by The immigration office is supposedly open from 8:30 till 10 (to drop off forms and pick up permits and what have you) and between 2 and 4:30 (for “information”). Yesterday was Wednesday, the only weekday I’m free in the early morning, so I went along there to see what I needed to do. At 8:25 there was already a virus-friendly queue inside, so I stood outside while some of the people in the queue magically disappeared in one direction or another. I then made my way into the immigration room, which has small offices off to the side. A uniformed man in his thirties with two gold stars on each shoulder was being rude and aggressive to another Romanian man who was trying to get a work visa for an employee. Then he said sarcastically to a woman, “Can’t you read that sign?!” God, I’ll have to deal with you in a minute. When it was my turn, I asked what I needed, and he said he didn’t really know but asked me to come back in the afternoon. He was calm. I went back after my lesson in the afternoon, with various paperwork that I thought might be handy. Then he was back into full arsehole mode. “Why are you so angry with me?” he asked me in English. What? I’m just asking you a question. In fact you seem rather angry with me for just being here. “Wait outside!” When he asked me to come in, he was relatively calm again, and spoke in Romanian. My Romanian by this point was pretty hopeless because his attitude had frozen me on the spot. He told me to visit ANAF, a government department which deals with tax and stuff, to get (and pay for) public health insurance, which is mandatory for all non-EU citizens living in Romania. I’ll also need proof of my address here (hard to get – I don’t receive any mail) and other bits and pieces.
This morning it was off to ANAF, a huge building next to Piața 700. I found the right entrance (eventually); there was hand sanitiser and a temperature scanner on the way in. The place was bewildering. Then I had to press a button on a keypad from a choice of at least ten, depending on what service I required. Buggered if I knew. I pressed one at random. Out spat a ticket. Go to desk 9. The ticket also told me there were two people waiting in front of me. Where’s desk 9? I could see 1 to 5, and a whole load of desks without numbers. I walked round the corner, where there were another bank of desks numbered 1 to 5, and more unnumbered ones. Then I saw that the other desks did in fact have numbers, but in an almost invisible font. The lady at desk 9 told me to go to some other desk that really didn’t have a number. Or an occupant. An older woman was waiting in front of me. “I can’t stand here for an hour,” she said. “And get Covid,” I said. While we were waiting, a man was madly filling printers with paper. These places get through forests. The walls were covered in signs in English that said “wireless free”. Just as well, because I’m allergic to wireless. It makes me come out in hives. Then I saw that the three desks nearby had signs with different letters of the alphabet. One of them had something like B, I, N, Q, P, U, W, S. I’m guessing that if your surname began with any of those letters, you went to that desk. Why were they seemingly random and not strictly in order? And that go-to-the-right-desk system can’t work with the letter system, can it? Maybe if you press a certain button it then asks you for the initial letter of your surname. God knows. Then I noticed that only 25 letters were accounted for among the three desks. If your name began with J, you were out of luck.
We’d almost given up when a man of about 55 appeared. He dealt with the woman quickly, then it was my turn. He was extremely friendly and seemed to understand exactly what I needed. My Romanian was no obstacle. He used the “tu” form with me, which in that sort of environment is a bit like appending “mate” to sentences in English. He printed out what I need, though I had to ask what this insurance actually covers me for, and then had to pay for it (nearly £300) at another desk. In 2017 I talked about “flashing orange men” on this blog – things I see that would confuse the hell out of me in any language – and there were plenty of them at ANAF, but at least I got that job done, and I hope it will satisfy the bloke with the stars on his shoulders.
