Competition in the marketplace is a requirement economic progress. Perhaps a majority of my readers take that for granted. Nonetheless, it would be safe to say a large number of communist party cronies never learned that lesson when they were centrally planning how to suck blood out of turnips.

It wouldn’t be hard to believe when the SRI backers of Illiescu’s coup d’etat got the payoff of suddenly owning state industries, most of these ill-gotten gains were left on cruise control as the inheritors of largess splayed themselves for various corporate suitors. The different relatives of political allies and fellow criminals surely found nice jobs in various management roles.

The long and short of it is that, with some exceptions to the rule, captaining of the economic machinery remained in the hands of people who not only didn’t know how to compete, but very likely didn’t have the wherewithall to even try. A stagnant culture of the privileged has been ensconced in many Romanian industries and their lack of innovation is testimony.

Over fifteen years later, most “revolutionaries” have long since cashed-in by divesting themselves of majority interest in any number of firms and moved on to find younger wives while foreign investors breathed new life into old entities. Meanwhile, many aspiring Romanians have leapt roughshod onto the back capitalism — that bucking and brawling beast — hanging on a full 8 seconds to profitability.

But not Romtelecom.

Nossir. It seems they’ve had a goodly percentage of upper management who hail from the old school of indulgence. As the formerly state-owned, fixed phone monopoly sat on its’ collective duff with respect to improving service offerings, a number of cable companies scurried about quickly harvesting nuts in the form of broadband internet access and IP telephony services, in addition to the requisite delivery of all those mindnumbing TV shows slapped togther to sell ads.

And let’s not forget Romtelecom’s failure to win any significance in the wireless market. While the old men upstairs did, technically, have CosmoRom cellular on the books, no one seemed to press down the accelerator in any serious way. Connex and Orange simply walked away with the entire marketplace without any noteworthy challenge from Romtelecom. Heck, even the underestimated Zapp outperformed Albastru Mare.

A distant, but increasing threat, to the viability of Romtelecom’s presence in Romania has been rollout of DECT (and, most recently DECT+VoIP) in limited cities which not only undermines equipment and installation revenue but (now) further foments a potential technological leapfrog over the need to have any POTS phone whatsoever.

One might counter that nearly all ex-monopolies of European governments have failed in various markets, so there’s nothing new under the sun. Heck, even AT&T has been losing ground on nearly all fronts for quite some time. And maybe you’d be right.

The wealthy folks who run these institutions seems to get only one thing done well. They all successfully advertise, advertise, advertise. They have professional posters, brochures, television spots, and print ads. Clear, crisp designs that follow a style guide developed by someone with experience.

Not that their marketing efforts actually have a message to communicate. No, most of the time, it seems the telecom giants simply follow in the vague branding footsteps of cola products and prescription medicines. You get weird advertisements full of people who look nothing like you (and, in this case, I mean they don’t even look Romanian, let alone typical Romanian) who are constantly smiling about things you don’t understand.

It’s the latest trend in branding. Happy people who always laugh, look more attractive than you, dress better than you, have more free time than you, and own more expensive things than you. Don’t you see it? It’s everything they want you to want yourself to be. And it doesn’t actually mean a thing. Image over substance.

Starting to sound a bit rantworthy, eh?

Alright, so let’s take a look at what’s been happening lately. I think the old guard commies have been slowly pushed out of their entrenched cubicles of the Romtelecom bureaucracy. See, somewhere around 2002, the national telephone company of Romania was bought by some Greeks.

I imagine the first order of business was to circle the wagons, lop off any limb bleeding like a stuck pig, initiate the purging of deadweight in failed management, and plant the seeds for corporate-wide re-education. For a while, it must have looked a bit like the bumbling three stooges as they dropped the ball a couple of times, but I’d say they’re just now starting to get things right.

Sure, they still have radically overpriced telephones for sale in their little stores which no one but bunica buys. But just take a look at the big turn-around in the wireless market; they’ve literally pulled off a miracle with Cosmote, by erasing the past failures, launching a new brand of the same thing, and creating enough room for them to be taken as a serious player. They’re bareknuckle fighting with better plans and better prices.

And then there’s broadband, the particular service which most interests me.

One year ago, Romtelecom had just launched their very first 2Mbps ADSL service. In fact, it was so new that when I walked into their main office in the centru, the sales reps swore up and down that no such service existed. A guy would actually have to argue with them, pull up their very own website on their own computers to show them, and even go so far as to demand they call supervisors, managers and Bucureşti. Finally, they admitted it.

“Oh, yeah, well, I guess you’re right… looks like we do have a 2Mbps internet.”

That’s how reality on the ground was just a year ago. By American standards, 2Mbps was fairly laughable. Then again, by western European standards, it was entirely laughable. Not only did Romtelecom’s own employees never hear of the service, but they stared at my dumbfounded that I would actually sign a one year contract to pay 100€ per month.

Sure, all Americans drop gold coins out of their pockets, but who would seriously pay 100€ per month for internet access at home? Heh. If it came down to a choice, I’d rather stop eating.

There were other options, of course. For 50€, Romtelecom offered a 1Mbps ADSL service. And I knew that some people were getting some limited cable-based internet access for even less money, although it was only the local loop which was high speed whereas real connections to the internet were tepid.

The thing you need to realize is that information is so last year.

For the upcoming 2007 business year, Romtelecom has undergone a fairly serious mini-revolution with respect to its internet service offerings. In a recent bill sent to me in the mail, Romtelecom included a little brochure about their new prices for broadband service via the ClickNet brand/partnership.

