Despite the things I love and would never change about France here is a list of the things that just frustrate me beyond comprehension!
1. Always take a flask of coffee and a foldaway chair when you visit La Poste. Sometimes the wait is intolerable - if you get a couple of pensioners in front of the queue be prepared for a long "sit in". They discuss weather, grandchildren, Sarkozy (a big subject at the moment), their recent ailments and predominantly food - in any shape or form.
2. The Paperwork - arghhhhhhhh! There are more bits of paper to fill in here than I have ever filled in, in my entire life. Paper gets passed from one Department to another, from one building to another without so much as lifting the telephone or sending an email. At least we are keeping a minimum of 12 people in a job by changing our insurance company - I hate to think what our local Rainforest looks like though.
3. Internet connection - it took us 18 months, a mild threat and BH (British Husband) cutting a wire in the box stuck to a telegraph pole down the Lane outside our house before we finally got a connection. Two men arrived "tout suite" well, two days after the wires had been cut to find out "what the problem was" - BH was waiting in anticipation for their arrival, grabbed one man (it was 10 minutes to 12 midday so he had to be quick), pushed him into the room where our computer is and...................quietly closed the door behind him. "Please look at this now, we have been waiting 18 months, what is the problem"? BH is a big rugby type bloke, he took a step towards the man who bent down, fiddled with a wire and our computer jumped into action..............................all this after 18 months of phone calls and letter writing.
4. Lack of committment - "Don't worry, I will be in the office at 10am this Thursday", "I will pay you next Friday", "we are open every Sunday". Do not believe a word a French person tells you - its just not true! I hate to be so cynical but having lived here for as long as we have I have discovered that they will just lie about anything and everything. I know, I know you shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush, but hey in general they would lie to anyone to get themselves out of a sticky hole!
5. Closing the supermarket at lunchtimes - I have kinda got used to this now but it can still be frustrating when like me you can wander about in a daydream in the morning and then get home and realise you have forgotten to buy toilet paper - an essential item when you have none and have eaten baked beans the night before.
6. The fact that Entrenpeneur is a French word but it just doesn't exist in France.
7. Huge Brocantes that take place in the Summer months (200 stallholders+), that are advertised online (alongwith a map), are always the hardest to find. You will never find a signpost - or you might but it would be the size of a small puppy and hidden in a bush on a piece of cardboard and you would pass it 8 times before you spot it, hence wasting precious shopping time.
8. The tiniest mispronounciation of a word can have a totally different meaning. My BH has never forgotten the time he called our 80 year old neighbour "hot" when in fact he meant he was hot - he was sitting right by her wood burner at the time. How she has lived off that joke for the past 5 years.
These are the only things I can feel frustrated with at the moment, the list is open to change! Tommorow the loves of living in France........................
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