Frustrations of Living Abroad

Call this silly, but this little problem caused me a lot of grievance this morning. I am in the process of filling out my insurance claim for when I was sick last month and it sure is a frustrating process. I had no problems calling the insurance company and making a claim (I’ve forgotten what good customer service is like), and I had no problem filling out the form either. The biggest issue I had, was printing out the form.

Usually, printing is simple right? Control-P or File-Print and then the printer spits out what you want. But this was not the case. I printed it as normal and then realized, it was cut off at the bottom. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the default paper size of the claim form was 8.5″ by 14″ or legal paper size in North America. It wouldn’t let me shrink it so that I could print it on A4 paper size. What the hell?!

No where else in the world is this a standard paper size (US and Canada are the only countries that don’t follow the international framework – ISO 216). Being a travel insurance company, surely they’re obviously going to be getting people claiming stuff from overseas. Shouldn’t they have chosen a paper size that is a little more universal? Say 8.5″ by 11″? That isn’t so far off of the international standard of A4.

Good grief.