Paternity leave and bureaucracy

Fathers in Switzerland are not supposed to be out of office for a long time just because they got a newborn at home. The Swiss law gives fathers the right to take one (1) day off but since my employer is so generous, they add four extra days. These five days can be used during the child’s first two months. Unfortunately five days pass by quickly and I have now finished my paternity leave. Fortunately there will be a Christmas break in a month and then I can support Tanya at home again.

On Wednesday we finally got the birth certificate for Sonja from “Zivilstandsamt”. Normally it is handed out a few days after birth but for foreigners like us it turned out to be a challenge. I have to say the Swiss bureaucrats did disappoint me this time. They were incredibly slow and inefficient and almost on the border to stupid. We had to spend a lot of time explaining, maybe a dozen phone calls and five-six snail mails and a few electronic ones, to get it done. They gave us different information depending on who we spoke to. They demanded information from the Swedish registry of people that is not present (but which they claimed exist because of their misinterpretation) and a new birth certificate for Tanya even though the birth certificate in Russia is usually only given once, when you are born. Of course such documents can only be handed out in Russia so we had to get a power of attorney organized at the Russian embassy in Bern, send it to Novokuznetsk, get the document from the authorities, get it translated, get an apostille, and get it sent back here. They could have saved us from that procedure by a bit of understanding of how the birth certificate works in Russia but that is not how they work… And when we finally got Sonja’s birth certificate they thought they could just keep Tanya’s original documents with the motivation “you don’t need them anymore now when it is registered here”. Excuse me? They even got them in 2011 so then they should not have needed them this time either. Well well, luckily it is possible to very rarely interact with these people.

Once we got Sonja’s paper we could organize her insurance and start the procedure to get her Swedish citizenship. Yesterday we got an apostille of Sonja’s birth certificate so we can use it in January when we will go to Bern to kick off the procedure to get her a Russian citizenship too. It will be a bit of bureaucracy to get these passports but we have learnt that it is so much easier if your issue only concerns one country. As soon as two countries, especially Switzerland, is involved, they start demanding things purely focused on how their superior system works without thought of how it might work in other countries. When only speaking to Swedish or Russian authorities it is usually possible to talk and discuss and find a solution much smoother than when trying to communicate with the Swiss since their starting point seems to be that they are right instead of trying to find the right solution.

Sonja still have some colic issues but we think it is getting better.

Yesterday I got a chance to put new floor tiles in the garage. It was really easy so it was quickly done. If i get a chance today it would be good to get the hedge ready for the winter. Time to try out that new cordless hedge trimmer…