Things move infuriatingly slowly here in Nassau. By "things" I mean
everything; from getting any utility service provided, to contracting a paint
job, to purchasing groceries. I don't think it is necessarily intentional,
(although there is that superiority "I work here as the office dictator and
you'll wait till I'm ready" attitude and since everything is paper driven so
"you'll have to wait until I carbon copy in triplicate and then shove the 2
spare copies in the bin" response), but it can be blood vessel explodingly
annoying, especially if you are a foreigner and don't know what you're
doing. So here's the watchword for The Bahamas - go with the flow!!!
Everyone else does and, indeed, has to - there is no other choice. Time in
most societies is something to be measured, qualified and used. Here it is
an open-ended continuum and a thing of very little consequence. As such it
has no value and if the sun keeps coming up every morning then things are
okay. So, it is in this context that I relate our experience
with the Bahamas Electricity Company (BEC).
When we moved into our house in December 2006 we had no power and the
service had been "cut off at the pole." The tortuous story of getting
"light" has already been documented (see xxx). One of the requirements for
service was to give BEC a deposit. This is normally the equivalent of 2
months average costs but in our case, as the previous owner had raked up
horrendous bills and never paid, BEC asked us, the new owners, to deposit
the princely sum of $4000. Yes, four thousand dollars - for electricity
service even though the payment history had absolutely nothing to do with
us. Anyway in the spirit of laissez-faire and to get some power we had to
fork over the cash. In most cases I'm sure that this suits BEC just fine;
they get a decent dollop of money and then charge for ongoing
service.......forever.
But they didn't contend with Mark.
For those who know him, Mark is dogged if nothing else. Unfortunately this
usually involves more frivolous things like insisting he pay the road tolls
with pennies as they are "coin of the realm," to the complete disinterest of
the toll person. Well, he decided to get stuck into BEC. This involved
phone calls, writing letters, trips to various BEC offices....everything
short of getting the home address of Customer Service and giving them a
"little visit." He had phone calls that mysteriously disappeared, he had a
stream of cordial correspondence with a variety of BEC employees that would
fill War & Peace and he hung out at BEC offices occasionally just to harass
those he deemed were hoarding his money. Now you would think that BEC would
take out some sort of injuncture to keep Mark away or simply cut us off for
spite but they didn't. They couldn't, as a Government agency they had to
adhere to process and procedure no matter how illogical that may be....and
Mark knew this. And so it went on, until finally after 1 year, 4 months, 2 weeks
and 3 days Mark received a call to say that a check was waiting for him and
could he pick it up. That was a joyous day, at least for Mark. He went to
BEC HQ signed in triplicate, had it counter signed by 4 different people and
it was entered in to the "big ledger book" once and for all, then he had his
check!
We often wonder if they love, hate, fear, ridicule or admire Mark at BEC or
whether there are effigies of him next to the stapler in the offices. We
guess we'll never really know. One thing I do know is that they are $4000
(plus interest) lighter after the experience.
