This on sezam:
This country won't last, at least legally. Currently they created a huge headache of a legal vacuum. From old municipal organs they took over only the heads of county veterinary inspections, and the inspectors themselves were moved into "at disposal" status, and that's retropassively since 16th of april; these are now on white bread, and got informed about this only by end of april, so they worked unauthorized for some ten days. They keep working, though they don't know why, they were told to come to work (someone has to check the cattle in slaughterhouses), but there was also a case when a section head ordered that they be taken off the municipal payroll, even though he himself is not a municipal officer anymore - he's empoyed by the state ministry.
Similar case is social security, where they just flatly voted down the amendment whereby the current social (fund, SIZ or what have you) should keep working until new system is formed. Now we're in the situation where a bunch of it must not function, because the old organ is no more, and the new one is not yet, so nobody is authorized.
If you get any order these days, check first whether the signed person is even allowed to sign it, not to mention the abuse of official stamp.
These days I had a minor showdown with the bank (probably Vojvođanska, nee Banatska, whichever was in vodotoranj at the time). I had some luck to acquire some reserve checks, as these were often a problem, the bank started restricting the amount they gave out, as folks were going into red en masse, or bought stuff writing three checks or more, with dates in the future. Many shops accepted these, specially small private ones. Because folks lacked cash presently, so here's future cash in some shape. While the banks could use future money as they liked, the shopkeepers had to wait for the day on the check to come, and only then cash it. Well, that was not my worry this time, I was safely away from the red, had enoug on my account, just heard some rumor that they now also limited the amount of cash you can raise. And the limit was about a quarter of the amount I wrote on the check to myself.
So there I was, at ground floor of vodotoranj, check in hand, waiting in my queue for more than half an hour, even though they worked four windows. It's not that my queue was any slower than the others, it was just too complicated, it's a bank, and the equipment they had were the same terminals hooked up to the Vaha on sixth floor, same one they had six years ago, which should be fast enough, and it wasn't the cause of slowness anyway, it was the complicated paperwork.
So I waited up and my turn came, the chick took a look at the amount I wrote, and said can not issue this much. How not can, as far as I know I have more than that on my account, why don't you check? I did but can not. What can not, did the bank run out of cash? Well it's not that, we just have a limitation... What limitation, was there some law passed, do you have the official gazette with it, when was it published? Who's the owner of my money, really?
I kept it all pedagogical, from regular voice in the beginning, turning up the volume by a couple of decibels each time. The last sentence was heard across the floor. Well, okay, the nearest dozen. Of course, her boss came up and led me to his office nearby, upstairs. It was all covered in wainscotting, you couldn't see a pedalj of mortar anywhere, leather armchairs (or better fakes)... wow, I thought, if a lowly boss of the frontline unit has such an office, it's obvious where our money goes to die. Turns out we knew each other - he was one of the two guys with acoustic guitars at the august birthdays around 1978. And there he went on with the spiel that this thing of which I think as money is actually just an illusion, it's not mine, it's societal means which were just assigned to me for personal use... Ow yeah right, for which dick do I go to work then? Shit me not, he said, we have a directive... completely illegal but nothing we can do. Lets go behind the counter to get your check cashed - and he signed it in the corner, as approved.
And so I got my money, but with a delay, so that those who witnessed the scene were already gone from the stage, so they wouldn't see its outcome, me getting away with it. Less the gimmick became too popular. That's when I mostly stopped visiting the bank, except to get more checks, which I kept getting because I never went into red... until the august next year.