Le Franco Phoney

I took this package to the post office last week and it was rejected. Two rounds of tape was perhaps not enough? The address wasn’t clear enough? Nope. It offending element was the brown packaging paper. I wrapped a festive biscuit tin, complete with my homemade gingerbread cookies, in paper made especially for posting. I double-wrapped the paper, then folded in the ends and taped it all up, and wrote the address and sender details clearly.

The man at the post office explained that brown paper packages were no longer acceptable. Cardboard boxes are now the way forward. He mentioned ripping and lost addresses and suggested I gaffa tape the entire package and rewrite the address details in a thick marker pen.

Apparently, La Poste around these parts have a new mails sorting machine that uses suction to move the packages. The man behind the counter also explained that my letter for La Clusaz, 1.7km up the road, would be sent to Grenoble, more than 100km away for sorting, before heading back for delivery unless I bought a first-class stamp. In a world where train tickets cost more depending on the distance of the destination, letter travel seems to be in reverse: pay more, go less distance. I took full advantage and sent that letter on a journey!

Now, back to the package. Did I wrap it in so much gaffa tape that even a thief would fail to open the tin? Nope. I used plastic wrap from the kitchen then made a border of gaffa tape so the address appeared in a square ‘window’. If that suction machine — the one that puts an end to logical packaging — is going to get clogged up with my packaging, I want it to do a decent job of it.

Pictured is a letterbox down the road from where I live. You can tell it’s a letterbox by the handle, lock and nameplate at the bottom right side of the box/house. To get an idea of the size of the letterbox, there’s a red tulip behind the letterbox, or if you’re more of a measurement person, that door for the letters to go in is around 25cm wide and tall. If you’d like to see a bigger version, click on the image.

At the top we have the Savoyarde coat of arms: this is visible in loads of places in Haute Savoie where the locals are proud of their past, when they were once a separate entity from France with their own duchy. There’s then a bit of a mish-mash of people — women and men in traditional dress selling bread and wheat and other goodies, but down the bottom, there seems to be a mountaineer or musician (or someone dressed in more recent clothes anyway) at the top of the staircase, and more bizarre still is the nativity-looking woman next to the letterbox door who is holding a lamb, with a lamb looking up at her. Regardless, ten out of ten to the creator for getting most things to scale (apart from that huge lantern under the Savoyarde coat of arms), and the inclusion of a cat, some ducklings, some decorative clogs, pretzel and belier (local goat-like sheep thing) all hanging on the walls, mini flowers, logs and wheat, and the tiny love hearts cut out of the wood. I think there’s even a squirrel and a snowman’s head included, amongst a few other tiny objects. I just wish they’d included a miniature letterbox with the house, in the style of the house, with its own miniature letterbox in the same style, and so on until there’s just a tiny dot somewhere on the other side of the road…

Pictured is an envelope and part of a tax invoice it contained, which I received on Saturday. Just to confirm, that’s Saturday 18th December. As you can see by the stamp on the envelope, the letter was sent on 15th December. Apart from it taking three days to travel just 30 kilometres, check out the date on the tax bill. The text pretty much translates to “final payment date” which is, impossibly, 15th December. That would be three days before I even received the invoice.

On top of that, this is the third separate bill for tax that I’ve had in a few months (each sent from different centres), and this one still has my old address from more than a year ago despite notifying them of my change of address more than once. What is this tax even for??

I’m stopping myself from ranting, swearing and shouting like a crazy lady because if I start, I may not stop, and I don’t want to end up in a mental institution. Imagine the scariest wierdo you’ve ever met and multiply it by ten and that’s roughly how I’m feeling right now. Alternatively, I could shrug and say “c’est la vie” but I’m not French: I haven’t grown up with this lame excuse for a taxation system and I don’t know how much longer I can stand it. Next country?

Recently, I had an issue with the French post office which accepted a tube-shaped package to be sent to England, but after I paid for it, they sent it back to me as a rejected item and expected me to pay for it again, chocked up so it couldn’t roll. I took the item back to the UK the following week and reposted it without a problem, but it’s sparked a bizarre chain of events. At the same time, I posted a present to my mum from the UK post office, saving me room in my suitcase for my favourite British goodies that I can’t get in France. Ten days later, it turned up in my letterbox in France: Royal Mail has sent it to the clearly marked “Sender” address instead of the one on the front of the package (also clearly marked), next to their big stamp. I’ve now filled out the form and hoping for a reimbursement.

Meanwhile, the French post office has warmed my heart after last month’s frustration: the man who accepted the tube-shaped parcel was working when I took in more parcels with my mum’s. After joking that Royal Mail are worse than La Poste, he made a point of saying he’d found nothing in his regulations book against sending tube packages overseas, then insisted on paying for one of my small packages by way of apology for the first mess-up. How kind is that? Now I regret all that stress and anger that I released in my other blog entry, although from the reactions of my friends, it’s clear that I’ve been one of the lucky ones.

