Another Lesson Learned

This week I learned another important lesson: when in doubt, never assume. The story behind it is because on the same week three cases happened due to lack of information and wrong assumption.

First, on the day my husband came from business trip in Turkey, he told me that when he entered Denmark, the airport immigration officer reminded him that the visa sticker on his passport will be expired on May 10, which he didn't aware of until the officer mentioned about it. I've been aware of it since I arrived in Copenhagen last month, however when I asked the relocation agent whether we should extend it, she said your husband should have submitted some papers which will automatically extend the temporary visa. Afterwards I asked my husband, he said he couldn't remember, but he should have submitted every documents to the relocation agent. Well, then I ASSUMED everything had settled down.

Apparently, after confirmed once again to the agent, the documents should be submitted by ourselves to the Danish Immigration Office to apply for residence card before the expiry date, which is May 10. Otherwise we will be considered illegal staying in Denmark. My husband then checked documents on his office desk, and found the papers, which he should submit months ago. After found the paper, we went to the immigration office to submit the application for residence card. Thankfully, he was informed by the immigration officer, otherwise we will miss the deadline. I somehow believe it was God's way to avoid us from trouble :)

Then later on the afternoon after I came back from the immigration office, a guy from electricity company came by and asked to read the electricity meter, but I have no idea where the electricity meter is. A month ago, the apartment landlord met us to give the spare key and show us how to read the water, heater and electricity meter. However, he completely forgot how to read the electricity meter and he promised to contact us when he knew. We also tried to ask the previous tenant and they said they never read the electricity meter. After a month passed by, we heard no news from the landlord. Well we have tried to ask him about it once again and he said he would find out. We ASSUMED he would take care of it, until the electricity guy came and told us that we would be charged for extra fee as we didn't read the meter by ourselves and didn't pay the bill.

It's quite shocking as we never received any letter about the electricity bill and nor didn't get information from the landlord where the electricity meter is. Another problem is as the previous tenant never read the meter, the consumption up to the day must be included their consumption as well. We decided to contact the agent once again and asked her to help us solve the problem as we realized that this was not our fault and we wanted to make sure we only pay for our consumption only. Fortunately the agent is responsible enough to find the solution of the problem so we shouldn't burden the previous tenant consumption expenses and the landlord is willing to pay for the extra service fee.

The third case is regarding our mobile phone number. When I came a month ago, I bought a prepaid card for temporary use as we were waiting for the subscribed mobile phone number ordered from my husband office. A month passed by and we didn't receive any sim card yet. However, a week ago, a bill was sent to us, regarding a subscription of mobile phone, which should be paid soon. The number stated on the bill is the same number as my prepaid card. As the number ordered from office is also the same operator as my prepaid card and we noticed that the number is longer prepaid, we ASSUMED that maybe the operator noticed that we already have a phone number, so instead of sending us new sim card, they changed the prepaid number into subscribed number. Hence, we decided to pay the bill.

However, yesterday we received another sim card, of which we ordered. Then we noticed we did something wrong, we paid the bill for the subscription we didn't even order. After doing some research, apparently the operator subscribed the prepaid number automatically and sent us email stating that we ordered to subscribe the number into postpaid account. We've never noticed about the email, and yet we already paid for the bill.

Well, after those three cases, I learned a lesson to never assume, especially when you are in a system you barely know how it works. Otherwise you will have to pay unnecessary spending for things you could avoid. Better ask and find information before everything is too late. Thankfully, from the three cases above, only one we really need to pay in order to sort out the problem.

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady