Getting The Stuff Together



My new trustworthy financial institution
issuing check cashing cards.

I started my day with a tour of offices this morning, and by early afternoon I had a bank account, a check cashing card, and the letter from the Social Security Administration. The check cashing card was arguably the funniest to get. I just showed up there, asked for a card, and needed to supply some information. I had to show them my passport, granted, but then I was asked for my address, and since I couldn't remember the number and ZIP code of my hostel, the clerk told me to just name any address, it doesn't really matter. So I just wrote down some number and ZIP code, of which I don't even know if it exists. Then she asked me for my phone number, and as my face went blank again, SHE just made up some phone number on the fly, since, you guessed it, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Really. Very interesting. "No sir, a passport, the gold standard of identification, is not sufficient by itself to establish your identity, but if you could supplement it with a supermarket card, we might reconsider." And all this to a guy from Germany, where people get fed up when the bus is one and a half minute late! If at least I were Italian...

Really nice teller at the (proper) bank where earlier I opened my bank account, by the way. We probably spent two thirds of the time chatting, and only one third on bank business. She told me another amazing story. Olga's an immigrant from Latvia, so she knows the nastiness of the bureaucracy towards foreigners, too. In fact, she mainly got citizenship in order to not have to deal with so many hassles anymore. Before that, when she tried to put together her six points of ID, she brought her utility bill along, which she had printed out. The clerk, however, refused to accept it, since they only accept bills that had been mailed. “But how can you tell the difference, they both look the same?”, Olga asked. The clerk told her “It's not folded.” So Olga went back home, folded it, came back the next day, and they accepted it without any fuss! I will certainly make sure to fold that utility bill my friend hopefully will give me!!!

Getting a coffee and some macarons really felt good afterwards.