Pictured is one of two cylindrical parcels I took to the post office last week. Each contained a kitty toy for friends’ cats. Rather than wrap them in any old thing, I thought I’d do the right thing and provide properly packaged parcels that the post office would appreciate. One parcel made it as far as Annecy after four working days (La Poste has a tracking system on items sent around France: this item is not going to Annecy) and one made it to my letter box. The reason? Cylinders are not allowed to be posted anymore. So how did one get through? The post office man, upon seeing the parcels last week, explained that they roll, making it hard to scan the postcode. He said it wasn’t a problem for overseas items, but that the cylinder going to France would need to have chunks added to it to stop it from rolling. He even offered to do it — what a nice man. I thanked him after asking if he was sure and he said no problems – it was quiet and he was bored. Clearly, the parcel for overseas was a problem as that was the one that ended up back at my door.

Thinking the mix-up was purely down to someone reading the sender address instead of the destination address, I took the item back to the post office. The goth lady was working instead so I explained that the post office had accidentally sent the item back to me and could it please be resent. No, not now, she said.  It cannot be sent while it is a cylinder. She said I would need to change the shape so it wouldn’t roll. I asked if I could just drop it off after I’d made the manual change (thinking at the time it would have been easier just to do a bodge job with some bubble wrap and brown paper). She said no because I’d need to pay for it again. Er what? The postage was already more than the cost of the cat toy and she wanted me to pay again? The man last week accepted it so how was this my fault? She agreed but wouldn’t budge. It might only be a small amount of money, but it’s not the amount in question: it’s the way La Poste want me to pay for their mistake and inflexibility. The country renowned for its red tape really does live up to its reputation at times. Outstandingly bad for something as simple as sending a cat toy to a friend.

Thankfully, I’m going to England this weekend, so if I don’t see the man who served me last week before then to hassle him about it, I’ll take the package back with me. Extremely frustrated, I spouted off about it to friends. These are the reactions I got in just one afternoon:

1. French friend: “Yes, it’s stupid. I’ve lived with it all my life so I don’t know any different. I’m used to it. I can’t be angry.”

2. Australian friend: “Remember the string story! Parcel packaged up old style, brown paper with string. Post lady says no, string is ‘interdit’ (not allowed) but then 2 seconds later says yes it’s okay, it’ll just cost more!!! How is this possible? I said, you choose it’s either interdit or it’s not.”

3. American friend: “French customs held all of my household goods from the US ‘hostage’ and tried to make me pay 19.5% tax on stuff that I already OWNED…like my grandmother’s china….until my French boyfriend called them up and said, ‘This is France, not Nigeria’.”

4. British friend: “We were on holiday in Hossegor, sent a parcel to California, recorded, & guess what when we got back home (Bozel) it was waiting here! We took it to La Poste in Bozel & they said we had to go to the post office where it was sent from 700km to get our money back!!!!”

Shops here in the French Alps keep strange hours. For example, the supermarket in La Clusaz is closed from 12.30pm to 4.30pm, and rumour has it that the reason for this is so that tourists have to buy their lunch from the bakeries and restaurants and thus spend more money in town. In fact, most of La Clusaz closes for the inter-season months of May, October and November. And as I’ve written about in the past, convenience stores are more like inconvenience stores, while “fermeture exceptionelle” (unexpected closure) is a sign well used here in France, and one I’ve struck when attempting to go to a Chinese restaurant in Annecy, the post office in Bonneville and of course, the government office in Annecy for car registration. When I made it to the post office in St Jean de Sixt before it closed for the weekend at midday on a Saturday, I was then told that my item wouldn’t leave until Monday because nobody picks up the mail on the weekends. Shop keepers apparently have a comfortable life and they don’t need to open as often as I’d like them to.

So why am I still surprised to see this sign? Pictured here is a sign for a shop in Annecy called “Espace Déco” (a home decorations shop). The sign then reads:

Opening hours

Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 12.30pm – 2.00pm

Monday, Wednesday, Saturday: by appointment or call (number blurred out by me)

So, that’s a total of four and a half hours per week for customers to just happen to walk past while the shop is open. Does anyone ever really bother to call a number just to touch an item for sale and discover its price? I’d feel kind of obliged to buy it if I hauled the shopkeeper out of bed or wherever just so I could browse a few serving trays. How are these shops still in business? The only reason I can think of is that people must think it’s more exclusive if the shop stays closed most of the time and then they make the effort to come back. I think I’ve found the most exclusive shop in the Alps.

Long-term readers may remember the postcard I blogged about which was addressed to my friend with the wrong address, the wrong post code, the correct village and the wrong surname. More recently, there was the realisation that mail does not get into a letterbox unless it has the recipient’s name on it. And last weekend, I discovered that in France, oversized envelopes, bubble wrap, padded envelopes and basic brown paper are not available at the post office or the typical outlets you’d expect. That sounds ridiculous, right? Well, they’re kind of avaialble, but not really. Let me explain.

I know some post offices around the world (like in England, for example) demand that you buy your padded envelope — from the large selection — from the separate retail purchases counter. You can then take your envelope home to pack, dance with it, do what you like with it, or you can add some goodies to it right there in the post office, then head to the official postal service counter and pay for postage. Other countries (like Australia) provide post offices where you can buy packaging to suit your needs at the same counter, then quickly bundle up your items while chatting to the staff if there’s no queue.

