Bootstrapping with a Maze of Dependencies (October 28, 2005)

Bootstrapping in Switzerland is hard. It's always hard to move somewhere different because you are building up from almost nothing. It's particularly hard in Switzerland, though, because you don't just walk up and buy what you need. Everything has prerequisites, and to get started, you have to sort your activities carefully. Some of the dependencies are cyclical, and so you must break the cycle and get started by doing things half-baked at first and then returning later to do the properly.

The most vicious cycle is between housing and the "B Permit" that proves you are a legal resident. Many, many things require showing a B Permit -- it's even more severe here than in Denmark with its national ID cards. Getting housing requires a B Permit, but getting a permit requires having a local residence.

There are many such dependencies. Here are some items that are needed (or at least desirable) to bootstrap in a new country:

• HOUSING - you need a place to live long-term.
• BANK - you need a bank account to hold your money.
• HR - you need to go through human resources at your employer.
• INCOME - you need to establish a stream of income to pay for things.
• INTERNET - this is necessary only if you are not omniscient. For the mortals among us, the Internet provides information for doing everything else. (Don't ask me how people got started here back in the dark ages.)
• PHONE - necessary only if you are not omniscient. It lets you work with local contacts to get things done. Connections are vital around here for making things happen in the face of regulations and guilds and so on.
• PERMIT - a good ole' national ID card. Without it you may as well not exist for many purposes.

That's a short list. Now here is what those things depend on:

• PERMIT : HOUSING + HR. You can't get a permit without proof that you reside here and proof that you have a job and can support yourself.
• BANK : HOUSING. You can't get an account without a home address.
• HOUSING : HR + PERMIT + INTERNET. In practice, you cannot get apartment without all of: proving you will have income to pay for the place, having a residence permit showing that you are legal, and without having access to information about available housing.
• INTERNET : There are a zillion ways to get Internet access, some better than others. I'd rather sit at home and surf from an easy chair, but when getting started I don't have a home or an easy chair and so some other approach is necessary. Anyway, since Internet access doesn't have any hard dependencies, it is one of the first things that I worked on.
• INCOME : HR. You don't get paid until you have signed lots of legal documents, etc.
• HR : BANK + PERMIT. Human resources, at least at EPFL, needs you to have a residence permit. Further, they will only pay you if you have a bank account -- they don't issue checks here.
• PHONE : PERMIT. Cell phone cards, at least, are only given out to those who have a residence permit. A passport is not enough.

Here are some typical cycle-breaking hacks to get bootstrapped in the face of the above mess of dependencies:

• Live on the floor at a friend's place when you first arrive. That way you have a "residence" of sorts to satisfy everyone who wants you to have HOUSING.
• Pay using Visa or an ATM card from your home country. This loses you a lot of money due to currency-transfer fees, but it means that you can survive without INCOME for a while.
• Go through human-resources without getting paid at first. Then you don't need a BANK account to get through human resources. Come back later when you have an account.
• Some banks are looser about the housing restriction than others. In particular, the local bank BCV in my locale is satisfied if you show them a passport and a U.S. driver's license (don't ask me what the logic is!). So shop around for the easiest account to get, not the best account. Get a better account (if you care) later on after you are better established.
• Suck it up and pay massive fees--on the order of 20 CHF/hour--for Internet access at the train station. I know there are cafe's around that have free access, but I haven't dug them yet -- that takes time that is better spent on other things. Besides, the train station is conveniently located both for running to to get information and for departing to wherever you need to go next.

I'm told that life in Switzerland moves like clockwork once you make it through all the initial bureaucratic dependencies and are thoroughly inspected, branded, stamped, and papered. Since everything requires all these cards and papers and so on, however, it certainly is hard to get started. I wonder what people do here who don't have my advantages, e.g. political refugees? I doubt it's impossible, but the "mere" week I've spent working full time on this would probably not be enough.

Lex Spoon