The Place that sends you mad
Welcome to London — Episode 13
London. Wednesday. 4.15pm.
“What do you want from me?”
People turn their heads and I blush. This is not the first time that happened. I always get into a fight with machines!
I stand in the post office trying to get stamps in the automatic check-out. Not very successfully. It already took me a while to work out the automatic cashiers in my local Tescos with the pressure of the queue growing behind me
In this delicate new environment, I preferred to talk to a real person, but the lady handling all automatic check-outs at once waved at me encouraging. And I am too long in this country to decline a polite invitation, even when I really don’t want to follow it.
Probably she regrets it now when I look at her in despair — for the third time — and she has to come over again to guide me through the next step.
Eventually, I fail on scanning the bar code — I want to send a bloody letter, I don’t have a barcode.
Enough. I abandon the machine mid-process and queue for the counter instead. There it takes less than 20 seconds to get my letter on its way. Why was that so hard?
It’s not that I’d never sent a letter in my life, I am just a bit nervous, as I am sending my passport away. I really want it in good hands. Today is the day where I apply for pre-settled status, to stay in the UK beyond Brexit. Not a big deal, you might think, but for me, it is being as British as I ever will be.
The actual application only took five minutes and now they will have a quick look in my passport and they will grant me to stay here as long as I want as if Brexit never happened — in fairness, we can’t be sure it will ever happen, mark my words.
Anyway, that was way easier than I expected. I remember my first experience with English bureaucracy when I moved here …
I was staying with my friends for the first couple of weeks. I already had the contract for my job signed and couldn’t wait to start my new life.
Obviously, I didn’t want to bother my friends longer than necessary and save myself from commuting over an hour, so I needed my own place to stay.
Dreaming of my new life I did all the research in advance and knew exactly where I wanted to life, arranged viewings, knew about train tickets, rent average and everything.
What I did not expect was the vicious cycle I was about to get into.
I found my flat after two days of power-viewing where I walked into over half a dozen houses and chatted with plenty of potential flatmates. Everything seemed perfect.
The room was already cleared, so I could move in as soon as I paid the deposit and the rent.
And there was the starting point. I was still using my German credit card that charged me a horrendous fee for every transaction, but until I would get my first salary I had no other choice. The tricky bit now was that I had to pay quite a big amount of money and transferring to another country can take up to two weeks — as if the banker had to travel there to make sure my money arrives safe and sound.
On the other hand, I did not want to pay everything in cash and frankly it did not appeal to the other tenants either to store a thousand pound under their pillow.
The easiest solution would be to open a bank account and just pay from my first salary.
German as I am I wanted to get that done as quickly as possible. So my next way was to the Barclay branch closest to my office. I queued for an entire lunch break, just to find out that I have to fill the online form first. Sure no problem. Why even have a person in the bank when you can do everything without human contact …
On my second attempt with my shiny registration number from the online form and another lunch break later they told me all is fine. All that is holding me back from my very own English account is proof of address.
Which I would get as soon as I paid my rent with the money going into my bank account which I couldn’t open before I moved in — what?
At the same time, my workplace asked me to hand in my bank details so they could pay me at the end of the month. Nice try. I rang HR to evaluate my options. They refused to pay into my German account, fair enough. And as long as I can’t provide my bank details they would just send me a check to my address. You’ve got to be kidding me.
Facing my personal Permit A 38 I had to break the cycle. I decided to pay the ridiculous fee and transfer the deposit from my German account.
Precious about their own money, my future flatmates agreed to hand over my keys while the deposit was still in the ether of online banking if I therefor pay the rent in cash.
So, I withdrew 500 pounds at the dodgy supermarket cash machine and sneaked to my new home as if I was carrying a murder weapon and received my keys.
And they crossed their fingers for ten days, that I am not a complete fraud they just let in their home.
The landlord would obviously not agree to this plan and so it took another couple of weeks to get me officially on the contract, while I was secretly already living there.
So much to my proof of address, I still couldn’t open my bank account. However, it was good enough for my employer to send my check to the address I gave them.
I received my first sweet salary but had no way to spend it, as it was trapped in the check until I opened the account. I pulled out my hair over that, but I couldn’t do anything but wait.
After a month I got my tenancy agreement, I got my bank account and I got my money. Don’t get me started that a private tenancy agreement is not valid for everything where you need to prove your address, for example, a public library.
Anyway, now that I am in this country, nothing is getting me out, anytime soon. It was enough trouble to get everything going, so it should at least be worth it.
One week after I sent out my passport it returns already. I am now the proud holder of pre-settled status and permission to remain for at least the next five years. Who knows if I’ll ever get further than that if I’ll ever apply for British citizenship. Probably that’s only possible on a full moon when the sun rises in the West.
To my flatmates (2018) — You made my start here very special.
Leave a clap for me, if you liked it :)