France, however, doesn’t seem to stock packaging products at any of the places you’d expect. I needed to send two parcels last weekend. At 10 in the morning, I tried the post office, but the only packaging there were postage-pre-paid boxes and tough-bags and one pre-paid padded envelope, and all these options were expensive because the postage (to Europe only) was already included. Why on earth would I pay €30+ for an envelope which I then have to pay for postage to Australia on top of that?

So, I left the crowded post office and hit the supermarket. There were some standard A4 envelopes, but no padded envelopes and no rolls of brown paper. I then tried two news agents, but they didn’t even have a standard letter envelope for sale! Where do people go to buy padded envelopes here? I need to know.

With the pressure of the post office closing at midday, I desperately needed to get these gifts sent so they would arrive before Christmas and a birthday. Finally, at another supermarket, I found two metres of brown paper covered in cartoon santas and other festive images. No worries: inside out and it became normal brown paper. I used the whole lot. A friend has since told me about a shop which may stock padded envelopes. If they do stock them, I’m going to buy up big and consider opening a stand outside the post office.

UPDATE: I wrote this entry before I went shopping this morning. By this afternoon, I had discovered that rolls of brown paper can be found at Ikea in Switzerland, and supermarkets in Annecy stock very small padded envelopes. I guess the local supermarkets here stock containers of grass for cats and stuff instead. Yes, I bought a container of grass for my cat.

It doesn't matter how fancy it is, make sure your name is on it

Okay, I promise this is the last thing I write about moving house, but it might be valuable to someone out there. In France, or at least in this region, you absolutely must must MUST write your name on your letterbox. When I first moved to France, I thought it was a quaint remnant of the past to let the postie know who you are, if they didn’t already guess from the names on your mail. I was so, so wrong.

If you do not put your name on your letterbox, even if you’ve gone into the post office and filled out the change of address forms and introduced yourself to your new postal staff, you will not receive any mail. Nothing. Nada. Rien. Game over.

I didn’t know this two weeks ago, so when I put my name on the letterbox three days after moving in, the postie then informed me that she had seen mail from the electricity company and the phone company and something else that looked personal. Did she not see the moving boxes stacked inside the door? Had she not seen cars full of boxes being lugged inside just days earlier? Was she not aware that she hadn’t delivered mail to this particular house for more than a year, and that it had a new name anyway (there are no street names or numbers where I live: just house names)? Did she not put two and two together when she saw bills from utility companies arrive that would indicate services being activated for the new people who have just moved in? Did she not? No, she bloody didn’t.

So, quite possibly, there’s now a housewarming card winging its way back to the person who sent it to me, along with some black mark against my name on some utility company database. Let this be a lesson to anyone moving to France: write your name on that letterbox as soon as you possibly can!

Let’s start with the dumb. This letter from EDF arrived in a letterbox in Annecy last week. You can see from the date circled at the top (click on the letter for a larger image) that the letter was printed a month earlier. This seems to be standard practice with utility letters: it’s as if companies print out a huge pile of letters, then get someone to stuff one per day or something. Anyway, three weeks after the date, the letter arrived.

Now, three weeks seems like quite a long time when there’s only fifty-two of them in a year. But check out the other circled date. Yes, that’s December 2007 — almost a year ago. What’s the significance? Well, this is the date that the recipient requested a new service. This letter confirms the request, but then requests that the recipient call the number again to confirm once more — more than ten months after the request was made!

I know this is France and paperwork is relaxed, but tenants have come and gone in less time. And what makes the letter even more unbelievable is that it urges the reader to speed up the process two times. Great, so if your new service still isn’t working almost a year later, call this number and maybe you’ll get it after a further six months because you get to talk to the person who stuffs one letter per day between taking calls on missing letters and delayed services. Just so you know, the service still remains unused by the recipient.

On the other hand, the French postal system comes up trumps. What it lacks in speed it makes up for in service. I received this postcard. As you can see, I haven’t had to blur out the address: it was simply addressed to me, with the wrong surname, in La Clusaz. The postcode is wrong (that’s the sender’s postcode in Thônes, down the road), and no effort was made to describe the address. In the whole of La Clusaz, the post office tracked down the right person, with nothing more than her first name to go by, and delivered the postcard (obviously, Wendy is not a very French name — quite handy).

This certainly counteracts their placement of a large parcel for me in my letterbox. They wedged it in from the side that their key works in, but on my smaller, framed side, I had no way of getting the parcel out. For almost a week, it was wedged in despite the explanatory note on the letterbox. Each day, I’d fish out the new letters from around the wedged box until finally the postie saw the note and knocked on my door with parcel in hand, apologies and an embarrassed smile.

But these things are not so rare. As I type, I have a router ready to be installed, but the letter with my login details has never arrived. An insurance company who demanded I pay my renewal even though I had followed all legal routes to cancel my insurance still send letters telling me that, as a member, I can vote for their board members or something. I did quite like my water bill for 48c (if only they were all like that!), and I’m still waiting for an electrician to arrive, who promised in a letter to be here in October. We’re all, of course, only human, and French utility services certainly show their human side.