2023-12-11 19:52:24
This story, true, cannot be as brief as the author would like: in reality, he would have preferred not to have reasons to write it, but he started it on the fly weeks ago, when the events he narrates began to happen, afraid of ending up forgetting them, or believing them imaginary.
Since the payment of taxes was reinstated in the country years ago, he has fulfilled his fiscal duties, without anyone persecuting him. But for some time, publications where he collaborates have been demanding that he open a new fiscal account to deposit the corresponding payments, and he has refused to do so for an elementary reason: against his will he accumulates too many accounts, and very poor funds. .
These accounts include the “savings” of a Sisyphus whose rock, being so small, wears out without climbing the slope; that of retirement, with income that it is better not to count, so as not to attack poorly ordered decisions; which they opened years ago for an extra-salary deposit but it seems that it will no longer be useful for that; that of MLC, always so lean, alas!, but useful and cheerful when something falls on it.
And two more, both in CUC and, therefore, inactive, which he has not canceled to save himself some management in this valley of procedures: the one that was voluntarily opened at the time, and the one from when he worked in the foreign service. Thoseand opened it to deposit, in that currency, part of the meager salary that in the position where he worked he would have received in real currency.
He has always believed that the identity card could work for much more in a country that is becoming computerized. But bankization is in the process of “improvement,” and the protagonist of this story was told that, if in March he does not have the new account associated with the tax contribution, he will not receive the small deposits that help him, although palely, to mitigate Their feathers.
He decided, therefore, to go through the established Caudine gallows, and went to four banks, during working hours. Two were closed due to various contingencies, and another only opened accounts in MLC. In the last one, where the line moved quickly, he was assisted by a friendly worker, who told him that she had to present, among other photocopies, her taxpayer ID.
She could be at home, he thought; but it was sent to him in rustic cardboard many years ago, and he doesn’t know where he has kept it. So, looking for that document, walked the kilometers that separated him from the ONAT office in his municipality—geez! It seems that the computer on which he writes, of “Western” manufacture, is determined to replace ONAT by I’LL TAKE—, in order to obtain a reproduction, and it was useless. The database exists, but there is no way to access it: it was digitized in the “remote” time when the card was issued and the office was located elsewhere.
To obtain a new card, he had to bring a letter from a center for which he would receive payments, and that he did, after waiting the two or three days that, due to circumstances beyond his control, it took him to get the letter. He then returned to the ONAT office with her, who they looked at there with suspicion before telling her parsimoniously, or with a Grim Reaper’s mind: “You are missing data.” “Which ones?” he asked. “Identity card number, home address, telephone number…” He breathed a sigh of relief, and added: “But I can say those right now.” “Write them in the letter,” was the response, and he did.
The official who was assisting him handed him a small piece of paper and a verbal instruction: “Come with that receipt to pick up the card… within ten days.” Half dizzy, he responded with a question: “But are they going to make me come back one more time for that card, which will be done in a moment?” And another question also came in response: “Do you have a memory to copy for you?” “No, but you can send it to me by mail.” “Ah! Let me talk to the girls, they have a lot of work,” said the official, and she went to the next compartment.
“Sit there, and wait a while,” he instructed, while pointing to the chairs at the entrance. “Thank you, I hope.” Minutes later, another indication: “The colleagues are very busy, and they will not be able to send you the message at this time, but they will send it to you today. You can leave, and if there is any inconvenience, call me at the number written on the piece of paper I gave you.” “Okay, but I need the letter, because they will surely ask me for it at the bank.” “That letter should stay here, but you can photograph it.” “I’ll do that”.
That person went to the adjacent premises and returned with the letter, ostensibly crumpled, as if to throw it in the trash, from where it can even be assumed that it had been rescued. “But why have they mistreated her like this? “It seems to be done with anger.” “Do not say that. “She fell to the floor and was crushed.” Then he took out a similar piece of paper from a folder, dropped it and picked it up before asking her: “Has it been damaged?”, and on a table he stretched the letter as much as he could, to photograph it with his phone and then take it to print. .
“I will give a very bad image in the bank because of the state of the photocopy,” he told the official when she went to return the letter. But instead of receiving it, she told him: “Keep it, it is yours.” And with it and the photocopies that he had to present, including that of the taxpayer card, which he received by mail that same day, he soon went to the bank.
