Moving to Zürich

Waited 2 hours in the queue at the subprefecture and finally got my international driving license, valid for 3 years, hoping that it will be sufficient to change that leaflet for a Swiss driving license (and not having to give my original French driving license to the Swiss authorities - we will see).

Was contacted yesterday evening by the Swiss relocation agent, asking when I would like to start looking for an apartment : well, that is about… now ! Otherwise, the relocator’s house mover will come by our current apartment on Tuesday to then give us a quotation for the move.

Found an apartment which could suit us in Zug, but only available starting February 2009 because of repairs in the apartment. I guess that it will be too far in time to make it. Still, I managed to receive the application form (which seems to be already quite a treat !).

Received my work contract yesterday, which I (obviously) signed and prompty returned back to Dublin. In parallel, I got the HR director’s signature for ending my French work contract by mutual consent (still surprised I had to suggest this letter). So I am officially starting my new work in Zürich on Monday 6th October. Booked a plane ticket and a (very) cheap hotel in a shappy place (to reduce travel expenses during the next few weeks, hotel rates being otherwise surrealistic).

Got a direct offer for an apartment in Zug after posting a request on an online forum - but we will probably have to decline the offer : 2 rooms only (including kitchen in the living room) on 90 m² but under the roof (reducing the usable space by 20 m²).

Still no contact from the local relocation agency to assist us in finding an apartment. And no news either from none of the house movers… I was expecting a bit more professionalism.

On the same ‘French administration’ topic, this is the answer I got from the French tax office after asking (in fact putting in doubt) some details which had been given to me from another tax officer last week :

Notre service a pour vocation de délivrer informations d’ordre général sur la fiscalité et n’est pas habilité à commenter les dispositions du Code Civil.

Translation : ‘We can give answers on taxes but not on other French laws”. I insist that the first tax offcier actually mentioned a specific law in the ‘Code Civil’ : I read the mentioned law, but what I found seemed to be the exact oposite of what the officer told me, hence my new question. But when the tax office does not know the answer, it just tells you that it is not empowered to give an answer - or, depending on the officer or maybe the day of your query, it will give you a wrong answer (as confirmed today by calling the French general administration called ‘Service Public‘). I think I would prefer not having any answer at all, instead of an erroneous one !

I must be collecting (small) troubles - finally solved yesterday the big hole on my bank account (what would you say about a minus 12,000 euros ?! oops !!) following a wrong decision I took after having been misled by the status of my savings account by an ING salesrep. All phone conversations being recorded (I had asked for two confirmations to the salesrep during my call !), I had no troubles in making my case to the ING reps (though after some unnecessary stress over the week-end) who in fact dealt with the matter quickly and well (with apologies given as well).

I still had to oppose a payment I had initially accepted from my account at Société Générale, with corresponding fees I will get reimbursed by ING. But I discovered this morning that the stop-payment fees had been counted twice by Société Générale ! Is this just bad luck or am I dealing with incompetent people ? After a short note to the bank, I got the following answer :

La rétrocession vient d’être effectuée et sera visible sur votre compte d’ici deux jours. Toutes nos excuses pour cette erreur informatique.

Translation : “You will be reimbursed within 2 days. Please accept our apologies for this computer bug.”

Data glitches seem to be a (bad) habit those days - I guess Kerviel’s mistakes were glitches too…

A Swiss house mover came over on Friday evening as planned : 20 to 25 cubic metres is the approximate volume we will need to move to Switzerland. I was expecting his quote yesterday, but still nothing in my email inbox today, although the chap seemed quite professional and neat. He stayed for roughly an hour - I did not expect it would take so long, but we started chatting, especially on the difficulties in importing a car into Switzerland.

I also enquired on Devis-Demenagement’s business model, as this is where he got my contact details from. It is in fact a clever way of maintaining your knowledge in getting contacts through the Google Adwords program and trying to sell contacts to interested companies (50 euros per contact in this case) - it probably allows retaining your skills and building brand recognition (such as Devis-Demenagement) instead of devolving them to prospective companies by handling their Adwords campaign for instance (as many small advertising agencies are actually doing) and eventually losing customers when campaigns are running by themselves. A quick search on the Internet proved that concept had been replicated to other areas (craftsmen for house decoration or renovation, landscape architecture, swimming-pool building, etc.) with ‘major’ brands such as EasyDevis. There is certainly space for other intermediaries to step in, whether for specific countries or particular business areas (in fact, in any area where individuals or companies require multiple quotes, and just do not have the time to look for companies). I would certainly like to test out something similar - if anyone is interested, drop me a message on the Contact page.

I continued in our quest to find a new home, and sent a dozen emails asking for the registration documents. Among the few answers, I got two astonishing ones : one pretending that 54 m² was too small for two persons therefore would not send the document, and the other claiming that the apartment had already been leased to someone else between the morning it was published and the afternoon of the same day. I hope we will get some good help from the relocation specialists mandated by my employer (I sent yesterday our needs assessment).

Otherwise, I selected my new pair of glasses - as did Hélène (3 new pairs for each with the current offer !) - should get them within a week.

Still did not get my paper contract today - ‘unexpected delay’ at the Dublin reception was the answer I got ! More to come !