Freelancing...

I've always been a 'freelancer' or worked 'volne na noze' as it's known here.  I've never been much of a one to work in a permanent job, arrive at the same desk everyday and do my 9-5.  Of course it comes with many disadvantages like no stable income/ no holiday/ sick pay/ pension, but even in my old age I wouldn't have it any other way.  I like the 'free' in freelancing too much.

However, since we're staying in Prague I've had to get my act together and sort out my official paperwork and get something called a Zivnostensky List, or 'traders licence' - a self employed status where I'm responsible for my own tax and social security contributions.

The problem is this involves sorting out my official paperwork and that's no mean feet here.  I read somewhere that bureaucracy is as part of Czech culture as beer. There's a lot of rubber stamping and signing, a bit more stamping, another signature, oh then you need to go across to another office on the other side of Prague to get another stamp.  I can see why Kafka was so inspired...

It's only taken us 11 months to get a Czech licence plate for the car  (it's just as well we decided to stay for another year)  So with this in mind I headed to the local 'urad' or offices to get my licence with not much hope that I'd get anything sorted quickly.

My first problem was that I had to determine which office I needed to go to.  Eventually after a bit of wandering around I found the lady that deals with 'L, M and Ns' (luckily she was in that day as I'm in no doubt that the H, I, J and K lady wouldn't have been able to deal with my case).

In my bad Czech I somehow made myself understood and an exasperated lady sat me down and tried to process my application with a lot of huffing and puffing.

But you know what?  I didn't care.  I was proud of myself because a year ago I couldn't have done this on my own, my husband would have had to hand hold me all the way, and although I have to return again next week with the 'correct' paperwork,  I'm happy!