'd be the second floor to people in the US of A). A fellow came down and handed out numbers, deli-style; I got number 42. Then the crowd started to meander up the stairs, people in back trying to push forward, oblivious to the narrowness of the curving stair and the treachery of the steps on the inner circumference of its curve.
Greek style.
On the first floor of the dingy building, there was a notice: the Periphery Office is open from 12:00 to 14:00, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Three days a week, two hours a day; no wonder it's tough to get stuff done. I struck up a conversation with an Irish-Greek gent who ended up next to me in the crush (this after someone trying to cut in line by saying he only had to take care of one item; I responded by snapping "I only need one piece of paper; I'm number 42, and I'm waiting", leaving the "so shut up, fraktard" unsaid because I didn't know how to translate it into Greek). The Irish-Greek guy, number 21, offered to see if he could find out if I was even in the right place; some other people had inferred that I'd have to go to a different office to get the original.
I got beckoned in ahead of time; the Irish-Greek fellow hollered for "Mr. Bush", or maybe it was "Mr. Bruce", because the spelling of my first name in the Greek alphabet is mangled enough that people might make the mistake honestly. He'd found out who I needed to see, and the people minding the door waved me in. (I normally don't like queue-jumpers, but when you're beckoned in by the people guarding the door, it's not quite the same.)
After that, it got simpler. I found the lady whose name was on the piece of paper I'd gotten from the consulate, and explained that the police office wanted a "prototype". I handed her a printout of a PDF scan I'd made of the document in question. (Important note: if you've got access to a scanner, and critical documents you may need, you may find it saves an awful lot of time to make scans of those documents, so you can print them out as needed.) She rummaged in the files, found the originals of my records (including a birth certificate with the image of the state of Wisconsin on it, which I realized had to be my father's), and made a couple of copies of the authorization letter, stamped as true copies and signed.
It was actually fairly simple.
Maybe a bit of good karma coming back my way after the meat-grinder that's been my experience with the Greek bureaucracy to date.