Life Is So Full Of ..... Crap

It's been one of those weekends which tested my patience to the limit. A string of events which could erupt the ugliest of temper from within.

And the misfortunes extended its run til Monday morning.

Crap 1

Saturday. My 6th day in the new residence. My garbage has been uncollected eversince I moved in. They're piling up. Very, very, very, unsightly sight.

I sent a text message to my property agent about the thrashy situation. She lives just a stone's throw away from where I reside.

She replied it could be because the house owner hasn't paid the monthly dues for garbage collection. She said she would drop a letter to the Pak RT's house.

By noon, someone from the Pak RT's house came by and handed me a letter detailing the amount which I have to pay to the community's treasurer. Fine. I'm familiar with this sort of dues because I had lived in a housing complex before.

• Monthly fees - Rp150,000 per month - payable 3 months upfront.
  
• New residents fees - Rp150,000 (WTF!!! I doubt it's for a framed resident's certificate)
  
• Total amount payable to the treasurer - Rp600,00.

Appended together with the above was a lenghty explanation related to the guidelines and activities within the community.

I went straight to the part on garbage collection.

It mentioned that the garbage collection truck will service the area twice a week. Only kitchen waste would be collected and garden waste is the responsibilty of residents to dispose.

First of all... TRUCK???!! I think they meant GEROBAK. Come to think of it, in my three years in Jakarta, not even once I spotted a garbage compacter truck.

Secondly, and the most absurd, garden waste is my responsibility?? How the hell am I supposed to dispose my garden waste? OK. I admit I don't do much gardening (actual fact is I don't do gardening at all!!), but there is this tree right in front of my fence which sheds leaves faster than Sean Connery loses his hair!

Burning them would mean I'm contributing to the already polluted Jakarta air. Throwing them into Sungai Ciliwung have crossed my mind. After all, those leaves are biodegradable. The guilt factor would be less than disposing plastics.

Crap 2

Have you been to ACE Hardware? I hate this place because it's full of things which you think you can live without but you buy them anyway because you think it might come handy one day. Seldom I walk out of the store empty handed.

I bought a few things (I failed to resist to temptations, again) and didn't have enough cash on me. So I decided to make a direct debit payment using my ATM card. I punched-in my pin number.

The LCD on the swipe machine displayed "PIN Number Error".

I tried again. This time at a slower pace. Same notification appeared. And the 3rd time, I keyed-in at a much, much slower pace.

Again, PIN number error.

The lady cashier said (accused is the more appropriate word here) I keyed-in the wrong PIN number and added that my ATM might have been blocked after the third attempt.

You think I'm a moron? I use the same six digit combination on all other cards too. Unless the nerves connecting my brains to my fingers at that precise moment went temporarily cuckoo, there is not a shadow of a doubt that I had punched the correct combination.

Luckily, I had my credit card on me. And luckier for me, it wasn't going to hit the maximum amount after the intended transaction... errr only a mere thousands rupiah away.

I went to the ATM to check whether my card has really been blocked. Unfortunately, yes. And this could only mean one thing. Dealing with the bank which I despise most in my entire banking life.

BCA Bank.

I went to the branch located in Pondok Indah Mall 2. I took a number from the security table. Number 23. There were, at that time, two customer service personnel attending to customers. The number display showed number 18. Only 4 people ahead of me.

If you think it was a short wait before being served, you're absolutely wrong. This is, after all, the bank which needs 5 working days to print a mere bank statement.

One of the customer service officers was attending to a middle-aged customer seated in front of her. She was taking her own bloody sweet time filling-in a form for the customer. I swear my 9 year old nephew could do it faster than her!!

Sensing it would take ages, I grab a brochure which had the customer care line number on it. I called the number. The person on the line said that the branch at Pondok Indah would not be able to attend to ATM card problems. I was told to go to a nearby branch on Monday.

Today is Monday. I dread going to the branch. I already had a bad start.

Crap 3

If you think that going into their 5th year of organizing the Java Jazz Festival, the organizers have grown wiser and managed to improve their organizing skills, then think again.

Well, to call them incompetent is really, really, really, an understatement.

You see, I've been visiting the Java Jazz 2009 website since early January '09. Only about three weeks ago, the artists performance schedule were posted on the site.

Yesterday was the last day to get the cheaper early bird tickets(although I swear, earlier they put the last date as 9th February). I went to a CD store, Societie at Fx, with the intention to purchase the 8th of March ticket. Earlier of the week, I checked the artists schedule and the artist that I wanted to watch was performing on Sunday.

So, at the Societie counter, I asked whether they had a schedule with them or whether they had an internet connection to check the latest schedule, just in case there were changes.

The answer was an expected NO. Just great. A ticket agent with no friggin' idea about the schedule. They don't even have the organiser's telephone numbers!!!

I bought the ticket anyway, hoping that the performance that I wanted to watch would not be changed to another date.

Monday morning, I checked the Java Jazz website and instantly felt like I was slapped by Peter F. Gontha while giving out a hearty laugh saying "I told you so!! We are a bunch of incompetent f*ucking assholes!!! Only morons like you would trust our schedule!!"

The artist's performance has been changed to 7th March!!! And I have to purchase the 7th March ticket at regular price.

OK. Granted. The website did mention the schedule is subject to changes. But please lah, after all these years don't tell me you can't figure out how to solve the problem of sticking to the original schedule. You mean to say that the earlier schedule was put up just for the sake of having a schedule? Without prior confirmation from the artists?

Oh. I did try calling the organizers today. Could not get through. Maybe the telephone cables were disconnected. Maybe no one has the balls to listen to complains from ticket buyers. I don't know. Just maybe.