Say, what an exciting time to be alive. That’s pretty impressive to drop the 1Mbps service from the old 50€ price down to only 15€! Enter the mysterious yabbit, because I’m not going to buy such a slow connection. Maybe if we open the brochure and read on a little further, we’ll discover something of a bit more interest.

Aha! Now, we’re talkin’ turkey, folks. Whereas Romtelecom used to charge 100€ for 2Mbps, they’re now offering me even more bandwidth at 2.5Mbps for about a third of the price, only 29€.

Clearly, this is evidence that the cable companies’ heretofore unchallenged dominance of the Romanian internet access market has finally caused enough changes in the management of Romtelecom such that someone is actually doing something about it. Oh yeah, baby, this is the main benefit of the free market system at work. Better products, lower prices.

I’d go so far as to say it’s pretty obvious Romtelecom now has the best offer on the market, just like that. And since the cable companies are eating into the fixed phone business by offering internet+VoIP, now Romtelecom is sensibly offering a compelling bundle as well, in order to compete on par for those customers currently buying bundled services from cable companies.

I have to imagine that in another year or two there is a strong chance that Romtelecom’s offer will yet again improve, as they battle cable companies in tit-for-tat skirmishes just as happens in the United States and other industrialized nations. It’s good for both customers and the businesses themselves in the long-run.

Here’s a first! Romtelecom’s ClickNet finally allows you to conduct your own installations. I remember 10 years ago when DSL companies in America would require some bozo to come out to your place and install some mickeymouse PPPoE software onto your machine (half of which was spyware or adware) or they’d refuse to provide service.

That’s where Romtelecom was last year. I had to wait not only for someone to process my order, provision the line, and then activate the circuit on the local DSLAM, but then two clowns had to come into my place and muck around for nearly an hour. Neither of them had any real computer experience.

They only knew how to tinker with Windows XP, which left them in a sore spot when it came to Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003 Server. The Macintosh both intrigued and frightened them. Ubuntu and linux were two words they’d never heard of before. In fact, they insisted that “the internet” was only compatible with XP.

Given my strong distaste for XP, that created something of a problem. Of course, in the end, they couldn’t get anything to work at all, so I dabbled around a bit while they watched me solve all the problems in order to bring myself online. Still, they were friendly guys and I was starving for bandwidth, so I thanked them a lot for stopping by.

And then when I moved across town, the whole Romtelecom circus repeated.

Usually the theory is that the customer is an idiot. So, the telecom providers feel the need to send out a few of their entirely too many technicians to the scene of each incident. Eventually, companies learn this hurts profits by increasing installation costs as well as potentially disaffects the customer with undesirable scheduling delays. So, they end up adopting self-installation kits.

The customer orders DSL service, a modem in a box arrives at their door, the user does the 30 seconds of configuration work, and everything happens faster. At worst, a truely lost customer may not read the directions and have to call the company for two minutes of handholding.

I’m generally averse to people touching my computers. I tend to lock them with passwords, too. So, you can imagine that I’m very happy to see self installation kits available in Romania. No longer do I have to let some befuddled “eXPert” with bushy gray eyebrows fumble his way through computer dialogue as I embarrass him by snorting indignantly over his shoulder.

Notice they offer three different kinds of modems, too. I’m not at all sure what reasonably intelligent person would want a USB-connected ADSL modem. It’s entirely too limiting, but I suppose there are ignorant and lazy people. Why would Romtelecom offer lower prices for it? Why, to keep you restricted to only one computer online, of course. Odds are that a single computer won’t eat up as much bandwidth as multiple computers.

On the other end of that spectrum, they offer a 6-port ethernet modem which will route a local network of up to six machines. That’s probably a great idea for small businessess, like a real estate agency, who have a few computers but no tech savvy staff members. It’d be a really silly choice for just about anyone else.

No, thanks. I’ll take the 1-port ethernet modem and then connect it to my own multi-port router with wifi. While having ethernet ports available can come in very handy once in a while, the practical matter is no one really wants winding cables all over their apartment, home, or business. What an unsightly mess. For less than 100 bucks, you can pick up a great wireless router and join those of us living in the present.

So, why would I sign a two or three year contract? I wouldn’t. “Free installation” is not enough of a cost to justify my losing the opportunity to re-assess the best deal next year. It might be that cable companies finally start offering 4-6Mbps for 25 euro as they do in some countries, in which case I’d want to switch.

But I understand the offer. Not all buyers will analyze things the way I have. Instead, they’ll focus only on their immediate out-of-pocket costs and thus lock themselves into an arrangement just to save a couple bucks up front. I can understand Romtelecom’s desire to lock-in as many customers as possible.

Afterall, the cable companies will have to respond in some way during the next year or two. They might wait a while to assess how successful Romtelecom’s new offers are, but they won’t wait forever. Right now, cable no longer offers the best value for your money and anyone not locked into a contract should think about changing.

RDS is popularly considered the worst possible service provider, with renown failures to adequately deliver the bandwidth they promise. They recently opened up a new office just around the corner from my block, which would make paying convenient. (Americans: you cannot pay bills online or even by mail, but must show up in the flesh and fight the crowds in order to clear your account.)

But, all the same, no thanks. RDS currently charges 19,5€ for a 1Mbps connection, whereas you can get time and a half speed for the same price from Romtelecom.

Then you’ve got Astral, the cable provider considered to be good quality. However, they seem to be embarrassed about their prices. They’ve hidden all discussion of price so you cannot know what the cost is. A quick googling finds one website declaring Astral charges 23€ for a pathetic 128kbps dribble.

That couldn’t possibly be right. I remember last year’s discussion about the exciting BPL developments in Romania wherein a number of kindly folks tried to explained to me that Astral was offering 1.5Mbps for 23€. In fact, back then Astral used to actually list their prices online. Maybe not on the English portion of their website, but at least in the romaneşte.

Now? Nothing. I wonder if they’ve been increasing prices for all new customers. That might explain why they would be embarrassed to show prices on their website. Astral was bought by UPC and the parent company UPC has it’s own Romanian website which also hides the prices.

The intrepid link hacker will press onward to exhaust all possibilities, search every possible nook and cranny until the clam is forced open and the pearl revealed. Aşa e, nu? And so it is that we eventually discover an obscure page with prices on it where we find UPC is charging over 27€ for 1.5Mbps which is roughly 50% more than Romtelecom.

It stands to reason this is probably Astral’s price for new customers as well, which would explain their unwillingness to openly display prices. Or, at least, that makes more sense than the only other explanation of UPC charging different prices for the same service just because the brand name was different. On the other hand, a recent survey of cable providers in Romania says that Astral is actually charging 31,5€ for 1.5Mbps service.

Yet things get even more interesting.

Not long after I received that happy litlte brochure with it’s significantly lower prices, I received a separate letter in the mail from Romtelecom again. Instead of being another invoice, this was a simple announcement to let people like me — you know, the suckers who fork out big bucks for the best connectivity available — know Romtelecom is going to be upgrading their premium 100€ service to double the bandwidth at 4Mbps.

Hooo doggy! Somebody catch me while I faint.

I mean, by gosh by golly, that there 4Mbps is dern near the normal speeds much of the outside world receives. It’s liable to make a feller happy as a pig in shit, I tell you whut. Granted, back in the states, I’d be pulling down at least 6Mbps if not 8Mbps. But 4Mbps is nothing to sneeze at either, even if the Romanian upload speeds continue to be a complete and utter crock.

So, what’s a guy to do? Take a very small bump in the speed he’s pretended to get used to, while pocketing a sizeable chunk of change? Or keep burning the wallet at both ends, finally reaching a speed that really begins to feel almost normal? Lemme know, y’all, cuz I’m powerful confused…

It wasn’t very long ago that I stared dumbfounded at a pack of soap being sold in Romania. Once again, the English language was used heavily in all the marketing areas because that’s the cool way to promote your wares these days. Our German friends, Schwartzkopf & Henkel, have a factory in Poland where they manufacture some bar soap under the sexy Fa brand that is sold to Romanians.

Now, this particular box touted some benefits I’d never seen marketers have the gall to hype before. Yessir, there it was plain as day: water plant extract. It even had the ever-popular swoosh from last decade to help elevate its hipness is the lagged preception of the Romanian consumer. Yeehaw, baby.

And what was really special about it was the illustration of the water plant itself! Encased in a protective bubble to demonstrate just how precious it should seem to your fragile, associative psyche. The throbbingly green color of the leaves were just oozing with photosynthical youthful vigor and vital growth. Bursting forth — unable to be contained — are cascading sheets of life-giving juices, spread apart in a glorious arc as if to enrich every part of you in water.

Water.

I mean, that’s what they’re talking about right? Water plant extract. What do you extract from such a plant, if not water? Why, water, of course. They went to great lengths to design this packaging so that you’ll part with your money in order to get some soap with water.

Water.

Meh. At least they weren’t lying.

Dedicated readers will recall I’ve got to exchange digital camera batteries with Nikon Europe, who has been quite gracious in their execution of customer service. The other half of the story has been the trials and tribulations in dealing with this nation’s postal system, Poşta Romana.

There is an internationally known and accepted mail service called Business Reply Mail (American terminology) wherein a customer can interact with a company via post and the company will pay the bill. This is usually reserved for circumstances where the company gains financially from said interaction or is in need of servicing unfortunate victims of product failure, the latter being my particular situation.

Given that the European Union is not identical to the United States of America, the concept has details that vary. Yet, the basic idea is the same. They call it International Business Reply Service. Nikon would like me to send them my defective battery to eliminate the possibility of accident, but they understand that Chinese manufacturing problems are not my error.

And given the premium price one pays for top quality Nikon gear, it is expected that the company honor the relationship by making things whole. Hence, they sent me, at their cost, an envelope in which to return said battery. The envelope contains an IBRS declaration stating that Nikon will pick up the tab for postage. As well they should be expected. Good service.

Unfortunately, there are large parts of Romania still imbued with nostalgic communist concepts which preclude the possibility of the individual not being forced to bear the brunt of such exchanges. That is to say, the former-communist postal workers are completely out of touch with standard business protocol and generally accepted EU standards of commerce.

Only in the event of your absence does the mail carrier leave a notice informing you of their delivery attempt and obliging you to arrive to your local post office to secure said box. No, Romanians do not deliver packages. They leave you a note which specifies the time and place (which may not be local) where you are allowed to pick up your mail.

Back on point, in this case, I had my EN-EL3 camera battery securely wrapped up in its container and properly labelled for IBRS delivery to Dublin, Ireland. From my vantage point, this was a standard operation. Drop off the packet at any box or post office and the employees will deliver it, collecting their fees from the receiving company directly (Nikon, in this instance). Did you follow me so far? Good, you’re not an idiot.

