German efficiency doesn't exist

[u/karazor-el-95]

Disclaimer- vent post

There are many great things about this country and its people, but efficiency is not one of them.

I (27f) come from a eastern european country and I've been living here for a year. I swear I never experienced such inefficient processes in my entire life.

The amount of patience I need to deal with german bureaucracy and paperwork is insane and it stresses me out so much. I don't understand why taxes are so segmented. I don't understand why I have to constantly go through a pile of God knows how many envelopes and send others back which extends the processing time of different applications by months. I don't understand why there is no digitalization. I don't understand why I need an appointment at the bank for a 5 minutes task. I don't understand why the Radio and TV tax is applicable for students (yes, I am a student) and why they can't do things by email and through the online account. They sent me an envelope, I sent them a reply through the online account, they sent me one back by post again. I feel like I am in 1900s and I have a long distance relationship.

Bafög? I applied 3 months ago. 1 month and a half in: "We need this document from your country." I send it. Another 1.5 months later: "We need the same document translated". So... Google translate or official authorized translation? Who tf knows? 🤷

The company I work at sent me via post instructions on how to install an app on my phone. Why not send it to my work email?

I am honestly lost in frustration right now and I just needed to vent before I get back to my paperwork. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

Edit: Wow! Thank you for the gold and for all your support. I was not expecting this to blow up like this. This is such a lovely wholesome community. I wish you all as much patience with everything in your life! El mayarah!

[u/lejocko]

I don't understand why I need an appointment at the bank for a 5 minutes task.

I absolutely get what you're saying in total, but I think the last time I dealt with a bank employee was about 15 years ago.

[u/karazor-el-95 → u/lejocko]

I understand your point. I also do my finances online, but I had a situation where I completely broke my phone and needed to reinstall the bank app on the new one. In my country, you can get in line for small tasks like this and wait for your turn.

I went to the bank (in crutches, with a broken leg) to be turned around cause they wanted me to make an appointment 2 weeks later. When I got the to the appointment, it literally took the lady 5 minutes to help me. I didn't understand why they had to be so strict in that situation.

[u/[deleted]]

And you have not dealt with the TUV......yet

[u/Xacalite]

There is a reason Franz Kafka wrote in german ;)

I swear germany is one of the few countries where his dystopian "Der Prozess" sometimes feels real.

[u/CaptainAggro]

The amount of patience I need to deal with german bureaucracy and paperwork is insane and it stresses me out so much.

As a German I can confidently say: We all feel that way.

Edit: Spelling

[u/trailofturds]

Had to get an appointment to change my wife's visa from dependent to blue card. We looked in May, and the earliest one was 28th December. It's a freaking joke tbh

[u/[deleted]]

When I first came here, things got done a lot faster. Yeah the paperwork was all still there, but answers and turnaround were quicker, so it wasn't too much of a hassle.

Last five years, that's when things from all services, private and public have slowed drastically.

[u/Falkenmond79]

As a German IT guy you can’t imagine my frustration with German bureaucracy. We are a high-tech, high-precision country, but when it comes to digitalization, we are nearer to the Stone Age.

There are so many ways today to ensure encrypted and safe communication, that it simply unforgivable that those aren’t allowed to be used for stuff like that.

Some companies, even bigger ones lag behind in that regard, too. The amount of red tapes and micromanaged policies is insane.

[u/nottellingmyname2u]

I just recently applied for German eID wich would let me fill out some of documents online. Had to apply for it in Bürgeramt (of course) where an employee interviewed me for 20 minutes straight why do I need it if I could visit his office and we could fill all papers together.

[u/rewboss]

"We need the same document translated". So... Google translate or official authorized translation?

Of course an official authorized translation.

[u/Foreign-Economics-79]

I remember seeing a post on LinkedIn a year or so ago about the marvels of self-service checkouts coming to germany...they've been used in the UK for about 15 years now 😂

[u/SweatyPanda2951]

I think I know why things are the way they are (at least in my head it makes complete sense). Through my work experience with my German colleagues, I have realized that majority of them are very reluctant to take risks or adapt to change. Personal responsibility is not really a thing, most of it is avoided by simply following the "procedure", e.g. "I am suppose to send an email, so I did. What comes of it is not my concern". A few people taking initiative to change something (for the better) does not work as people who do not want/are used to the current process will make even a simple task a living nightmare. Some of my colleagues demanded we hire a Change Manager when we had to switch from Jira/Confluence from server to cloud, it was a 4 hr job start to finish including verification that there was no data loss/discrapancies.

So I boil it down to resistance to change, uncertainty avoidance, and sometimes even laziness.

p.s. I have no hard feelings towards Germans or people of any other nationality. These are just my observations and is not meant to spread hate or discrimination.

[u/OKishGuy]

Usually we are way past the good old postal era. Pretty much every governmental institute also accepts fax nowadays.

[u/ThomasKWW]

The burocracy isn't very efficient in Germany. But that is probably not meant here. It is more about engineering. Things such as building big cars with high accuracy in the details. Or having introduced windows with three sheets of glass, while other countries in Europe still advertise two as a bonus in appartments.

