Hospitals in Madrid, especially public ones, as far as my experience concerns, are desperately competing at full throttle with the Spanish banking system to get a Champion Cup of Administrative Sluggishness and Ineffectiveness.
And obviously they're going to win the race very soon.
My painful experience of Appendicitis taught me that even in a private hospital, you must not get your hope too high of receiving a prompt and rapid emergency service from the staff, let alone the doctors' gentleness to the suffering patients. (See Operación Triunfo in the old archives).
My other literally irritating experience of Urticaria gave me a formula for the time a public hospital takes to attend a patient; double or multiply by three the total time you stay in a queue in a private hospital to see a doctor, and that's the time you have to spend in a public one waiting for your turn. (See Life is a Roller Coaster).
The administration disaster is even more noticeable in the Emergency Units. Takeshi, my japanese friend, who had a not-so-complicated intestinal hemorrhage was admitted in a public hospital's EU and stayed there a couple of days. In the second visit I couldn't find him, so I asked the Information for his room and was told to go to the counter on the right. And so I went, but it was closed, I had to wait until the nurses came (which was very late, and I was worried because the visit time only lasted 30 minutes or so). After rummaging through papers and reports, a kind nurse told me she had no idea where my friend was!!! None of the activities concerning him were registered in the reports, nor in the computer! What an unbelievable excuse! Finally, the problem was solved when she called the EU, which took quite some time (seemed like the EU had troubles finding out what had happened as well), and informed me that Takeshi was set to freedom (at last!) since the morning. Lucky him, being able to get away from such nightmare so early, since the condition in the room was depressing; 30 patients or so filled the room, high temperature, no windows, no clock and small corridor.
Nevertheless, some medical centers have their merits. Recently (and also today), I have undergone a series of Periodontitis Treatment (Examination, oral cleansing and curretage) in a private dental clinic that belongs to my Health Insurance company. I left with good impression, to say the least. They arranged things quickly in a well-organized manner, and were able to bring forward one of my appointments and gave me useful advices, always with smile, of course. This is the quality I have always dreamed of (which is not rare to find one at all in Bangkok).
Until next time, when you go to a hospital, bring a book with you, relax and smile because you never know how long you'll have to wait.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Banks Suck
Going to the bank in Spain is, among other eligible choices, the last thing that I would ever wish to do.
Once you pass the entrance, you will feel the air of idleness and inefectiveness floating around the hall. Everything seems to be normal, which is absolutely abnormal. The small number of the staff with impassive look on their face, regardless of the branch, can't possibly attend to the endless numbers of agitated clients that are hopelessly finding someone to serve them. The only solution is to wait between 15 to 4o minutes until it's your turn...well, this is an average waiting time. If you got 15 minutes, consider yourself fortunate and buy a lottery. The only solution for us, the loyal clients of spanish banking, is to go there early and spare yourself lots of time. If we can't change the way they work, just adapt ourselves to them, take prozacs and complain less... (Wow! sounds easy!)
As for service, you get lucky that they don't bite you for asking them a favour. Oops, a lil' bit exaggerating...I mean...just don't expect the clients-are-king kind of service. This is not Asia; the "service-minded" is an unknown word in the Spanish vocabulary. Try to go in the morning, the staff tends to be happier than the late hours (logically).
The administration of documents is, in general, disastrous. My thai friend, Now, waited for almost 2 months for her credit card because they had sent the card to the address in Thailand, instead of the one in Madrid, TWICE; the first was a mistake, but the second was a stupid mistake. In my case, it took them a month because they sent the blessed card to Thailand just once...lucky me. (If I want a credit card in Thailand, why the heck did I have to fly here to apply for it?!?).
I consider these the most common problems. In fact, each person may encounter different kinds of administrative wonders in each bank or branch, depending on his/her luck.
But be warned, this patrons' nightmare doesn't keep its limit to banks only, but it's also lurking in every corner of some hospitals in Spain as well...
To be continued.
Case study for this article: Banco Santander, Avda. Complutense. The renovation of the office doesn't improve the service at all, why bother?
Once you pass the entrance, you will feel the air of idleness and inefectiveness floating around the hall. Everything seems to be normal, which is absolutely abnormal. The small number of the staff with impassive look on their face, regardless of the branch, can't possibly attend to the endless numbers of agitated clients that are hopelessly finding someone to serve them. The only solution is to wait between 15 to 4o minutes until it's your turn...well, this is an average waiting time. If you got 15 minutes, consider yourself fortunate and buy a lottery. The only solution for us, the loyal clients of spanish banking, is to go there early and spare yourself lots of time. If we can't change the way they work, just adapt ourselves to them, take prozacs and complain less... (Wow! sounds easy!)
As for service, you get lucky that they don't bite you for asking them a favour. Oops, a lil' bit exaggerating...I mean...just don't expect the clients-are-king kind of service. This is not Asia; the "service-minded" is an unknown word in the Spanish vocabulary. Try to go in the morning, the staff tends to be happier than the late hours (logically).
