Gaz de France

November 17, 2017

I expected linguistic misunderstandings and bureaucratic entanglements to be a more prominent theme of our year abroad.  Happily, they've become mostly background noise to our experience rather than the soundtrack.  We did, however, have a sort of funny series of mishaps that led to us being without heat until this past Monday.  (Luckily, Paris is no Boston, so we haven't really experienced high temperatures much below the upper 40s and lower 50s yet.) 

We knew from the beginning that we were responsible for putting the electricity contract in our name.  This was no small feat, but we managed, with a series of google-translated emails, a number of long waits on hold, and the great good fortune of an English-language option on Electricte de France's voicemail.  When we spoke to Electricte de France, however, they made it clear that, even though, in general, they provided both electricity and gas, there was no record of a gas contract for our apartment.  So we just signed up for the electricity.  We tracked down the lease for our apartment to see if heat was included, thinking that would explain the lack of individual gas contracts for each apartment since the landlord was paying for the whole building.  Sure enough, it mentioned that we were responsible for electricity, cable TV, and wifi, but no mention of heat.  

It was September and there was no reason for the heat to come on at the time.  We put it out of our minds.  The weather got progressively colder over the next few weeks, and we kept wondering why the heat never went on.  Ah, the thermostat must be the answer---we need to turn it on or adjust it or something.  We tried but nothing seemed to be working.  We put in a new set of batteries.  Nothing.  So we called the housekeeper, Nadia, who has helped us with a number of things around the apartment.  She put in a new set of batteries.  Nothing.  She called Emmanuel, the handyman who sometimes works on the building.  He put in a new set of batteries.  Nothing.  Then he said he would need to get a new thermostat.  All of this took several days, all the while the temperature dropping and us believing that as soon as the thermostat got sorted out, we would have heat.  Finally, Emmanuel came back and installed the new thermostat.  We set it.  We programmed it.  We adjusted it.  Nothing.  

Finally, I called the landlord's assistant to ask about this.  (Dealing with the landlord's assistant is always the last resort because she speaks no English and will not respond to emails, even those in French, unless she has explicitly solicited them.  So there is always a very awkward exchange where I call her, I explain who I am and what the problem is in French, she does not understand me, she asks me questions in French that I don't understand, and then she finally says that I need to email her, which I do in French, and then she responds.)  Finally, I get the answer, "Oh, yes, you need to sign up for gas service.  Call Gaz de France."  

A simple call to Gaz de France to set up payment was not enough.  They needed to send a technician out, but the wait was only about a week after we placed the initial call to them.  And also luckily, the temperature only fell below freezing briefly once during this time.  We all were very happy when Moustafa from Gaz to France pushed a few buttons on our heating unit and the radiators got warm. 

(As a bittersweet side note, Moustafa realized that we were English speakers when he arrived, and wanted to show off his excellent English to us.  So we chatted about lots of things:  heaters, his career, his family, his travels.  He told us about his very extensive world travels, including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia.  I said, "But you've never been to the US?"  His response was one that I would have disputed just a few years ago, but to which I could only nod in sympathy today:  "I don't want to spend my tourism money in a country where I am not welcomed."  I could not argue; I could only be sad.)