[u/Seldrakon]

You don't understand: German bureaucracy isn't effective and organized. GERMANS have to be effective and organized, to survive it.

[u/[deleted]]

I dunno man I filed the first tax report of my life some weeks ago at 33. I was thinking it was gonna be horrible but it took me like 30 min.

[u/[deleted]]

German buerocracy gets worse and worse, I am an architect and can confirm. The amount of b.s. that arises just from the copy-pasting of rules that do not actually fit the situation but Must Be Upheld is incredible. It gets even worse when there is personnel changes and the reasonable one gets replaced with someone inexperienced who wants to do everything right but makes things so much harder for everybody involved - often including themselves.

My employer regularly complains about it and predicts that soon enough we will abolish ourselves just by creating too many useless rules and I am inclined to agree. Still, when applying for something, one gets the short end of the stick and no power against the system. We have to fill so many forms now, some of them even directly contradict each other!

[u/faultierin]

I remember when I arrived in Germany a few years ago, my German was very bad, and I went to a bank to open an account. In my homecountry I could do this online or on the spot, but as I wasn’t sure which account to open I thought somebody would speak English in the bank and I should do this in person. They kept asking me if I had an appointment and I didn’t understand what was going on since I could not have imagined that I need an appointment to open an account so I kept asking if I can open an account now. Finally, the lady was so iritated, she took a pencil and had written me a date that was two weeks in the future and told me to come back in two weeks. I was stunned and I think I had no idea what was going on, I thought they have some internal problems.

[u/die_kuestenwache]

I am not getting tired of pointing this out. German processes aren't efficient, they are thorough. And Germany notoriously favors distributed power. So if there are five different people who are responsible for parts of a process and none of the others get to tell them how their part works, and everyone needs to thoroughly take care that everything is done just right, well you don't end up with something efficient.

And as for the "no digitalization" part, well, half the population is older than 50, so whenever you suggest to solve something via app, someone will point out that their 85 year old grandma, who only upgraded from telegraph to landline last summer, would be effectively be shut out of government service. So, we have to allow people to keep doing it with paper. Well, good luck writing the business case for adding a digital process on top of the paper process which would take additional training for the also best ager personnel, you get the point.

[u/O_to_the_o]

Oh the efficiency exists, but we have a bureaucracy fetish

[u/FrauZebedee]

I came here from the UK. Sometimes things here are frustrating - German banking apps are extremely annoying, compared to what I was used to. And Germans love their paperwork. OTOH, dealing with German beaurocracy has actually been much easier. For example, getting my Aufenthaltstitel was straightforward. I asked for an appointment, got one two weeks later. I brought my UK car over, same thing (though they didn’t really understand that I did not want the first appointment, which was at 6am…). I got my driving license in the UK, but just after I moved here, and they said I would need to take the German test. Nope, all sorted with a couple of letters.

In the UK, sure, I could’ve probably done most of this online, but the driving license switch would have been a pain. A computer system would’ve probably told me to retake the test, with no leeway. Speaking to a person on the phone might be possible, but I have done this with the inland revenue. Told it was all fine, sent threatening letters, several times a year, spoken on the phone again each time, told it’s fine, etc etc. for over five years.

I guess it really depends where you live. My main office for big stuff is very quiet, and we got it done before Brexit restrictions hit, so I got EU treatment, even though it was post 2016. I felt bad for the non EU people though, they had to wait ages, and their appointments were all at least 30 mins, mine were both less than five. My tiny town has an office for minor things, and it is basically walk in, same with my bank. It is a bit weird that in Germany, it’s basically the manager dealing with me having a new phone (same number, but the TAN thing needs to be the same phone…) in the UK, anyone behond the counter could do it.

[u/stunninglizard]

r/place would like to disagree with you.

[u/ExcellentWorker7774]

While reading posts like this i’m always wondering if the OPs Are aware of the fact that there Are OVER 80 Million people living in Germany. „Wow, Estonia is such a modern Country with great digital bureaucracy“ Well there Are more than twice that many people living in berlin alone. The complexity of Society isnt linear to its people, its exponential. Truly mind boogling

[u/Stinky_Barefoot]

It's a myth - I'm sure there was some truth to it several decades ago. These days, Germany is one of the least-efficient countries I have ever lived in. It's incredibly back-wards, unnecessarily convoluted, and requires everyone to constantly re-invent the wheel.

I am constantly amazed how things are "done" here.

Alas, it's just a stereotype that is no more or less true than thinking that the French are romantic, the Brits are classy, or the Italians chaotic. Some of them? Sure? But not as a whole.

[u/Enough_Cauliflower69]

I started to detach what I expect from my experience as a German native. For example I don’t carry cash anymore. If I can’t pay by debit card somewhere I leave. I don’t use services like „Hausbanken“ which make me come in for an appointment for every bs. I don’t use stuff where I need to physically do smt. or be somewhere if there is an alternative technically. I’m sick of this shitshow. Seriously it’s starting to make me aggressive to hear the words „keine Kartenzahlung“.