The administration of documents is, in general, disastrous. My thai friend, Now, waited for almost 2 months for her credit card because they had sent the card to the address in Thailand, instead of the one in Madrid, TWICE; the first was a mistake, but the second was a stupid mistake. In my case, it took them a month because they sent the blessed card to Thailand just once...lucky me. (If I want a credit card in Thailand, why the heck did I have to fly here to apply for it?!?).
I consider these the most common problems. In fact, each person may encounter different kinds of administrative wonders in each bank or branch, depending on his/her luck.
But be warned, this patrons' nightmare doesn't keep its limit to banks only, but it's also lurking in every corner of some hospitals in Spain as well...
To be continued.
Case study for this article: Banco Santander, Avda. Complutense. The renovation of the office doesn't improve the service at all, why bother?
Monday, November 06, 2006
Spain = Fiesta
Spain is extremely active in terms of fiestas.
This is not an opinion, but a FACT. That's why it should remain in present tense forever and (hopefully) be added into the content of Wikipedia and, later on, the next edition of World Encyclopedia.
During the past two years, I have enjoyed, and been bothered by, as many fiestas as I could have imagined. Everyone here throws one or two parties once in a (frequent) while.
Dozens of excuses have been used as a motivation to organize a delirious time of non-stop drinking and eatting experience. The most commonly ones are, for example, graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, housewarming, work promotions, welcoming, goodbye and etc. According to my detailed and (TRULY) reliable observations, these motivations are universal and make up 50% of all excuses.
10% are the less common, yet more creative, ones such as friend reunions (after not having seen each other for...1 week!), contests (e.g. cocktail making/drinking/presentation contest) and cheer-up party before, during and after exams.
So, what about the rest? The remaining 40% just does it on a whim. You know, there's plenty of things to enjoy in life. Let's get the most out of it. Good time, great friends, loud music, big laughters, dirty jokes, pastas, tortillas, Bloody Mary, drunkards, litters,...what can be more pleasant?
This is actually not reserved only to Spaniards, but also can be applied to most of the hispanic party animals, be it columbians, argentinians, chileans, mexicans or etc.
It's all in their blood; venereal, contagious, uncurable. The innate ability. The instinctive behaviour. The natural characteristic...you name it.
Nevertheless, most of the time it is not that bad as described. With responsibility and a little bit of consideration, fiestas can be extremely joyful.
On the contrary, you will wake up in the morning and witness the havoc wreaked upon your living room, kitchen and corridors; furniture out of place, dirty dishes left unwashed till the evening of the next day and floor left uncleaned.
Bear this fact in mind and arm yourself with the maximum optimism before coming to Spain. Especially, when you are going to share an apartment with untiring party animals, because you will have to deal with endless problems every weekend nights.
In case you ADORE parties, you should be blessedly immune to any kind of the consquences.
Enjoy the party!
This is not an opinion, but a FACT. That's why it should remain in present tense forever and (hopefully) be added into the content of Wikipedia and, later on, the next edition of World Encyclopedia.
During the past two years, I have enjoyed, and been bothered by, as many fiestas as I could have imagined. Everyone here throws one or two parties once in a (frequent) while.
Dozens of excuses have been used as a motivation to organize a delirious time of non-stop drinking and eatting experience. The most commonly ones are, for example, graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, housewarming, work promotions, welcoming, goodbye and etc. According to my detailed and (TRULY) reliable observations, these motivations are universal and make up 50% of all excuses.
10% are the less common, yet more creative, ones such as friend reunions (after not having seen each other for...1 week!), contests (e.g. cocktail making/drinking/presentation contest) and cheer-up party before, during and after exams.
So, what about the rest? The remaining 40% just does it on a whim. You know, there's plenty of things to enjoy in life. Let's get the most out of it. Good time, great friends, loud music, big laughters, dirty jokes, pastas, tortillas, Bloody Mary, drunkards, litters,...what can be more pleasant?
This is actually not reserved only to Spaniards, but also can be applied to most of the hispanic party animals, be it columbians, argentinians, chileans, mexicans or etc.
It's all in their blood; venereal, contagious, uncurable. The innate ability. The instinctive behaviour. The natural characteristic...you name it.
Nevertheless, most of the time it is not that bad as described. With responsibility and a little bit of consideration, fiestas can be extremely joyful.
On the contrary, you will wake up in the morning and witness the havoc wreaked upon your living room, kitchen and corridors; furniture out of place, dirty dishes left unwashed till the evening of the next day and floor left uncleaned.
Bear this fact in mind and arm yourself with the maximum optimism before coming to Spain. Especially, when you are going to share an apartment with untiring party animals, because you will have to deal with endless problems every weekend nights.
In case you ADORE parties, you should be blessedly immune to any kind of the consquences.
Enjoy the party!
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