When I think back on my bad memories in Switzerland, I can
associate majority of them with three places: EPFL, government offices, and
housing agencies.
EPFL is normal
since I did my PhD there. PhD is a bitter-sweet journey for everyone. No matter
how resourceful the journey is, it is painful at the same time. Therefore, I do
not mind my bad or stressful experiences at EPFL. These were among the bad
experiences that enriched my life.
So let’s move on to the government
offices. These institutions are a pain in the ass wherever you go. So there
is no escape from them. You just need to find ways to relax yourself after
dealing with the people at a government office. To wash away the memory of the
annoying interactions you had to go through in these offices, either swearing
by yourself in your native language or listening to your favorite punk band
after you leave the office works.
This leaves us with the Swiss
housing agencies. The “wonderful” “lovely” agencies…
I was living in a college dorm before I started my PhD so Switzerland
was the first place that I had to deal with a housing agency. Even though I had
been told that it would be hard to find an apartment in Switzerland, I didn’t
expect things to be this hard. Every time I went to an agency, it felt like
talking to a wall. Of course, this was partly because of the language issue. My
French was terrible in those days (and it still is). I also remember many
agency visits where I asked my questions in English and got my answers in
French. However, even if there were some people at the agency who didn’t resist
talking to English, it still felt like talking to a wall when talking to them.
After struggling some time being rejected from all the
places we applied for. Six months into my PhD, I finally moved to a studio
apartment, which I didn’t dare to leave till the end of my PhD. I was lucky
with this one because the building was a newly built one, it was specifically
built for EPFL students based on an agreement between EPFL and Foncia agency, and
not many people knew about it at the
time unlike my friend Cansu (who urged us (my other friend Duygu and I) to apply
for it).
The feeling of talking to walls never disappeared though
whenever I had to contact a person from Foncia even though I was now their
customer.
The latest set of encounters I have been going through with Foncia
is related to my deposit. I ended my contract with them on November, 2014. It
has been almost 3.5 months now. And I still haven’t received my payment. The
first time I contacted them regarding this issue was the beginning of February,
2015. Since I moved to the Bay Area in early January, I was sending emails to
them in my evenings and calling them the first thing when I wake up at 6am in
my mornings if my emails weren’t answered. The contact guy for my ex-building
was a different one now and he seemed more responsive than the previous one.
As a side note, the previous one drove me crazy while I was
moving out. He didn’t answer any of my emails and he barely answered my phone
calls. All I wanted was a letter that says I was going to move out at the end
of November so that I could schedule a time with my concierge to leave my keys.
In the end, I physically went to the agency to ensure he handles my request.
That was useless as well. He told me the letter should be in my mailbox in a
week, but it wasn’t. In the end, I kindly asked my lab’s secretary to contact
him and only then I got my letter. (Bless you Erika, and all the secretaries at
EPFL that helped me. If I ever wrote an actual love letter to someone in
Switzerland, it would be to the secretaries I interacted with at EPFL. They are
the best.)
Anyways, this new guy, he actually answered emails and
phones. So I was a little hopeful and decided to be polite with him while
handling my deposit situation. I have never been a person that believed aggressiveness
can solve my problems. (I blame my dad in this attitude; constantly making me
listen to his favorite hippie singers/bands when I was a kid and basically
brainwashing me to be a peaceful human being).
However, a couple of weeks later I started feeling like I
had no progress in my issue with this guy. He kept telling me I should be
receiving my deposit at the end of the week and he wrote this at the beginning
of every week. Then he told me that they don’t have my account number (which I
gave them while I was giving away my keys to the concierge, I have two people
that witnessed me searching for my account number for 5-10mins in my wallet and
then writing it down for another 5mins). I said anyways I gave him my account
number over email and kept my polite attitude still. He again said I should be
receiving things by the end of the week. The other week, when I re-emailed him
saying I still haven’t received my money, he said that there are some documents
that I should sign. I signed them, scanned them back to him in a still-polite
email.
After this last email, he answered me writing they finally
approved the release of the deposit and I shouldn’t contact him anymore and
instead contact the cooperative of my building instead. When I asked him for
their contact information, he told me that he doesn’t have such information and
I should look at the contract that I made with “them”.
(Here is where I leave my dad’s peaceful rock music and
switch to my mom’s more angry music that is very specific to her so I won’t
give it a genre name.)
Them, THEM. THEM = Foncia, you work at Foncia. How the hell
you don’t have their number? You think I am an idiot. I am really bored of
being treated like shit or an idiot every time I had to deal with a Swiss
housing agency. I don’t know whether this is because of my student status when
I was there or my nationality. But I don’t care. I don’t deserve this. Neither
any of my friends who were/are at EPFL.
To give a comparison, it took me one day to find an
apartment in USA. Whenever I have a question, request, or maintenance issue, it
is handled at most in two days (as opposed to waiting weeks or a month in
Switzerland or making your secretary call them again to fasten the process).
Whenever I meet one of the maintenance guys in my complex or visit my leasing
office, everyone greets each other. They always ask me if everything is OK with
the apartment. They treat me like a human being.
I know writing this won’t have any effect other than
switching me back to my peaceful mode. There is a housing issue in Switzerland.
Supply just doesn’t properly meet the demand. And the housing agencies will
keep exploiting the lower class European citizens like me. What happens if I
badmouth Foncia’s name? Nothing. A student or a non-student non-EU citizen
newly moved to Switzerland, has to say YES to the first suitable apartment that
she/he got accepted into by the agencies. Because the alternative is either
being on the street or paying really high prices to extended-stay-like options.
