My return trip was almost as long as my trip north three days previous. It was intermittently rainy and generally unpleasant aside from this charming German farmhouse. As I rounded the bend in Magadino where you can first see the lake, the sun greeted me.
For some reason, I think we both slept even worse Sunday night than before. I had those dreams about bugs biting me and making me itch. But then when I woke up, they weren’t dreams.
Jaimey packed up his life of the last couple months and I helped clean up the bachelor residue. We toured around a bit looking for a post office for some last minute mailing, but failed to coordinate our schedules with the BundesBureaucracy. I deposited Jaimey at the airport and the next thing I knew I was crossing the Rhine and heading south again…
When my Oma died in 1983, she left me a small, but not trivial amount of money. Over the years, and particularly during the summer of 2002 when I lived and worked in Frankfurt, it wound up in a Commerzbank account in Frankfurt. Now, my myriad attempts in various countries and employing all sorts of methods over the years, had resulted only in me understanding that only a certain Frau Schmidt could ever help me. No money-machine, no teller, no online banking procedure, could ever grant me access to my money. The trick was, of course, that Frau Müller was never there. She was always on vacation, in kur (German for being lazy and preferring to call it thusly to allow the insurance to pay for it), not in, or only available for in-person consultation. It didn’t help that often Frau Grober was actually Frau Schmidt or Frau Müller.
I can see your outrage dear reader: “but it is your money, how could they not give it to you!” I can only assure you, dear reader, that you are not a German bureaucrat. For, if you were, your outrage would be: “ach, so little you understand you silly little cog on our Byzantine system. It is the system that rules, incomprehensible as may be, and your desires don’t even warrant passing curiousity.”
Thus you can imagine my surprise when I called last Thursday and asked to speak to Frau Grober, and, for the first time in Commerzbank history, the name on my statement corresponded to a human being currently physically present in the bank. Even more surprisingly, she quite reasonably stated that I could fax her a signed request stating my intention to close the account and to transfer the assets to my new account in Switzerland. I still have not recovered from the lucidity of this conversation. Naturally I rushed to the post office to fax said document.
Now return with me to my drive south from Düsseldorf. As I am traversing (at occasionally rather high speeds) the 300 or so km to Frankfurt, and I am summarizing what I know, or what I think I know about German bureaucracy in general and Commerzbank Sachenhausen specifically. Interesting to note that the news of the day was that Commerzbank was getting acquired by Dresdenerbank – a landmark I’m sure to all my German banking readers. Ultimately I figured that my chances of ever seeing my money again would be improved by personal contact. I knew no one could resist my charm when standing at the teller’s desk.
Thus I steered Luciano into Frankfurt and through the streets I once knew well to the Sachsenhausen quarter of Frankfurt – just south of the Main. It was an odd trip down memory lane as that was a particularly evocative summer for a variety of reasons both professional and personal. In any event, I reached the bank with nary a hitch and parked Luciano illegally but where I remembered I was unlikely to be controlled, and dashed into Commerzbank Sachsenhausen. The teller received me but told me (naturally) that Frau Grober was out, but that perhaps she could help me. I stifled a laugh and asked her if they had received my fax. She disappeared for a moment and returned to inform me that no fax from me had arrived. Then I proceeded to explain my tragic tale as I have told you, omitting perhaps a few flourishes and embellishments concerning German bureaucracy, as self-reflection is not a hallmark of such people. She informed me that the branch simply couldn’t cash out that much money (and we’re not talking about a lot of money here). I helpfully suggested that maybe I could give her the wiring instructions and resorted to that age-old trick of whipping out my computer. Europeans don’t usually do well with magic or new fangled devices. Technology is like kryptonite to the bureaucrat. Her eyes bugged and then slowly began to glaze over as I pulled up the complicated transfer instructions. As she started copying them down, I explained that maybe I could log into their network to use their printer. That didn’t mean much to her. Then I whipped out my magic wand, er, USB memory stick. It turns out that our wonder teller had the only computer built in the last five years without a USB port. Somewhere around there my plan reached its climax and she sighed and retreated to the back. When she came back, she unlocked her drawer and started pulling out Euro notes. Victory was mine! I was once again reunited with my own money, successfully wrestled away from the evil forces of German bureaucracy.
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