I bought new boots yesterday in the nick of time, the weather has turned and Old Man Winter is well on his insidious way. Now an arduous slog through the coming months beckons to me with frosted finger and disapproving, seasonally-affective disordered eyes. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to it! With child like glee I left the house this morning at 07.30 eager to observe the pogoda (weather) in action. At least Poland has a real, challenging climate. Something to experience and survive not just to sludge through. Of course, I doubt I will be saying that in 6 months.
Said boots in action ^^
In buying my boots, I had to balance out a number of competing factors. In no particular order the following applied: comfort, durability, wodoodporna(waterproofness), grip on the sole, fashion-ness (mainly specified by The Mrs), warmth/insulation and price. According to the Mrs I got everything right except the fashion part, as usual. However, to me it's more important that as a wolf-like wind howls its way into my very innards, as snow blinds my eyes and as clumsy foot steps deep into unseen potholes on a gloomy Wednesday night that the boot be functional above all else. Interestingly, I could only find a suitable one which I liked from an independent retailer, not one of the big chains such as Ecco. After nearly a month of searching I was starting to wonder whether boot buying was an innate rather than learned skill for Polish men.
Thus armed, this morning I went off to the local Urzad Skarbowy to get my NIP. Non Polish readers should know this is essentially like getting a national insurance number. A relatively easy process in the UK but by all the reports and advice I saw online regarding the NIP, thoroughly complicated. Essentially, take one piece of advice online and the next one you'll find will be completely different. In the end, I decided to just go down there and try pot-luck, because I couldn't make head-nor-tail of resolving the differences. The receptionist not only spoke the slowest Polish I have ever heard, she promptly left her desk and came with me to the counter and proceeded to go through the whole application with the hair-do behind the glass!
After all the tales I've heard of the horrors of Polish bureaucracy this seemed to me to be stratospherically above and beyond the call of duty. My application thus approved, I left the building in shock (not a state to be in when you go outside at this time of year).
I remember when I had briefly entered into dispute with HMRC over my tax bill a few years ago, trying to speak to someone who was knowledgeable and amenable was a nightmare. Different call staff would contradict each other and fail to record actions and agreements. My "dedicated agent" was never there, or suddenly had to go to a meeting. On one occasion she put the phone down on me to go and "pick something up" and didn't come back! In the words of Alan Sugar, it was a, "bleddy total shambles."
So today is a day when I shall be drinking a cup of tea and toasting Polish Bureaucracy.
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