A trusted person was going out on a round of errands in Braşov, so I asked her the small favor of dropping off my pay-guaranteed envelope at the post on her way. She agreed and the matter was resolved. Or so I thought. I was later informed that the employee working at the Poşta Romana counter had refused to accept the packet without payment for a postage stamp.

Bah.

I was determined that business reply mail should be a standard adhered to by any self-respecting postal system of the European community. Out to prove a point? Perhaps. But I wasn’t about to let some commie pinko bureaucrat deter me from acheiving some modicum of standard postal service.

If I may be blunt, you Romanian readers know you would have acquiesed at this point. Paid the postage and moved on. Certainly a practical solution to the obstacle. And a common one, given the past of this rising nation. But, call me spoilt if you like, I’m fashioned from a different mettle. I intended to beat the bushes until satisified. Let this be a lesson to you.

I promptly went to the Poşta Romana website and dialed through their various navigation choices. In the end, I found a contact form for customer service help. I jotted down only the necessary facts and asked them to help me sort out the Braşov workers, so I could get my package sent. But, no one ever emailed me back.

I resolved to go down to the centru, where Post Office #1 sits next to the Primaria. By golly, I will knock some heads until the rubes manning the kiosk understand the concept of standard mail handling practice. Oh, yes, a quest. A mission. I’m a-fixin to learn someone a diddy or two about modern postal procedure, whether they want to swallow that medicine or not.

My mail needs were different on Day Two, however. I had received a notification slip in my apartment mailbox. It’s a little white tearsheet of a poorly re-re-re-re-Xeroxed form which is filled out by hand, in cursive, to specify the significant pieces of data.

• Where you are allowed to pick up your package (not necessarily your closest post office… and, if you’re in a bigger city such as Braşov, then most certainly your local post office has been passed over in favor of the one strategically placed farthest from each and every neighborhood)
• Which precise day you are allowed to pick up your package (just because they have possession of it, doesn’t mean you can come get it, Bubba)
• What hours you are allowed to present yourself to the administrators (hey, these people can’t be expected to work a full day of normal hours just to accommodate you and, even if they did, why should you be able to arrive at a time that’s convenient for you… are you spoiled or something?)

The astute reader will immediately question the premise, before accepting the details: “What, they don’t actually deliver?” No, amazingly enough, no one ever bothers to try delivering your package to you in the first place. Can you even imagine such a practice? I couldn’t, but now it’s just become they way things work.

For my puzzled Romanian readers, in the more civilized parts of the world, the postal delivery persons actually come to the delivery address with the package and attempt to deliver it to you. Should the recipient not be at home, then they’ll activate Plan B and leave paper slip (notifying you that they tried to deliver it and you can now pick it up at your closest post office at any time or day that’s convenient for you during the next two weeks).

Like any post office, the person arriving with the slip needs proper identification as well. So, I set about preparing the essential items needed for a trip to two different post offices. Post Office #16 to pick up and then Post Office #1 to send from. They are, respectively, the only two branches from which you can perform each task. Yes, my friends, the post offices in Romania do not offer complete services in each location. You have to find the correct, exact, precise one for your particular task and then be properly prepared.

On this day, I was already cutting things close to the upper end of the time slot I’d been alloted for pick up. There’s no bus that goes from my neighborhood, which means you can get halfway there and then walk the rest. In good weather, that might seem like a great opportunity to get out and stretch your legs. Unfortunately, with the inconvenient delivery limitations, I needed to hop into the nearest taxi and shoot on down Bulevardul Griviţei.

I must have arrived with at least 15 minutes to spare because it was still open. I have found the door prematurely locked on more than one occassion because the grumpy greyhairs halfheartedly working the counters are quick to take the liberty of closing anywhere from 5 minutes to 10 minutes early based on whatever pressing need they have to rush home and watch their favorite telenovela when a particularly exiciting episode is anticipated.

One of the first things you’ll notice in a Romanian post office are the reams and reams of handwritten documents carefully bundled up and archived where there is any space left in the building. They have so much in the way of paper documents that I’m willing to bet they still have record of the very first package Petru Groza received from Stalin as congratulations for the elimination of Iuliu Maniu. You can bet that complex modern electronic devices — such as computers, thermal printers, or bar code scanners — won’t be installed until the old guard workers retire.

Apparently, there is a benefit to arriving so dangerously close to the random closing times: the panicky locals have already made sure to come much earlier in the day to claim their packages. There’s no one in line ahead of me. I hand the lady my notification and passport as her cataracts peer at me suspiciously over the top her thick glasses. With a grunt, she begins shuffling through some of the numerous open ledgers scattered across her desk to navigate her way toward my corresponding entry. Some scribbling and a few forcible stampings later, I’m politely asked to sign for receipt.

And, then, she tells me I have to go stand in another line because this one is only for paperwork. Now, I’ve got new paperwork. I need to stand elsewhere and talk to someone else in order to actually get the package. This is unlike most westernized postal companies where the first person you deal with generally takes care of all your service needs, so you’re not bounced from window to window. However, I’m not ruffled up about it because I’ve picked up before and know how the dance goes in Romania.

Next up will be a harsh, balding man in his late 40s with a handlebar mustache and a secret longing for the communist days where he could browbeat the public with impunity. He revels in each chance to bark at customers with his deep voice while staring them down intently with his black eyes as if just another moment or two of scrutiny will cause the trembling package recipient to drop to their knees and begin confessing crimes against the people’s republic.

