I fought the law and, I won!

One of the constant pleasures of living in Switzerland is receiving bills that just do not make any sense. For instance, when Christine mailed me an official "Google" jacket, along with some other small items, I had to pay a bribe of 55 CHF at the post office in order to pick up the package. Why? Well, customs had opened the box and determined that the jacket was worth 300 CHF (ha!), then charged me tax on that value (25 CHF) and a "customs fee" of 30 CHF for not properly declaring the item. Lame.

Although I have received countless packages from my parents without any customs costs (maybe because they ship to my work address), the same thing happened again when I ordered a pair of shoes online from England. After receiving the shoes (which were about 100 CHF), two weeks later I got a customs bill for 60 CHF. Not only did I pay tax and "customs fees", I also had to pay "administrative costs" and "commission." Super lame.

I could go on and on about some of these stupid things I've had to deal with (and trust me, if you're one of my labmates, you've heard me do it), but yesterday I got a bill that took the cake. It was a charge of 125 CHF for cable television service from October 31 to March 25. The only problem: not only did I not sign up for cable television, I don't even have a TV. What happened was that on March 25, I went down to CityCable (a sub-unit of Lausanne Services Industriels) and signed up for cable internet. When I signed up for internet, they found out that I had a cable outlet in my apartment that was -- gasp, shock -- unblocked since I moved in. Since it was not blocked, in theory I could have been receiving free cable television for the last couple months. Therefore, they decided to charge me retroactively.

This morning, I walked down to Services Industriels (convenienently located one block from my apartment) and I showed them the bill. Somewhat surprisingly, they knew exactly what the situation was without me saying anything (apparently, this happens all the time) and patiently explained that it was my responsibility to have the outlet blocked and that since I did not have that done when I moved in I had to pay. I then patiently explained that since I had signed nothing until March 25 that I would pay for exactly nothing. The woman told me it was totally impossible to cancel the bill and that I was legally bound, blah blah blah. I told her that it was indeed possible to cancel the bill and that I would wait until she talked to a supervisor. She then called up her supervisor, chatted briefly, then told me that the bill had been canceled.

This is my first victory against the Man since coming to Switzerland (no, I still don't have a dryer in my apartment and I don't even have a decent scheduled time to do laundry). Most satisfying, I managed the whole thing in French without resorting to cussing or exasperated sighing. It truly was a victory on many levels and a great way to start the day.

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Just so this post isn't a total snooze-fest, here's a couple of pictures from my trip to Grenoble last weekend. My buddy Rafael (previously mentioned on this blog) was in town for some physics-related reasons so I decided to visit. We did all sorts of outdoorsy things, including renting bicycles and biking to the Chartreuse Cellars in Voiron. Lots of fun.

Fig. 1: Loren and I hiking in the Vercors, near Grenoble, Rafael not pictured.

Fig. 2: Biking along the Isère toward Voiron.