When we bought our furniture at Ikea we had to get it delivered because it was too big for our car. So we went to the counter for delivery. The guy told us we were outside the express delivery zone and we would be called for a date. On the date deadline there was no call so the Monday after I decided to give them a call to find out where our stuff was. Especially because our stuff contained a bed we needed for the next weekend as we were having guests over.

A colleague of mine impersonated me and called the Ikea with me present. After many questions we found that our stuff was at a local transporting company and we called them. They told us they had just received it couldn’t possibly deliver it before next weekend. It would be at least 2 weeks. Their schedule had no room for a same week delivery. So I told my colleague to push, it didn’t work. Then I told my colleague to ask them on what the guests would be sleeping that weekend. All of a sudden this lady said: OK next Friday in the morning. You can imagine my face.

Ikea in Paris

This happened to us several times. The initial answer is no but when you push and try a little harder it works out. See also my post about buying a car. We were in Mc Donalds last Friday and Maaike was almost sent out because she was occupying a table without food (I was getting it). After some explaining there was no problem at all. Just another example. It doesn’t work for every case of course. Usually taking the following attitude helps a lot: “O great servant of the company my life is in your hands, I know I am wrong but how can I continue???”. How do I solve this problem? What can I do?  

It worked for getting our furniture, our car, and even our Mc Donalds table. 

When we bought the Peugeot the bureaucracy began. We had to fill in lots of forms. One for the seller one for the vendor and one for the “prefecture”. Some days after I went to the “Sous-Prefecture” of Saint Germain en Laye to get a ” carte grize” (gray card) for our car. In France there is no frequent road tax. They have toll roads (worth their money). The other thing you register a car on your name you have to pay a certain onetime amount. This amount depends on the car (size, engine, pollution etc) and the town you register it. In our case it was 320 euro for the Peugeot 307.

Then after waiting for 40 minutes in line I came to a desk with a lady asking me what I wanted. After telling her she gave me another paper to fill out (the same data as on the ones I filled out before). But I figured this other form would end up at some other place. However when I came to the teller the two form were stapled together. This to me was the ultimate form of bureaucracy. Two forms with exactly the same data stapled together!

Then I needed to check for a new license plate. For this I was directed to some truck. There was an old man in the midst of hundreds of license plates. He spoke in a non understandable French (for me). He asked me something I couldn’t understand. He checked my new “carte grize” and said I didn’t need a new license plate. This is the story how we got our car.