What a stroke of luck! A new guy is working. Lanky, friendly, and in his 30s. He happily snatches up my document and hustles off into the secret backroom to retrieve my box. Emerging only a moment later, he slides it to me with a “buna ziua” and heads off to do some other task.

I know, I know. My Romanian readers just marveled. Maybe even gasped.

Let me explain to the Yanks how this normally works. Right, so the ex-communist bureaucrat should never take the document from you without studying you critically and attempting to unnerve you with his raw suspicion. He’ll eyeball you for a couple moments and let you witness the single bead of sweat sliding down his chrome dome generated solely from the sheer ferocity of his personality.

When he does take the paper from your shaking hands, his zig-zag marbles’ll scanread over it as you hear his breathing grow into heavy huffings of disgust at your apparent, if only temporary, legitimacy.

Comrade will slowly draw his chin upward only as far as is required to lock eyes with you. They are on fire. I kid you not, you can literally see the wall of flames shooting out of either side of his black eyes while his nostrils widen broadly with each horsesnort drafting wind to suck out your very soul, mere mortal.

If you haven’t collapsed from a stroke by this point, he’ll crisply execute a half-step spin maneuver from his military academy days before disappearing into the void beyond the secret door.

During his absence, which varies from 2 minutes to 2 hours, you stand there calmly avoiding the temptation to search the nooks and crannies for the multiple hidden cameras he is most certainly watching you from before deciding whether or not to actually get your package. Eventually, he’ll emerge at some point carrying your box and setting it down with both his hands placed on top of it to prevent you from daring to touch it.

“Is this your package?” he’ll ask as a trick question. Of course, the honest person would first look at the labels before answering, “Da.”

“What’s inside?” is the next intimidating barrage of the interrogation. “Nu ştiu exact, dar…” and then you begin to read off what the external customs form written in English itself says. His nostrils once again collect wind like sails, but there’s a twinkle in his eye from his amusement that you dare to mock his authority by pretending that what the legal declaration says is in the box… is actually in the box.

He breaks out into a wry smile and baits you with, “Let us see, mmm?” Your answer is irrelevant.

Out comes the knife and now arrives the moment everyone in line behind you has been waiting for: the chance for all to know what is inside your box as they curiously look over either shoulder just before the inspector begins raking through the fragile items and lifting the contents of your private package high into the air for all to stare at in wonder, like some Simbaesque spectacle.

As an American, your psyche cringes at this heinous betrayal of your very basic right to privacy. Your soul cries out in rage and frustration against this rape of your very humanity and dignity. Naked, helpless, and at the mercy of the cruel mass accomplices cowering behind you in silence out of fear of Gherla.

At the point where the inspector senses your inner capitulation, he gives you a wink to let you know just who exactly is the bull in this prison relationship and then unceremoniously drops your junk back into the box, shoving it in your direction.

“Next!”

And now you see why this fresh approach of the younger, new guy was such a surprise. In fact, it’s a lovely surprise. That box is mine, not yours — stay out of it! As proof, I snagged this photograph of the unopened box sitting on the counter at the post office, because I knew some of you would not believe it possible.

Silly me. Taking a picture immediately set off alarm bells in everyone’s head. As I picked up my box to walk out, suddenly everyone was shouting and motioning for me to come back. Not wanting to be arrested for terrorism, I immediately rushed back to the counter whereupon the now very nervous employee began asking me why in the world I would be taking photos. Was I a journalist? Am I taking photos for a newspaper? What’s in the package? Don’t I know he has to open it now as the customs rules demand? What are the pictures for? Who am I?

Quick on my feet, I immediately launched into the role of the dimwitted foreigner to convince him, not without some irony, that I had no idea it was illegal to take photographs in order to show my friends that I have received their package of foodstuffs from across the pond. Repeating the same story twice while gesturing towards my camera and the customs declaration form seemed to win him over.

He reluctantly placed his faith in the idea that I was not an American undercover journalist set out to expose the criminal underworld of postal workers who have the deceny not to rifle unnecessarily through your box like the communists of yesteryear.

That is how I happily escaped with my package of mostly edible items. Buried underneath it all, and wrapped in a pink t-shirt for good measure, was my external firewire LaCie dual layer DVD+/-RW drive designed by Porsche. The bizarre, outdated, and unjust customs regulations would have meant I had to pay a pretty penny in “import taxes” on this piece of hardware.

They don’t care that I bought and used this same drive back in the U.S. for six or nine months before moving to Romania. All the Central Committee cares about is the ability to eek some cheese out of the foreigner. Afterall, citizen, if you are bourgeois enough to afford such a finely crafted capitalist item, surely you must see you can afford to help out the proletariat…

Lugging my box about, it was time to walk down a block to the nearest bus stop. I jumped onto autobuzul la numar cinci until I arrived at parcul centru. More or less kitty corner from the bus exit — down and around the Primaria building — you’ll find the main post office situated inside a pretty old-style building.

To protect post office employees from the savagely violent Romanian populace, these hardworking and kindhearted staff are securely placed behind bulletproof glass kiosks reminiscient of iron-barred booths of 1840s American banks in the wild, wild west. Accompanied by more people waiting in more lines, all without air conditioning.

Oh, my American friends, I forgot to tip you off to a social quirk of Romanians. They don’t stand in straight lines. Whereas our culture generally lines up in an orderly fashion one behind another, the locals in Transylvania generally stand to the right of (and maybe half a step behind) the person in front of them which results in bizarre curved lines completely unnatural to the interior layout of most buildings. Chaos often ensues, which is the desired outcome: it gives you a chance to cheat lines.

