It's as easy to learn as your ABC; it’s murder by numbers, 1, 2, 3 (The Police)

Photo by Markus Krisetya on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Have you ever noticed that numbers are everywhere and the exact number you need is often not at hand?

A large dollop of frustration happened today as I tried (in vain) to find my IRD number.

You see, I am about to turn 65 years old - retirement age in Nu Zild. I know! Crazy talk, right? 

I don't intend to retire from work for a spell, but I do now qualify for the NZ government superannuation, a.k.a. the pension. As I've been contributing to government coffers by working and contributing my share of tax since 1983, I figure that it's fair I now get a little back.

To apply for that though, I needed to fill out forms and one form requires, you guessed it - my IRD number (amidst a sea of other numbers - bank account; mobile phone; pin codes; birth dates and on and on).

To even get that far, I had to have a client number and then an MSD number.

I had to wait until I got home last night to find the IRD one on an old document called 'Important Dates and Addresses'.

So, in the end it took two days to complete all the steps necessary, which included, just when I thought I'd finished, the need for Jacky to verify that she's married to me.

More numbers as she now needed a client number, an MSD number and yada yada yada.

Perhaps the thinking is that the more difficult the process, the less inclined retired people will be to keep going with it.

Gotta tell ya - it was a pretty mind numbing exercise.

Love and peace - Wozza