The person who had received it before, this time reviewed the documentation and, upon seeing the letter from the organization, said: “But this letter is of no use. You must bring a photocopy of your company card”. “What company, colleague, am I retired from, and I collect collaborations and copyrights, not payments of any other kind?” (“like the self-employed,” he thought of adding). “Then I have to call for guidance if that letter is useful.”
“Look,” he told her, “I’m leaving with a letter and everything. “This is already too much.” “Well, go away,” the employee responded indifferently, who even seemed friendly, and she goes and is, but there is no kindness that survives certain processes. And he, as so many times, remembered Panchito, not the Riset of “the room is the same,” but his namesake Kafka.
He was determined to stay without the card, but he could not give up the payments to come, and a director of the UPEC – enthusiastic and efficient, and who, familiar for years with the attention to the ONAT from the press, could believe that he would knew all of them—offered to help him with the help of a senior ONAT official, who turned out to be a cordial person and willing to break the knot. She immediately contacted bank officials, and he later learned that they had responded that, to open the account in the case, she needed a company card.
He insisted that he does not belong to any company, but he has UNEAC and UPEC cards. With that information, the official—who, in addition to being kind and intelligent—returned to the task with the bank. The Metropolitano branch where he had already been “attended” had the connection interrupted due to breakdowns in the building where he is located, and after a few days of waiting and contacting other branches, the ONAT leader colleague got a response: The “interested party” had to show up at the branch which, fortunately, is located a few meters from his house, but it was one of those that were closed the day he wanted to start the arduous process. And he marched there without wasting time.
He was kindly received by the director, who was informed and reviewed the documentation he presented. Omitted here is a small obstacle that arose, and that the director had the generosity to overlook, in the desire to compensate him for the burdens suffered and the time that she had been forced to invest in still unfinished procedures.
For the same consideration, he was exempted from standing in line there, and he was lucky to be served by a friendly, Creole employee who made an effort to be efficient; but her computer program made her restart the stationery store over and over again. It was clear that he was not prepared for the administrative cominery established by those who created him, and it would be unfair to demand that they be magicians.
Although he did not have to wait in line, the management cost the taxpayer nearly three hours to be there, until the tenacious employee, without losing either his good nature or his sense of humor—and without avoiding repeated in-person or telephone interruptions to ask questions—managed to terminate the account contract. “And when can I pick up the card?” the client asked, and she replied: “The cards are taking between fifteen and twenty days.” With that hope, he almost forgot what he had suffered, and bade farewell to the maid cheerfully and gratefully.
Then he also went on to express his gratitude to the director, who confirmed his kindness and, when he told her that it was necessary to alleviate the lives of the clients—of the population—she made a sympathetic gesture and added: “And to us.” The attentive ONAT official responded something similar when she contacted her by phone that same day.
That was on November 22, so the card would be in that branch between December 7 and 14. Even in the list of accounts of who will be the owner of the new account, his number appeared a few days later on Transfermóvil. But he decided to go look for her after the 14th, to avoid the inconvenience of a delay.
However, today, December 7, he reviewed the contract, to familiarize himself with the term of the management, and discovered, to his horror, that it was in the name of another client! He quickly returned to the bank to talk to the kind employee who was handling “his case,” and she greeted him with a sincere smile, because she had discovered the mistake and was preparing to call him to apologize to him and tell him that he should sign the new copy of the contract. .
Due to some computer or operational mystery, the wrong copy was in the name of the client seen before him in that session of about three hours. To add charm to the plot, the client’s middle name that appeared in the wrong contract was the first name of the victim’s mother: although it corresponds to a mythological god, in Cuba women have also been baptized with him, Hermes.
In passing, the employee told him that new cards would arrive that same day, among which could hers, so she suggested that he go later and ask about her, to which he—with a “Stockholm laugh” that infected the employee and another customer she was serving at that moment—added: “Some right “It gives having been a victim.”
With that good spirit, he prepared to return in the afternoon, even if he had to continue going up and down the stairs of the building where he lives, which has both elevators broken. But he was rewarded!, surely by Hermes, the Olympian messenger god: his card had arrived, which, seen without further information, even seemed harmless and tender.
By the way, the already relieved protagonist confesses that – after hearing so many words in them – the efforts made were on the verge of prompting him to say, too, open. But first dead!
Cover photo: Taken from Radio Ciudad del Mar
#banking #ONAT #Process