Scott and Diana and the Very Bad Swiss Day...
Well, of course, some days are better than others, but then some just SUCK outright. We had one of those a couple of weeks ago…
First, Diana had yet another stellar day at work – stepping on toes, putting foot in mouth, breaking all sorts of unknown, unwritten rules, nothing out of the ordinary. Topped off by receiving, among other helpful and constructive input, the inexplicable feedback that “you are overly assertive when you are giving presentations,” which, across language and cultural barriers, seemed to net out at me sounding like I knew what I was talking about, when that may or may not be true. Yeah, I know. If you can figure this one out, let me know. Total bullshit, and I have since jettisoned it from my list of things to give a crap about. But at the time, I was bitter and broken and about ready to quit and lounge about Switzerland till they threw me out (apparently, you can last years here without paying your rent…). I didn’t want to leave Switzerland, but I would have been quite happy to kiss the job goodbye.
So, feeling sorry for myself, I asked Scott to climb down to the underworld and bring the car out to come pick me up from work, and he got stuck in bad traffic and was cranky. We were both cranky and feeling sorry for ourselves, so we decided that McDonald’s was in order. And the one with the drive-through, that has the best food, is in Germany. So we went ahead straight from work to go there. Our first crisis came when I realized I didn’t have the Euro wallet with me, only the Swiss one – meaning we had no Euros, only Swiss Francs. Plus, we couldn’t find our way over the hill to the McD’s we were searching for, so we got a little lost and made some wrong turns. We got more grouchy with each other at that point. We pressed on, decided we’d go anyhow and find out if they took Francs at McD’s (border areas are often a little flexible on this). Luckily they did, so we at least had some blood sugar going.
Then, returning to Switzerland (meaning, driving about one kilometer away from McDonald’s), the border control stopped us. Since it was an unplanned trip, we didn’t have our Passports with us, only our Swiss resident permits – which we gave them, along with Scott’s driver license and our car registration. Then we got a lecture about how bad we were for not having our proper papers with us, and finally let go a few minutes later.
Awaiting us at home, after we resurfaced from the center of the earth (AKA, the parking place), was some mail. One was a letter from the landlord apparently complaining about our dogs barking, as well as we could tell with our less-than-perfect German skills. And another letter from the electric company saying they were coming to our house to inspect the light fittings, or so we thought. Bear in mind that we had been told that it’s illegal to install your own light fixtures in Switzerland, that they must be put in by a licensed electrician – a law which, of course, no one follows. So we didn’t either. So we figured we were going to be busted for Scott’s illegal lights that he had put up quite competently throughout the apartment. We were both quite cranky by this point (but not at each other anymore ;-). I was ready to can the job, and Scott was ready to can der Schweiz…so a pretty pair we made.
We forged on…and found out the letter from the landlord was sent to all tenants with dogs in all three buildings on our block – so a general letter about barking having been heard, not a letter attacking our dogs caninally. We also later found out that the entire apartment building was being inspected for electrical issues – a routine inspection that would include our apartment, but would mostly be focused on the wiring, not the light fixtures. So the moral of this story is, if you don’t speak German, don’t derive anything from German mail. And always take your Passport with you.
We felt better after that. And we stayed. But we still get cranky sometimes…just like we always do, at home or abroad. ;-)
First, Diana had yet another stellar day at work – stepping on toes, putting foot in mouth, breaking all sorts of unknown, unwritten rules, nothing out of the ordinary. Topped off by receiving, among other helpful and constructive input, the inexplicable feedback that “you are overly assertive when you are giving presentations,” which, across language and cultural barriers, seemed to net out at me sounding like I knew what I was talking about, when that may or may not be true. Yeah, I know. If you can figure this one out, let me know. Total bullshit, and I have since jettisoned it from my list of things to give a crap about. But at the time, I was bitter and broken and about ready to quit and lounge about Switzerland till they threw me out (apparently, you can last years here without paying your rent…). I didn’t want to leave Switzerland, but I would have been quite happy to kiss the job goodbye.
So, feeling sorry for myself, I asked Scott to climb down to the underworld and bring the car out to come pick me up from work, and he got stuck in bad traffic and was cranky. We were both cranky and feeling sorry for ourselves, so we decided that McDonald’s was in order. And the one with the drive-through, that has the best food, is in Germany. So we went ahead straight from work to go there. Our first crisis came when I realized I didn’t have the Euro wallet with me, only the Swiss one – meaning we had no Euros, only Swiss Francs. Plus, we couldn’t find our way over the hill to the McD’s we were searching for, so we got a little lost and made some wrong turns. We got more grouchy with each other at that point. We pressed on, decided we’d go anyhow and find out if they took Francs at McD’s (border areas are often a little flexible on this). Luckily they did, so we at least had some blood sugar going.
Then, returning to Switzerland (meaning, driving about one kilometer away from McDonald’s), the border control stopped us. Since it was an unplanned trip, we didn’t have our Passports with us, only our Swiss resident permits – which we gave them, along with Scott’s driver license and our car registration. Then we got a lecture about how bad we were for not having our proper papers with us, and finally let go a few minutes later.
Awaiting us at home, after we resurfaced from the center of the earth (AKA, the parking place), was some mail. One was a letter from the landlord apparently complaining about our dogs barking, as well as we could tell with our less-than-perfect German skills. And another letter from the electric company saying they were coming to our house to inspect the light fittings, or so we thought. Bear in mind that we had been told that it’s illegal to install your own light fixtures in Switzerland, that they must be put in by a licensed electrician – a law which, of course, no one follows. So we didn’t either. So we figured we were going to be busted for Scott’s illegal lights that he had put up quite competently throughout the apartment. We were both quite cranky by this point (but not at each other anymore ;-). I was ready to can the job, and Scott was ready to can der Schweiz…so a pretty pair we made.
We forged on…and found out the letter from the landlord was sent to all tenants with dogs in all three buildings on our block – so a general letter about barking having been heard, not a letter attacking our dogs caninally. We also later found out that the entire apartment building was being inspected for electrical issues – a routine inspection that would include our apartment, but would mostly be focused on the wiring, not the light fixtures. So the moral of this story is, if you don’t speak German, don’t derive anything from German mail. And always take your Passport with you.
We felt better after that. And we stayed. But we still get cranky sometimes…just like we always do, at home or abroad. ;-)
posted by Swizzies at 16:21
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