The benefit of having a great lawyer and fun at the dentist...

G´day,

And a very special welcome to my disciples, Hi Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord, Daniel, Andrew, Scott, Bill and Jan. Today is the first time that I re-post a picture which I´ve already used in an earlier blog entry. But he has deserved it:
Dirk, ex-colleague, friend, brother and lawyer

Just one week after I involved Dirk in my stagnant application for the dole the welfare office finally coughed up what they owed me. So let me tell you the result of my first hand experience with the highly praised (at least by German politicians and the conservative media) German social security system.

From the day I applied for ALG 2 until last week it took them eight weeks and the only things I got were ridiculous demands to hand in forms and they made me do all kinds of absurd stuff and whatever I did, nothing happened. And I also did call them every second day to speed things up and offer that they could tell me on the phone what they need so I could provide it to speed things up but to no avail. And mark you, I have studied law, so I could at least understand the forms I had to fill out but I still had to ask for help with some of the forms as they were so complicated. A "normal" person or someone who is not really fluent in German would be lost without a map...

I mean you only apply for the dole, if you don´t have any money, right? And in that case you need some money fast, as there are daily needs for instance food and accomodation and these things usually cost money. Well, I´m quite lucky as there are people who give me free accomodation and there are people who invite me for dinner and best of all there are people who lend me money and I´m extremly grateful for all this. But I was thinking what would have happened if I hadn´t been that lucky? Firstly, I would have been kicked out of the health insurance and out of my flat as most landlords don´t like it if the rent is missing for more than a month.

So let´s see, let´s assume you´d be able to organise food for two month to survive, you´d be alive but homeless and without health cover (and mark you, once you are out of the health insurance system it´s fucking hard to get in again!). So once you are homeless, you don´t have an address and without an address you have vanished from the face of the earth at least in Germany, no address = no bank account, no chance to get a job and so on. And how should you apply for a job if you don´t even have a place to sleep and need to hunt for food?

I really think that there is at least a decent percentage of the bums you see in the street who have been made bums by the sluggishness of the German social security system! It´s easy to slip through the social network but once you are on the street it´s fucking hard to get back into "normal" life...

And what really makes me angry is the fact that the media and the politicians claim on a daily base the superiority of the German social security system compared to other countries. Bullshit I say!

I can only speculate how long they would have kept going like that if I hadn´t had Dirk. Once the welfare office learned that there was a lawyer involved everything went really fast. The best thig is that they have even backdated the notification for the approval of the dole to the 26. of June. And that really made Dirk and me laugh as the 26. of June was the day that I still had to get the form saying that I was not elegible for ALG 1. The welfare officer who called Dirk yesterday even tried to tell him that the letter has been posted on the 26. of June. It arrived yesterday so apparently the German post need a full week to deliver a letter within Münster, yeah, right.

Anyway I´m sorted out now but I´m still pissed off as apparently you need a lawyer if you want to get anything done around here. Dirk, who does quite a lot of these cases told me that it´s a comman practise by the welfare office to wait and wait and wait and wait and do nothing apart from ridiculous demands. And in 90% of all cases the cough up immediatly once they get contacted by a lawyer. I´m most angry at the stupidity of that practise as they fucking gain nothing out of it. If the system would be that they have to pay the dole from the day they decide the application I could understand that they have to pay less the longer they delay the decision but they have to pay from the day you filed the application! So they gain nothing as they have to backpay you anyway!

So if you have trouble with the authorities or legal trouble of any kind and you need a decent lawyer, I can only highly recommend my ex-colleague, brother, friend and lawer, Dirk Lenzing. This is the URL for his office http://www.ius-flash.de

Good news for nearly all of my teeth, you might be stained due to smoking, black tea and red wine and in some cases bits are missing from that damn bike accident but you will be cleaned, fixed and are allowed to stay in my mouth. Bad news for two teeth, you´ll have to leave, the late effect of the bike accident eight years ago. Well it´s amazing that this two teeth have survived that long as they were literally broken length- and crosswise on 03. Aug 2001. It even amazed my dentist as usually broken teeth die quite quickly but well, now it´s time to say good-bye to these brave veterans. Another four weeks of asylum in my cake hole and then that was it...
Fun at the dentist...ah by the way, important note to myself: Next time the dentist asks me "With or without anaesthesia?" go for "With anaesthesia please". I was really manly yesterday but boy, it was not pleasant, no.

Ok this one is for my sister as I guess if you want to wait for our parents to take photos of their new kitchen and send them to you, it´ll be simmilar to the time it takes for the welfare office to decide so I just took some oics and post them here...
New kitchen 1...tried and tested yesterday evening...dinner was two hours delayed as my parents had to study the manual first...
Please note the kitchen lamp is white again not the creamy-yellowish colour you came to know...I spraypainted it...
Well, that´s all for today. I have to get Brötchen now for breakfast and then it´s off to Holland to visit Josara´s parents. Have a great time, take care and cya...