The Zen of Italian bureaucracy

Two days ago Pam called the gas company (the aptly named ENEL) on our behalf to find out why the gas line for our apartment still hadn't been turned on, when we'd submitted our application back on March 1. The gentleman who answered assured her there was no such contract. When she gave him the contract number, he said, Well, then, the documents aren't complete. She then read him the email from ENEL saying, "The documents are complete."

"Ah," he said, "now I see. They called and there was no answer." The phone number we'd given them was Pam's cell, and after ascertaining that this was indeed the number on record, she assured him that she has had it on her at all times and no calls have come in from anyone at ENEL.

He again looked through his papers or his computer or his girlie magazine and said, "Hmm. There is a note here that there is a 'technical issue.'" What kind of issue? Not specified. Could Pam call the local branch that was supposedly responsible for connecting us and find out what the problem was? "I don't have that number," he said.

But not to worry. "They will connect the gas in the next few days," he assured her. "And then they will call you. For the second time."

When you've lived in Italy for a while, Pam told us after reporting this conversation, you have no choice but to develop a Zen sort of attitude about the mysterious ways of the country's bureaucrats. "There's no point in stressing about it," she said. "You just have to take it as it comes."

But Zen notwithstanding, Pam decided to look into alternatives just in case, and yesterday she called GasPlus, a smaller, more local gas company that has an office right here in Fidenza. Pam presented our problem to the woman at the GasPlus office, who said she would call ENEL and find out what was going on. Ten minutes later she called Pam back.

"I have been living in Italy for thirty years and I thought nothing that happens with Italian bureaucracy could surprise me," Pam subsequently told us. "But even I am flabbergasted."

What the GasPlus lady had discovered was that since ENEL had dallied so long without activating our service, our contract had automatically been voided. But no one at ENEL thought to tell us. The mysterious "technical issue" was likely that our contract no longer existed. Said Pam, "This is a new low."

This morning Romano and I went in to the GasPlus office and signed Danny and me up for service. As usual, I had to sign dozens of pages of forms, about ten signatures in all, agreeing to god knows what. All the pages were then photocopied and stapled. Then Ms. GasPlus called up the technician to find out when he could come to our apartment and turn on the gas--a five-minute procedure, we've been told.

"He says the earliest is next Tuesday morning," she reported. That meant another long weekend of icy sponge baths and freezing rooms, and my face revealed my distress. The GasPlus lady looked none too pleased herself.

"Just a minute," she said, and got back on the phone. I'm not sure whom she called, but after a few minutes she had good news: someone will come to turn on the gas tomorrow at 9:30 in the morning.

I am braced for disappointment. But if it happens, we will have warm rooms and steamy showers. We'll be able to wash dishes in hot water. The toilet seat will no longer be shockingly, painfully cold.

In that case I'm going to bring the GasPlus lady a bunch of flowers or one of those big chocolate eggs.