Bureaucracy II

Okay, this is so ridiculous I just have to write about it: I was forced to move in with my mom about 3 weeks ago because my house was going to be demolished and I hadn't yet been able to find a new place for myself. As my mom already had an Internet connection, I obviously wanted to terminate my current Internet contract (with Online). It appeared that you could prematurely terminate your contract when you move into a house where there is already an Internet connection present. Okay, makes sense. But the Netherlands wouldn't be the Netherlands without having to prove that you're actually living at this new address and that there is actually an Internet connection present. So I had to register with the municipality that I was coming to live here (which I had to do anyway), but I had to wait a week to get a copy of the certificate of residence (yeah, printing something is difficult indeed). In the meantime I needed a copy of my mom's Internet contract. But as you obviously can't keep everything, she couldn't find it. She had to call her provider (Tiscali) about this, but they give out contracts only once, they said. They could only provide a contract number, which would do the trick, they assured us.

Fine. So after three trips to town hall and waiting for over an hour in total, I had my little piece of paper to prove I live here. For some reason I couldn't e-mail all this and had to write a letter (who writes letters?!?), including the certificate and contract number. But just now they called and they said the contract number was no use because Tiscali wouldn't give them any contract information either (WHAT THE HELL?!) and now I had to go fetch some bank statement of my mom's to prove that she was actually paying Tiscali. I asked the guy if I couldn't just e-mail it, and he hesitantly said yes but wouldn't give me a direct e-mail address and started to stutter out some roundabout way of sending him an e-mail via the website.

As he was explaining this, I was browsing their website to find some link he was describing, and it hit me that I was surfing the Web at that moment because I was trying to prove I had access to it!! Angrily I told the guy that I was surfing the Web at that moment and that it was ridiculous that I had to spend hours doing all kinds of stuff, sending letters and whatnot, to prove I had access while I was using Internet at the same moment I was on the phone with the guy. He stammered something about it not working that way, and of course I knew it didn't, because we're living in this rotten bureaucratic society, so I didn't ask him if he could just perform some Google search, me copying his action and telling him what the top hit was or something, proving that I was indeed using the Internet. Utter absurdity.

Oh, and it was best if I just sent the bank statement via mail anyway, because "via e-mail it would probably get lost" :S. I told him that once this whole thing was finally over and done with, I would probably have moved again, rendering all my efforts moot. Of course he stammered some noncommittal nonsense answer, like such people always seem to do, uttering words but not really saying anything. So I guess I have no choice but to comply with his preposterous demands.

So. It's going to take me a month to prove I moved to a house with an existing Internet connection, costing me and my mom a couple of euros sending letters and calling hotlines (not a fortune or anything, but a complete and utter waste!), and costing this country money in paying the people working at Online and Tiscali dealing with this, while I could just have proven it with one simple Google search. This is such an utter waste of time and money - and it's definitely not the first time - that I'm losing faith in this country with its bureaucratic nonsense. And getting my Internet from a different provider once I move again is useless because it's the same everywhere. Maybe emigrating would be an option.

Any suggestions?