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Battling the Italian bureaucracy

By DON LINDLEY

Our first extended encounter with the infamous Italian bureaucracy was a harrowing comic drama.

The battle to obtain the elusive but required document "permesso di soggiorno" -- permission to stay -- began when our landlords' extended family, including an attorney and an accountant, made four futile attempts to produce a rental contract for our apartment that was acceptable to local authorities.  Most family members reside in a masseria (an agricultural estate) that evokes Downton Abbey. They are not lightweights.

Finally, a fifth attempt was successful.  But by then, the clock was winding down on day six of the eight day deadline for compiling the mountain of required documents – the contract central among them -- and applying for the permesso.  Attuned to the urgency of the situation, the attorney in the family arrived with the final contract in hand and immediately drove me to the main post office to obtain the "kits" we had to complete to apply for the permits.  After taking a number from a mysterious machine dispensing four types of numbers and waiting in line for 30 minutes, we were advised that only a smaller post office a few blocks away handled permesso kits and, of course, it had closed for the day at 1 pm, a few hours earlier.

Early the next morning, Pamela and I trudged to the small post office.  After taking what we later learned was the wrong type of number and waiting 45 minutes, we advanced to the head of the line.  Our number mistake was overlooked and we requested two permesso kits.

Sorry, we have just one in stock.

Using our best fractured Italian, and Google translator, we asked when they might have another. The reply - perhaps in a week or two - was cause for genuine alarm.

Considering that our deadline was the next day, what could we do?  Well, you might try the post office in nearby Polignano.  It's open all day.

We hustled to the train stazione and made the quick trip north.  We seemed to enjoy amazing good fortune when a postal carrier on a motorbike pulled up to Polignano station just as we disembarked. We asked, in legitimate Italian, for directions to the post office.  He appeared to be stumped.

Never known for an excess of patience, I felt myself beginning to lose it. How the hell can a mailman not know where the post office is? But I slowly realized he was struggling to reply in fractured English.  Between both languages and many gestures, we eventually got good directions to the PO, which was only a few blocks away.

We took a different type of number (still wrong) and waited 45 minutes for our turn.  When it came, we faced perhaps the darkest moments of our Italian adventure.  The clerk behind the glass didn’t have the faintest idea what we were talking about when we requested another permesso application kit.  We showed him the one we had in hand and he gestured for us to pass it to him. He took it apart and suggested that we needed to visit the US consulate in Naples. And, oh my god, he also seemed unwilling to give the kit back.

We stood our ground and slowly seemed to persuade him that we were not tourists who needed help from our embassy.  All we wanted was a second kit to complete the process of becoming legal, long term residents of Italy.

He grudgingly returned our kit and summoned an older man, his supervisor we thought. Talk returned to the idea that we needed to go to Naples. But suddenly, the supervisor understood, went to an office in back and returned with an application kit.  We had triumphed, sort of.  We celebrated by adjourning for a good seafood lunch and well deserved bottle of wine even though we knew the application deadline was the next day.

The kits each contained two application forms totaling 16 pages and about the same number of pages of codes and instructions, all in Italian.  Some of the required info - name, address - was easy to decipher, but most of both forms was incomprehensible.  We texted the landlords. The young woman who officially owns the apartment, and is nearly fluent in English, agreed to come by the next morning to help us fill out the forms.  She assured us it wouldn’t be too hard.

The next morning, she changed her mind after working with us on the forms for three hours.  We needed professional help. We hastily adjourned to the offices of the family accountant and attorney. They, too, were baffled by some of the finer points.  Animated discussions and several phone calls followed.  Finally, after making reams of copies of all kinds of documents, including empty pages of our passports, we were pronounced good to go. The accountant wryly wished us “buon fortuna” (good luck) as we departed.

Led by the apartment owner, we headed again to Monopoli’s central post office to pay the required application fee and mail the completed forms to government offices in Rome.  We arrived during the 1 pm to 5 pm siesta when life here generally stops, and were served immediately. But, no, we were advised, the central office wasn’t set up to collect permesso application fees. To make the deadline, you’re going to have to go back to Polignano.

The apartment owner volunteered to drive us there and help us cut through any confusion or resistance we might run into.  And then we finally encountered a bit of good fortune.  The PO’s permesso expert was on duty, and he furiously began copying and stamping various parts of the forms. Other clerks gathered ‘round to watch him in action.  The supervisor joined the spectators and complained about the Monopoli post office,  The expert collected the fees and theatrically employed an over-the-shoulder hook shot to toss envelopes containing the finished and thoroughly stamped forms into a mail basket behind him.

He then presented us with receipts that advised us that if all goes well, we could collect our completed permesso documents at precisely 10:22 am and 10:30 am, respectively, in about four months {June 9}  at the appropriate office in Bari.

How’s that for efficiency!

Pamela and I exchanged high fives with each other and the landlady, and went in search of more wine.

--Don

 

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  1. Roberto Garrappa on April 26, 2016 at 12:42 pm

    You made a very fun description about what is italian bureaucracy and, unfortunately, that is true! I am italian and we are used to all these troubles but I understand that it is very difficult and puzzling for people coming from other countries. There is just a way in Italy to overcome most of the difficulties: look for an italian friend (as at the end you did): he/she is the only one able to move through the italian bureaucracy (I know, it is a bit sad). But, at least, italian people are usually better than the italian bureaucracy!

    • Pamela Hasterok and Don Lindley on May 9, 2016 at 3:58 pm

      Grazie, Roberto. You are absolutely right! Italian people are always better than the Italian bureaucracy.
      Don & Pamela

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