Bloody Bureaucracy

I just knew today was going to be one of those days.  I had the great pleasure of going to Primetel in Paphos to do battle for Mum.  This did not fill me with joy and I woke feeling really out of sorts and not looking forward to the day.  John was off on his bike with Richard and then going out with the MODS?DOGS for lunch at Kaponas.  How I wish I was doing the same instead of battling around the great Metrolops but I had promised to go and I know Mum was panicking.  When Dad died I was executor on his will along with my sister but she wasn't here so I did it all myself.  Most things took a bit of time but eventually got sorted out except the internet provider contract with Primetel.  They would not change the name on the contract they said they had to shut that one down and start a new one in Mum's name which was fine except they said she could be without Internet for a while whilst it was sorted.  I explained that this was totally unacceptable because she relied on the Internet for her TV and contact with friends and family.  They agreed to leave the name unchanged but changed the bank account from which the payments were being taken.  It all went swimmingly until a few weeks ago when she had to ring to report a fault and they refused to speak to her saying they could only speak to the person named on the contract.  She explained that he had passed away and they insisted that she had to come in and sort it out as soon as possible.  She is now 87 hard of hearing and somewhat unsteady on her feet so she was never going to get things sorted on her own.

Things did not improve when Mum phoned first thing from her landline - she had done something to her mobile and it now did nothing.  She started to give me chapter and verse of what she hadn't done to create this situation and I cut her short to say I would sort it when I got to her as I was just about to leave.

My trip down to Paphos was, thankfully, uneventful but I was really not a happy bunny!

What ensued was almost farcical.  We gathered together all the paperwork we thought we would need and set off for Primetel which is in a bit of an inaccessible position at the best of times but with the roads all dug up is even worse.

I explained to the spotty youth behind the desk the situation but he just looked at me and the paperwork and said that there was nothing they could do because I did not have paperwork from the Court after Dad's death.  I didn't because when we went to get his will from the Court the man told me that as Dad did not actually own anything personally (save for a half share in the Nissan Note) we did not need to go to probate and so we did not.  Spotty Youth was totally unmoved.  I asked to speak to a manager and got spotty adolescent who was equally unmoved but eventually said that they could terminate Dad's contract and create Mum a contract and there would be no disruption to her internet service.  Alleluia great except that they would have to change her landline number which she has had for years.  When I asked why the spotty adolescent said that the phone number belonged to a man that was dead (my dad).  I said that 
it was totally unreasonable to do that and asked why we could not just change the name on the contract.  They said it was illegal to have a contract in the name of someone who was dead.  We were at an impasse until Spotty Adolescent looked at the paperwork I had brought and asked about the will as it had a stamp from the Court on it.  I explained that when we had taken the will out from the Court they stamped it and the man at the Court had told me I didn't need anything else.  Spotty Adolescent said it was a shame that I did not have any Power of Attorney.  Surprised I explained that I had indeed had Power of Attorney for my father but that this power ceases to be legal when the person dies.  Spotty Adolescent just said "but it was legal when he was alive so that will be ok now"  REALLY?  So it is illegal to have a contract in the name of a dead person but it is legal to use a document which was not longer legal when he died?  REALLY?  Anyway I explained I did not have it with me so he said he would do everything necessary and set up a new contract for mum there and then and I could bring it later when I was next passing.  So I said to Mum, can I have your passport?  and I knew by the look on her face that she did not have it... OH SHIT GREAT.  I looked at Spotty Youth and Spotty Adolescent with their supercilious smiles and in true Arni fashion declared that I WOULD BE BACK.

Our next job was to try and negotiate our way to CYTA because Mum had locked the SIM card and needed a code to release it which I didn't have.  She said she hadn't done anything but then retracted that statement to say that actually she had punched in a load of numbers, incorrect numbers, and thereby locked her pin.  I managed to park as close to CYTA as I could from the direction I had taken from Primetel and was then presented with an obstacle course around the roadworks, Mum had neither her stick nor her hearing aids in!  Anyway at CYTA we had a nice young man who had obviously done his NVQ in dealing with Octogenarians who claim that "they don't know how it happened the phone just did it" and he fixed it and gave me the codes required if it (mysteriously) happened again.  He did find though that the battery on the phone was on its way out and so we will need to get her a replacement via my sister as we cannot get DORO (built for the aged or intellectually challenged) over here.

We returned to Emba and got Mum's passport, John had photographed the Power of Attorney and emailed it to me - I spent ages getting it into a printable document only to find Mum had no ink in her printer.  We trudged back to Primetel, Spotty Adolescent visibly winced at our arrival and put Spotty Youth back onto the case.  I managed to email the POA to the office and they printed it off and eventually we got everything sorted.

My final challenge of the day was Mum's TV which had, apparently, just like her phone, gone tits up without any manual intervention.  Mmmmmm so the one in the lounge was working ok so it couldn't be a major issue but at the merest blip Mum rips out all the cables and reboots everything.  To be fair she is 87 and manages pretty well but when I explain a few simple things to her she just glazes over and doesn't pay attention, so what starts out as being something easily fixable escalates.  I fixed the TV.

The one plus for the day was that Mum gave me a bag of passion fruit which her friend Sandy had given her.  I love passion fruit.  We had planned to go for lunch but by the time we had got all the important things sorted it was nearly 2pm and I had previously told the Ikea delivery men that I would be home at 3pm to take in our neighbour Janet's delivery.  

I had a thumping headache so drove quite slowly, for me, back home which was just as well as there was a mobile camera vehicle at Pikni on the first bend and for once I think I was there or there abouts with regards to the limit on that stretch.  Once home I cracked open a couple of passion fruit and added some yoghurt and it was bliss.

Here is proof, if proof were needed, that the cats are fed better than me.  The only shop I went into was the pet shop in Chlorakas to stock up on treats and pouches for our three!