While I really do appreciate being able to do things online rather than be on hold and navigate the voice mail maze, there do seem to be some good face to face experiences in this modern world. Now, you would think the City of Vancouver's Engineering Department would be one of them especially when you have to appear in person and pay in person for their services such as reserving road space outside our apartment so the moving truck can park. (Fortunately, we don't have to also do this at our new place as they have a loading space...it does cost $75 a pop.)
I had a good experience three years ago when we moved from our house in Victoria. Since I wasn't going to be in Vancouver until the evening before the move and the signs to block off space are put up a few days in advance, it would have meant a big imposition on someone we knew in Vancouver to do this for us. The woman said it wouldn't be a problem, just come in sometime after your move and pay. She would look after it.
I went in to do this the other day for our upcoming move and it was interesting to hear the interactions of people wanting things that weren't quite in the regulations and the staff trying to accommodate them.
In the morning I had to call the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the US about payment for our land lease in Palm Springs. I thought the mail had miscarried and very worried that I was overdue but it seems that I paid early last year and it still wasn't due and hadn't been sent yet. I was expecting a bureaucratic nightmare but got through to a person almost immediately and they were able to give me the information in a couple of minutes.
I celebrated my victories by going out for a Chinese lunch at the Peaceful Restaurant on Broadway and had a great meal. The clients were pretty much exclusively young professionals on their lunch break. Now, was it my imagination, or was it because Carol blogged recently about being treated like a "little old lady" that I felt I was being very kindly looked on by staff and clients as this little old lady having lunch on her own?
My lunch, General Tso's Chicken.
