Paradise - a Summer fruit
Myreille over at végtelen sikítás points the way to one of the mysteries of Summer and the Hungarian language. As she put it on August 11th:
Nóha a paradicsom csak egy paradicsom. Nóha nem.translation:
Sometimes just a tomato can be heaven. Sometimes not.One of my favorite Summer salads is chopped courgettes (zuccini), slices of ripe tomoto (not the supermarket ones) and loads of torn fresh basil leaves. Mix in olive oil and put in the fridge 2 hours before you eat. And it is Heaven. So, just in case you are still clueless about the point of this post the Hungarian for tomato and Heaven is the same word: tomato = paradicsom = heaven Let's face it, that's just weird.
Bureaucracy
Well, everything here is really different from just a few years ago and markedly different from 10 years ago.
However, if ever I feel a teeny bit nostalgic I visit a bank. There you can really get a good feeling for what it was like. All the banks here are doing fantastically - profits wise. Buoyed by the BUX (hungarian stock exchange index) rises of last year (ignoring what's been happening since the March Holiday) and various acquisitions of neighbouring countries' banks (particularly for OTP). Yet, there is still at the heart of the banking system here a monolithic emotionless, dehumanizing, soul sucking monster.
I have wasted too many hours, too much of my life, waiting for my number to ping into existence on their inane electronic queueing systems. They just haven't got a clue about Customer Relationship Management. The people in the banks are fine. If anything they seem to suffer more than the customers. They are lost and trapped within this system day after day. I applaud their fortitude.
Anyway, I've had one too many afternoons wasted by my own bank, so here's a translation of one of Örkény István's short stories from the book 'One minute novels'. I often think of Örkény's stories when I have to face any bureaucracy, it really helps me to get by:
Information
For 11 years he sat in the foyer entrance, behind a small window. In total, only two questions were ever asked of him:
- Which way is it to the Montex Office?
To which, he would answer:
- The 1st Floor, on the left.
The second question went:
- Where can I find the Buddings Waste Processors?
This had him reply:
- Second floor, second door on the right.
Not once in 11 years had there been a misunderstanding, everyone received the appropriate guidance.
But once it happened that a woman approached the window and asked the familiar question of the first kind:
- Excuse me please, which way is it to the Montex Office?
To this, unusually, he stared into the distance and responded:
- We all came from nothing, and we shall return into a big stinking nothing.
Well, the woman protested. The complaint was examined, but later dropped. I mean really, it's no big thing.
- Örkény István (trans of 'Információ' from 'Egy perces novellák')
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