Of course, this assumes people even bother to wait in line. Many Romanians, notably the older ones, have an extremely annoying habit of simply sliding right up to a counter without any respect for whomever is currently being serviced. They’ll elbow their way into the windowspace and begin talking loudly to the person working.

It’s very annoying that none of the Romanians in line have the chutzpah to chastise this selfish prig, but it’s even more annoying that the person working begins to serve the cheater rather than tell him to shut up and get to the back of the line.

Each success simply reinforces the behavior. Thus, you have all manner of rude old people simply barging into your transaction and taking over the scene because everyone is afraid to lay the smack down. Rest assured, my friends, that nearly never happens when I’m up to bat. I may not speak romaneşte terribly well, but I manage to get my point across such that it’s understood: bugger off.

To combat this old habit, the post office wisely puts up signs asking people to behave themselves by staying in an organized line and not interfering with the privacy of the transaction in progress.

So, I’m standing as the third person in line at my designated window #9 (because everyone narrowly specializes and cannot possibly help you with anything else). There’s a middle aged lady in front of me and currently being serviced is a ponytailed young lady. Behind the window a harried worker full of excuses about how she cannot help.

As the interaction starts drawing to a close, an old woman previously out of sight suddenly enters the stage craftily slinking toward the window like a queen moving between pawns. A split second after I notice her, the middle aged woman in front of me notices that her rightful inheritance of soon-to-be-vacant window is about to be undermined in treachery. And everyone springs into action!

The middle aged woman moves forward, out of line position, and to the right of the young woman. But the young woman is surprised the the old woman suddenly brushing up against her left, so she moves an inch or two out of instinctive respect for the elderly.

The old woman now has a wrist and fingers claiming real estate in the windowspace. Not settling for second place, the middle age woman cuts in with an elbow maneuver and now has half a meter of skin in the game.

The bewildered young woman makes a fatal mistake by trying to avoid bodily collision when she takes a small step backward. The hens let fly with a sqwak as they fight over the center line of the service window clucking loudly all the while to get the attention of the postal worker who is trying to get answers, paperwork, and money to the young woman. Madness breaks out.

When the dust clears, the beseiged postal staffer has partially helped the old woman enough to move her a few inches to the side as she fills out some form. Meanwhile, the middle aged woman has been assured that she is next, if she’ll just move a few inches to the other side. And the young woman is finally able to step forward and complete the transaction.

Approximately twenty seven years transpire before it is finally my turn at the window. The lady recognizes the package immediately as the one she just rejected yesterday. She shrugs it off, rambling something about needing to buy postage somewhere else, and tosses it back in my face. Undaunted, I slide back to her and start explaining the concept of business reply mail.

She’s clearly pissed off at being harassed about her lack of knowledge, but to her credit she’s attempting to be polite to an obvious foreigner. We go round and round, until I finally start asking her to talk to a supervisor. Surely, the manager must be aware. I mean we’re on the eve of EU ascendency, people. Let’s get with the program, eh!

She refused to talk to a supervisor. There isn’t one. Or he’s not here. And he’s busy anyway. A number of hasty replies show she just isn’t going to ask anyone for clarification. I’m getting frustrated, so I press her to call the headquarters in Bucureşti. She could just buzz them up and find out how to handle my package. Nothin’ doin’.

She refuses to pick up a phone and call anyone. In fact, she says she’s not allowed to call Bucureşti at all for any reason at any time. Furthermore, there is no one else to call whether in Braşov or otherwise, plus she’s just not allowed to use the telephone for any reason whatsoever. Deadlock. I point to her badge identification number and indicate that I’ll be forced to report her non-cooperation. That’s when she let’s me know that if I want someone to call Bucureşti, then I need to talk to the lady at booth #13.

What a sucker. Boy, she got me good with that one.

I had turned around to get my bearings on where #13 was located in proximity to my current location. When I turned back to keep talking to her, she had already snuck off away from her desk. Dirty dog. Now, what am I to do? Why, get in line at #13, of course.

Trouble is that no one is at #13. I don’t just mean there’s no one in line, I mean there ain’t nobody a-workin’ there. The waiting game begins. Immediately adjacent is booth #14 where a very unhappy and bitter woman is slamming papers around with her orange windowblinds drawn to hide from customers. She barks out, gruffly, “Go away. There’s no one working there. You’re wasting your time.”

Oh, thanks lady. Thanks a lot. Since she’s invited conversation, a series of questions are given to her. Who works at this window? Where is she? When is she coming back? In response, she spews some hate speech to drive me away.

The questions come again. Do you think you help me for just a moment? I’m trying to find out who can call Bucureşti for me to get an answer about mail service. Now, she’s ignoring me entirely and slamming her papers around.

So, I knock on her glass. Ignored. I ask again, when is this lady coming back to #13? Do you know where she is? Ignored.

Out comes the English, as I knock rather loudly on her window pane, “HEY. Can I get some service here? I have a question.” Now, I’ve no idea what stream of obscenities she let fly that time, but I do know she hissed it like a cornered rattlesnake who has just been smacked upside the head.

Bah.

What am I going to do? I could make a scene, but that won’t do any good for anyone. I’ve been bedeviled here enough by customer-hating postal employees. It’s time for tactical withdrawal. We live to fight another day. Back on the #5 bus toward home.

