Swiss Circuitousity

Sometimes I find the Swiss unfathomably circuitous and cumbersome. I have ranted before about the fact that with a new bank-account you are limited to 300 CHF/month of purchases via your debit-card. Not credit-card, mind you, debit. Also, with a new cell-phone contract you can't call international numbers for three months. And now I tried to get internet via cable. I went to Citycable to get their basic internet flat-rate thing (which is quite cheap at 20 CHF/month, I paid 44 Euros in Vienna!), and signed their contract. They told me that a technician would contact me inside of two weeks. So far so good.

One week later I got a letter telling me to call them and give them my CC-number, which I could kindly read off my last bill. That was rather hard, because I was a new customer, so I called them. After half an hour of soothing music, they forwarded me to some other departement, who asked me for the name of the previous tenant. I gave it to them, and they told me to call me back today.

I did, got my CC-number, was told to dial the number of another department of the same company, gave them the stupid number - and was told a technician would contact me shortly.

Now I realize the whole rigmarole is caused by the fact that your flat has no number in Lausanne. I live in Avenue de France 18C, and if you want to know where in that five-story building, you have to ask me, or search the name-tags of all the doors. So for Citycable to tie me to a physical outlet, they need to know how to find me in their database, and they can only do that by matching me with my previous tenant. Fine. But why in God's name didn't they say so on the form I filled out when I signed their contract?

And why are there no numbers on the flats anyway?

So please, Swiss institutions, please stop mollycoddling me. I know what I am doing with my debit-card, I promise I won't start calling Moldawian sex-hotlines all night on my cell phone, I will tell anyone whom I tell my address where to find my flat. Stop protecting me from myself!

Thank you.

(The photo? Lac Leman in April. And a crow.)