I am waiting for the oven man, the man who will magically restore my ability to make bread. Or rather, my oven's ability to bake bread. I have no knowledge of when he will arrive; he will simply call 30 minutes before he intends to be here, thus allowing me enough time, presumably, to cycle home from wherever I am in Amsterdam and be there to let him in. I am working from home, just to be on the safe side, but dare not go to the toilet for the rest of the day in case he calls and I don't answer. I've already had a coffee though -- damn.
He will be paid in cash -- 99.50 euros, to be precise. Apparently, 100 euros is either insufficiently complicated a sum or just too much for the Dutch to contemplate paying -- although, inevitably, I will have to pay 100 euros. I very much doubt he carries a big bag of 50-cent coins around with him, preferring instead to look mildly incredulous that I can't give him the exact amount. "These crazy, overpaid expats!" he'll think. "Throwing away a good 50 cents because they can't be bothered to find the right amount!"
The 99.50 is just for him turning up and doing some work. It does not include parts. I don't know how I will be billed for those, whether I will be expected to rustle up another 100 euros at the drop of a hat or whether I will have to go out to the nearest cash point to get more money. It would be helpful if they billed us, but that doesn't appear to be an option yet. Who still carries large quantities of cash round with them? I use PIN for everything, as I suspect many people here do -- it means you can pay the exact amount in a supermarket instead of being overcharged by the cashier rounding the amount up to the next 5 cents. Maybe that's why so many people in the queues at Deen, our lunchtime supermarket near work, look so confused when they're asked to hand over money for goods purchased; instead of just being stupid, they've merely lost their PIN card and have no idea what these strange pieces of paper and shiny coins are. (I won't miss going to Deen every day. Oh no.)
No sign of the oven man yet. I'll keep you posted.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment