"Sorry, Charlie"
Spain is the country of fobbing off responsibilities. It's the country of venga Usted mañana. It doesn't matter if someone loses pay or ends up paying a penalty because papers are transferred around or the person in need of them is told to visit five different other offices that have nothing to do with them. As long as responsibility is passed off to someone else it's of no importance.
And all the papers that must be collected are impressive. In many cases, the information can easily be gleaned from the company's, or the department's, or the government's databases. Yet the claimant must still collect and present the papers. I have been dealing with two headaches this week, my husband's knee, and the declaration of inheritance taxes owed from my father's death.
In the second part, I know I owe no taxes because my inheritance is far from the lower limit of being eligible to pay taxes. In our region, most inheritances are free of taxes. Even so, there is a time period in which papers must be presented after a death, or the inheritors face a penalty, whether they owe or not. In my case, the bank hasn't been helping. To give me a piece of paper, they have stalled for months until the very last minute. I hate banks. They promise so many perks, but when it comes to actually helping you out, they resort to, "oh, but the rules say you must present this paper, and then we have to wait, and then it has to be approved...." In the meantime, your bank declares bankruptcy and is bought by another. People are moved around and the clients are the last on the list. If I could be free of banks, I would. Unfortunately, in this day and age, you need a bank account for almost everything. But I still think the best bank is the hole under the apple tree.
The grating thing is, that to present the form for the taxes, I also have to present accreditation with papers. But those papers represent information that is already in the region's government databases. The government knows how much money is in the bank, it knows which properties my father possessed, and it knows where he lived and when he died. And then I still have to go through more hoops and present more papers to change the name on the property registers. It won't be done in a day, either. I have to go through a notary, to the property registry office, and back, and pay for the services.
As for my husband's knee, that's pure corporation-pass-the-buck. He had a small accident at work last Friday, in which he sprained his knee. He went to the hospital's Emergency Room to have it x-rayed. He was told it was a sprain and that he should spend ten days resting it and taking an anti-inflammatory medication. Fine. That meant he needed a paper from the doctor to take to his boss, so that he would be paid sick pay for that week. A worker needs a paper from his doctor for sick absences of more than a day, otherwise he doesn't get paid that time he takes off. So, he went to his doctor. His doctor told him he couldn't give him the paper because it was a work accident, and to go to the mutua. The mutua is a type of private clinic that every company has to subscribe to. It's a kind of insurance that covers all kinds of mishaps at work, and employees' health. The doctor told him this on Tuesday, so we went to the mutua on Tuesday, where they took yet another x-ray of the knee. We were told that because there was nothing of note beyond the calcification expected at his age, that they couldn't give him the paper, and that he was fit for work, despite the pain he still felt.
There comes a point at which sheer frustration and anger take over. My poor car suffered it in the form of well-slammed doors. This country, and in extension, those in some sort of power, delight in telling its workers to "suck it up, buttercup." We jump through the hoops they tell us to, in order to receive what we are owed, yet at the end, we still find ourselves facing the sign, "Sorry, Charlie." It absolutely angers me how the conservative government cloaks everything these days in the Spanish flag, shouting "Unity!" because the Catalan ogres are threatening to dismember sacred Spain. They do it so well, that the sheeple end up ignoring other tiny tidbits that appear for a few seconds on the news. The spotlight is taken away from the end days of the Gürtel trial, where it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the conservative party, the PP, have been financing themselves with underground money. Where it has been proven that almost every bigwig in the government today, including a certain "M.Rajoy" as it appeared on the secret accounting books, have received hundreds of thousands of euros from companies and corporations that have illegally financed the PP. And which companies and corporations have then gone on to receive juicy government contracts. Yet, when a lowly worker asks for a justified sick leave of only one week, he gets told he doesn't need it.
But, venga Usted mañana. By then everything will be fixed. Just not in your favor.
And all the papers that must be collected are impressive. In many cases, the information can easily be gleaned from the company's, or the department's, or the government's databases. Yet the claimant must still collect and present the papers. I have been dealing with two headaches this week, my husband's knee, and the declaration of inheritance taxes owed from my father's death.
In the second part, I know I owe no taxes because my inheritance is far from the lower limit of being eligible to pay taxes. In our region, most inheritances are free of taxes. Even so, there is a time period in which papers must be presented after a death, or the inheritors face a penalty, whether they owe or not. In my case, the bank hasn't been helping. To give me a piece of paper, they have stalled for months until the very last minute. I hate banks. They promise so many perks, but when it comes to actually helping you out, they resort to, "oh, but the rules say you must present this paper, and then we have to wait, and then it has to be approved...." In the meantime, your bank declares bankruptcy and is bought by another. People are moved around and the clients are the last on the list. If I could be free of banks, I would. Unfortunately, in this day and age, you need a bank account for almost everything. But I still think the best bank is the hole under the apple tree.
The grating thing is, that to present the form for the taxes, I also have to present accreditation with papers. But those papers represent information that is already in the region's government databases. The government knows how much money is in the bank, it knows which properties my father possessed, and it knows where he lived and when he died. And then I still have to go through more hoops and present more papers to change the name on the property registers. It won't be done in a day, either. I have to go through a notary, to the property registry office, and back, and pay for the services.
As for my husband's knee, that's pure corporation-pass-the-buck. He had a small accident at work last Friday, in which he sprained his knee. He went to the hospital's Emergency Room to have it x-rayed. He was told it was a sprain and that he should spend ten days resting it and taking an anti-inflammatory medication. Fine. That meant he needed a paper from the doctor to take to his boss, so that he would be paid sick pay for that week. A worker needs a paper from his doctor for sick absences of more than a day, otherwise he doesn't get paid that time he takes off. So, he went to his doctor. His doctor told him he couldn't give him the paper because it was a work accident, and to go to the mutua. The mutua is a type of private clinic that every company has to subscribe to. It's a kind of insurance that covers all kinds of mishaps at work, and employees' health. The doctor told him this on Tuesday, so we went to the mutua on Tuesday, where they took yet another x-ray of the knee. We were told that because there was nothing of note beyond the calcification expected at his age, that they couldn't give him the paper, and that he was fit for work, despite the pain he still felt.
There comes a point at which sheer frustration and anger take over. My poor car suffered it in the form of well-slammed doors. This country, and in extension, those in some sort of power, delight in telling its workers to "suck it up, buttercup." We jump through the hoops they tell us to, in order to receive what we are owed, yet at the end, we still find ourselves facing the sign, "Sorry, Charlie." It absolutely angers me how the conservative government cloaks everything these days in the Spanish flag, shouting "Unity!" because the Catalan ogres are threatening to dismember sacred Spain. They do it so well, that the sheeple end up ignoring other tiny tidbits that appear for a few seconds on the news. The spotlight is taken away from the end days of the Gürtel trial, where it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the conservative party, the PP, have been financing themselves with underground money. Where it has been proven that almost every bigwig in the government today, including a certain "M.Rajoy" as it appeared on the secret accounting books, have received hundreds of thousands of euros from companies and corporations that have illegally financed the PP. And which companies and corporations have then gone on to receive juicy government contracts. Yet, when a lowly worker asks for a justified sick leave of only one week, he gets told he doesn't need it.
But, venga Usted mañana. By then everything will be fixed. Just not in your favor.
And we thought France was bad. In Switzerland there's tons of papers but they usually send the stuff to you before you think you need it.
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