I fired up the Poşta Romana website again. Since I hadn’t received any email, I figured I’d go ahead and call them. Browsing the website in English, I opted for a telephone number listed as being for help with international mail. My mail was certainly international and I definitely needed some help, so they got the call.

A woman answered in romaneşte. “Oh, buna ziua. Am intrebare, vorbeţi engleza? Nu? Hmmmm….” After a moment of silence, she promise to find someone who did.

Another woman took the phone. Physically took it, not an interoffice transfer. I could hear them both giggle during the sounds of the clumsily jostled hand-off. “Hello? May I help you?” We talked about the package and she was pretty sure Poşta Romana didn’t handle things like this.

She understood the concept of business reply mail, but there doesn’t exist such a thing on international level. Surely, the pre-paid postage notice was only applicable in Ireland and the UK. I tried to convince her otherwise, but she politely informed me that even if other countries honored IBRS/CCRI packages that Romania did not.

Disappointed, I hung up the phone and stewed over my predicament. Obviously, I was going to have buy the postage and send it. Apparently, that’s just how things work in Romania. Besides, I did need to get that battery in the mail and off to Nikon without more delays. Sure, it’s worth it just to pay the small price and get things over with.

Still, it burned me that Poşta Romana did not accept IBRS package, so I went back to the website to ask them why not.

Why does Posta Romana not honor the International Business Reply Service like other European countries? The post office in Brasov will not accept my IBRS/CCRI mail. They insist on charging for postage, but I should not be forced to pay.

I shuffled off to take care of some other business. This time, I reached someone knowledgeable. Within an hour, I got an email reply.

Dear Sir,

Please accept our apologize for this inconvenience and let us know in what Postal Office from Brasov you couldn’t sent an IBRS/CCRI mail. We will contact them and after Romanian Post deliver your mail .

Thank you for your trust!

Whoa! Good news, campers. I was correct all along. Romania does accept international business reply service. Lo and behold, a competent customer service rep is actually offering to help me solve the dilemna by talking to the folks in Braşov. Thankful for their outreach, I wanted to arm them with all the details they might need.

Thank you very much for the prompt reply.

In particular, it was a woman whose badge ID number was 20654 working at window #9 in the main Post Office #1 (next to the Primaria in the city center). She insisted both yesterday and today (yes, I’ve been twice already) as well as refused to call Bucuresti for clarification after I specifically asked her to phone your customer service department in order to check with you.

Please confirm once the staff has been educated on IBRS and let me know what steps, if any, I need to take. I very much appreciate your assistance.

The very next morning, the customer service representatives in Bucureşti gave me the answer I was waiting for.

Dear Sir,

Please accept our apologize again. We contact the Post Office nr.1 from Brasov and the problem is solved. We can go there to send your letter.

Thank you for your trust!

Clearly, this was excellent news. All that remained was to go back down the post office on Day Three and face the shrew who had ditched me earlier. Clutching my package with newfound righteousness, I boarded bus cinci and headed into the centru. I marched up to window #9 where there was no line and no employee. The waiting game, again.

I’m 99.9% certain the same woman was working that day. I’m 99.9% certain she was probably in a different part of the area when I walked into the building. I’m 99.9% certain at some point before returning to her desk to help the customer waiting outside her window, she recognized me before I could see her. I’m 100% certain she didn’t want to talk to me.

Why? Because a non-uniformed guy, who looked every bit the part of a stereotypical IT staffer in all his nerdly glory, approached the station and awkwardly asked if he could help. I gave him the package and he proceeded to inspect its markings for a moment or two before nodding.

“Nici o problema.”

It might be counterintuitive to think that Romanians are extorted into paying more money for ketchup than any other civilized nation in our small world; yet, it’s entirely true. With a people whose median income is a scant 335€ (USD$430), what could possibly motivate attempts to foist such highway robbery? Greed. And it’s surprisingly effective, too.

To set the baseline, let us posit to our Romanian friends that paying for ketchup as a fast food condiment is ludicrous. For most of restauranting history, free ketchup has been the norm for patrons. Originally, ketchup usage was literally unmetered as customers were properly taken care of with bottles of ketchup at diner tables or a pump dispenser in a central location of the restaurant.

At some point, sanitation concerns thrust the lowly ketchup packet front and center to become ubiquitous across America and the rest of the free world to protect us all from germs and pranksters. With our immediate health needs met and tomato sauce in abundant supply, the restauranteurs unwittingly released a new era of teenage tomfoolery based on the explosive nature of the packaging.

Today, ketchup remains free in the United States and parts of Western Europe, but not without mild restrictions. In the late 1990s, McDonald’s infamously began restricting the amount of ketchup distributed per order to only two packets. If you had 3 burgers and 4 fries, that didn’t affect the rigid policy of the stingy ketchup nazi. I distinctly remember this new aspect of fast food being a common topic of discussion among a wide number of people who were equally miffed about the snub.

Shortly thereafter, McDonald’s didn’t just give you the packets automatically but decided to ask you if you even wanted any. For once theory and practice met on even ground as consumers were able to get ketchup, but the companies were able to save money by not dispensing unwanted ketchup and also got the bonus of lying to environmentalists about how this new procedure was created expressly to reduce their waste footprint.

The side effect was that beancounters at McDonald’s began to calculate the amount of money saved annually by both asking before giving and reducing the amount given. That’s when things started getting ugly. Next, McDonald’s stopped asking. Why prompt the customer to steal from their profits? If the fast food buyer really wanted ketchup all that bad, they’d be sure to ask for it.

