Card Eating ATM

The stupidity of it all...There are many individuals that just cannot act as normal people (or at least decent) in an awkward situation. Today I went to a BCR ATM to get some money because the University bureaucracy inflicted by none other than the almighty secretary made me pay 10RON for a grade history sheet needed for my Embassy interview. The secretary told me, like I was supposed to have the information tattooed from birth on my retina, that I had to run to three faculty members in order to get my grade sheet released (Romania is truly the country of "walk with the paper") and on top of that, she was going to stay only 30 minutes more (the programme was from 13:30 'till 14:00 in the same day, not 24 and 1/2 hours of work, no, only a half an hour... wow, I don't know how they do it, so many back-aching minutes flipping magazines and hair dye catalogues).

So..I had only 30 minutes to pay my tax and drop the papers in the secretary's lap. But of course that, the pay office was in another building and I had no money...

I was in front of the BCR ATM, took my card out, put it in the hole, then, suddenly the message "Temporary out of order" appeared on the screen, I pressed Cancel and after a few anxious moments, the ATM spat up 3/4 of my card :((((...yes, it bit my card. When I thought things couldn't possibly go worse, a man with glasses came shouting in my face "Can you read? Can you read?"...I answered "Yes" of course...The man was a BCR employee who started working at the back of the ATM the moment I put my card in it...he was blaming me for the fact that in broad daylight, with a person already using the ATM when I got there, I had the nerve not to ask the ATM if someone was working in it at that particular moment. The irony of it all, I was blamed for using the ATM the exact moment before it went out of order, without even a warning I might add.

Usually, there are two workers that do this kind of operation in broad daylight (I repeat), the one behind the ATM and the one in front of it, who is suppose to say "Hey stupid, in just a second, this here ATM machine is gonna slice your card if you stick it in now."

No money (I can get the money from my account, but I have to sign a request that needs to be approved by the Chief of the BCR office and that will take more then a while), no card (actually there is a card, 3 quarters of it), no paid tax, no way of solving the grade history sheet problem before Wednesday (because the 1st of May is on Tuesday), the sheet is supposed to be in the Embassy file by Wednesday afternoon, because on Friday morning I have my visa interview.

Ergo...Who's to blame for it all?...the bureaucracy?...no, because people create bureaucracy and implement it as well...the secretary who's never there when you need her and when you do catch her she's about to leave?...no, because I would leave to if I had her job and her salary...Am I to blame?...probably, because I'm running out of culprits here.

Hope you have a great end of the week...do yourselves a favour and watch out for card eating ATMs or shouting bank employees.

Best wishes,
Lumi

PS: The interview is for my USA visa. I'll be in Edgewood City near Lake Tahoe this summer, on a work and travel programme for students...wish me luck...because, as you might have noticed, I really need a little bit more good luck than I already have :).