bills = culture stress

It´s a trivial thing, really. I don´t even know why I feel the need to vent about this publicly. But I´m going to anyway because I am stressed out.

Last Sunday, Andrea and I woke up to discover that our internet service (provided by the "santo company" Enitel) had been cut off. Since we are extremely responsible bill-payers, we immediately called to find out what had happened. "Our records show you haven´t paid your bill", the voice on the other end of the line said. Being a Sunday, there was nothing to be done. With Andrea out with a team and me totally tied up with a regional conference until all hours of the night, it wasn´t until Wednesday that I got a spare minute to go to the Enitel office and show my latest paid bill. Of course, it wasn´t until that moment that they decided to tell me that it was not in fact, last month´s bill, but NOVEMBER that appeared not to be paid. So I immediately went home and thanks to our VERY organized system of paid bills, I found the factura in question and brought it back to show the woman that this was most definitely not my fault. The woman sent me over to another customer service guy, who proceeded to examine the bank receipt printed on my bill and send an email to the technical people who theoretically would turn my internet back on. "Tomorrow morning," he promised with a smile. But it was all mentira. Thursday morning came and went, I went off to do some community visits with some out of town guests, and when I returned home last night, still nothing. So first thing this morning, I walk back over to the Enitel office, show the bill, explain that nothing has changed, and the guy who helped me before calls the main office to find out what´s wrong. "There was some kind of confusion with the number on the receipt" he says. This time he makes a copy of my recibo, sends it along to the main office, makes a phone call to verify that the process is now in motion, and I ask, "so am I going to have my internet back today?"

"24 hours," he replies. "WHAT???" I scream silently to myself. Outloud I say to him, "how is it possible it can take 24 hours to reconnect my internet when it´s just the push of a button somewhere? None of this is my fault, I have been without service for a week, and you are going to charge me the same monthly bill. I am sorry, this is not service." And with that, I stood up and walked out. What else was there to do?

As I walked home fighting back tears of frustration, I thought to myself, "why does paying bills have to be so stressful?"

"Part of the 3rd world package," someone told me later today.

A part that is more stressful than 99% of the daily challenges I face here.