The problem was when you’re used to getting free ketchup from all the various fast food places, you invariably forget to ask McDonald’s. They saved big time! Many an unhappy customer arrived home from the drivethru to find, much to their shock, that no ketchup had been given for the fries. Cutting their costs in the short run (not just in ketchup, but also in soft drink rip-offs and other areas) began to eat into their long-term picture.

What’s amazing is how the other companies kept giving the customers full service, while their respective Boards of Directors went nuts from jealousy over McDonald’s cost savings. In the 2004, floods in California precipitated a whole tomato shortage which gave fast food purveyors precisely the deceitful pretense needed to mimic their archrival because the ADD media-watching public never understood that the shortage did not apply to processed tomatoes products. Thusly, the ketchup lockdown has spread.

It’s true that McDonald’s continues to toe the hard line of enforcing an arbitrary lack of ketchup in the United States today. But, if you ask, you will be given two tiny packets for free. Other fast food places will give you more than two, provided you beg hard enough and the employee is feeling rebellious toward his shift supervisor. But they’re still free and you can get more than two. Of course, there still exist — if not commonly — restaurants where you can pretty much get any reasonable number of packets that you like all for free.

If you want to inject realism, then we can all agree the ketchup was never really free. Its tiny cost has always been included in the price of food (probably less than a penny per meal), just like rent and electricity are figured in. But when those companies try to take the ketchup away, many consumers get a bit worked up about it.

Now, contrast that with reports of McDonald’s charging 17 cents for ketchup in Ukraine (not exactly a hub of wealth, at the moment) or 20 euro cents in Germany. Suddenly, the fast food places are not reducing their cost but actually acheiving a huge windfall of profit at the loss of the hapless customer. Of course, no one cries out in these countries where they never knew the simple courtesy of providing the last ingredient to a meal.

Let’s take a look at the crimes of McDonald’s in Romania.

Shamefully, the world’s most popular restaurant gouges the customer for a full RON per packet. That’s 28 eurocent (Americans, 36 cents) for a sachet of ketchup. In a nation that’s not yet walking on streets of gold, it’s tantamount to reprehensible immorality. In fact, the price of 3 or packets of ketchup is the same, if not more than, the price of McDonald’s french fries. That, my friends, is scandalous.

How much ketchup is in there? Well, the ketchup from Ron’s Steakhouse says it holds 14 grams. Meanwhile a typical bottle of Tomi ketchup in Romania holds 500 grams and sells for roughly 3,5 RON. There’s approximately the equivalent of some 35 or more packets of ketchup in a standard bottle. If we do the math, that means Mickey D’s is hijacking its Romanian customers with the outrageous price of 35 RON! Yes, while free in America, McDonald’s Romania charges 10€ (or nearly USD$13) for a bottle of ketchup!

And there you have it. The priciest ketchup on the entire planet is right here in poor little Romania. I have to imagine that McDonald’s executives really slap one another on the back when mulling over their success with this disgraceful doosie of marketing to a captive audience. It certainly assures no one will be cleaning their pennies.

I love ketchup. Always have. My disappointment with the overly sugared tomato paste that passes for ketchup in Romania has driven me to actually start making my own tastier ketchup at home, which lets me appreciate just how inexpensive it is to create ketchup (let alone if you buy in obscene bulk amounts like the big boys). But don’t look at me too funny for cooking my own ketchup, because I could have told you how to make your own Big Mac.

UNF%&@ING BELIEVABLE.

Last night they turned the water off in the entire city of Braşov.

During the summer.

No water. 48 hours.

How stupid are these twits? There is basically no excuse for this other than gross incompetence. This has got to be the worst city administration I’ve ever had the misfortune of suffering through. I wish the directors of Apa Braşov would lose their jobs. I wish the mayor and city council would be summarily dismissed from office. I wish the people would not accept things as they are and riot in the streets!

No water. No toilet! Anywhere. 48 hours.

No clothes washing. No dish washing. No shower or bath, during summer time.

Buy your drinking water. Find a well and pump water into a bucket and carry it home. What is this, Africa!? Start sending the UN relief packets, folks. This is a sick, sick joke and I’m thoroughly unhappy about it.

An entire city without water for two days.

Now, in a blatant display of brash denials, some spineless bureaucrat from some various authority issued an unenforceable press release from behind the safety of his desk in which he stupidly warned that public institutions and companies must continue to respect hygenie laws during this period of time or risk being shut down for six months as punishment.

First of all, you cannot meet hygenie standards when there is no water because hygenie typically requires lots of fresh water! Secondly, it is highly unlikely any fools will actually step outside and go around inspecting anyone for any failures that result from the fact that there is no damn water. Thirdly, most bars, restaurants, and pretty much anyone dealing with food or bathrooms or whathaveyou all closed until this crisis is over. That’s going to be bad for the survival of some companies and terrible for the area’s economy in general. Finally, were testicle-less idiot Iulian Mara to actually go out and apply crushing sanctions to anyone would surely put them out of business (and now you know why they’re closed).

Meanwhile, the hospitals are teetering on the edge of going without water. Supposedly, they’ve got a slight bit of reserves on hand and a stream of trucks will be organized to bring water from somewhere. Hospital officials told reporters they had done as much as humanly possible to hedge against medical catastrophes, but clearly things would “not be easy” for the next two days. Sorry, Mr. Lazarescu, but nobody in Braşov cares even one iota. Please die. Die now.

I can’t believe it. Maybe this is third world and Romania is not ready to join the EU, afterall. Two days without any water during summertime in a major city? Outrageous.