Small human conflicts in town

Hot days in Montenegro. And all the trees are blossoming around. With white and pink, and violet colours. And you can catch their smells that flying in a sultry air. Two days back then I made a bet at the local bookmaker shop, and printed the voucher from the machine with the rest of the money. When I came back 2 days later with the voucher it appeared to be not valid. It turned out that the voucher was not exactly fully printed. A small line with a barcode appeared on the voucher of the woman who played just after me. So she withdrew the money.

I asked the working lady at the shop about my voucher. She explained me what happened and suggested to solve this with the woman. The only thing they could offer was a video recording. And I of course was not inclined, that it’s the problem on my side. In fact I believe it is an issue with the bookmaker machine. So she called the manager. I talked to him over her phone, but he also kindly suggested me to deal with the woman, who we may never see around.

Another thing he said that probably I used the machine incorrectly by pulling the voucher a little bit. Hence a scrap of the voucher left inside. I admit it might be possible, but still not inclined that the issue is in my basket. And I can imagine the same thing happens to a lot of people who use the shop “Volcano”. So for me it looked like I got my voucher, but then the shop passed my money to some “random” person.

We were not sure how to return the money in question. So we decided to check the police station on the way home. I honestly did not even want to talk to the police, as I don’t believe in any protection from above. But Nina recommended to check it out. Next thing I see a man with a wide nose at the reception. He listened carefully to our attempts of the local language and assigned someone to deal with our case. He gave me the phone, and someone talked to me in English in a clear manner. They said that they are going to make a visit to the shop, and will be at the station in 20 minutes. No papers or complex formal procedures. Which was human friendly in my opinion.

So the police guy came and talked to me informally. He has visited the shop, understood the issue. And in fact everybody involved already understood by that time what happened. But the police could not resolve. As it is not a direct robbery or anything similar their “laws” wise. In fact he suggested to make a legal statement through another authority to sue the company in case I have a local lawyer friend and want to do so. Which sounds like an unnecessary hell.

So we went back to the shop just in case, and at the same time the manager sent us a message to bring the voucher in question so they could make a picture. We came to the shop. There were 3 guys standing near the entrance. One of them was directing, another one was taking a picture, and another one was translating the final words. Which was fun in a way. Although may be I was too serious.

They said that they are going to check the cameras tomorrow morning and reach back to us. And may be they could tell us something then. Although I’m not expecting to hear anything in particular. As we could see the stance of each individual involved. We just agreed with Nina that it is likely a moral case for the manager of the company and the people involved.

I was pleased to have this human to human interaction omitting the details like bureaucracy. Which tries to put our lives on pause every time, to wait for the authority to comfort itself. Yet no one took me to the cage to figure things out, nor I had been digged into as a special case. It was a conversation that happened within a small spontaneous community of me, my girlfriend, the lady at the shop, the manager, his 2 friends - one possibly director and a guy who was supposed to check the videos, the policeman with a couple of his friends and an old man sitting in the shop, who was silent all the time but watched some matches on the screens. May be I lost something. But I chose to view this in a positive manner.

The next day we were asked by the shop manager to come. The old man was sitting there. The manager took my voucher. I made a small signature and he gave me the money in a white envelope. Such a gesture was very nice of them. Since I was not expecting to actually solve anything. It seems that the visit of the policemen made things a little bit more spicy, so they chose a different stance.

We happily took a bag of greens in the local market and went home. Paid a visit to the police station and there was sitting the same guy on the reception. At first he tensed and began to look for the phone of a policeman who spoke English and dealt with our case yesterday. But then we said that we just wanted to thank, so he got excited and broke into a smile.