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The public services and service industry is particularly brutal to non German speakers. The unfriendliness is astounding if you don't speak german

orwin 3y ago
Not my experience in Munich, but French are quite 'rude' too compared to southern Europeans and Anglos, so I would understand why people would think so.
- n_ary 3y ago
  Using Munich, a city entirely non-representative of the rest of the country is a bad idea. Munich in my experience feels like a modern post—current Germany entirely.
  - orwin 3y ago
    I don't know Germany very well, so I bow to your expertise. That's the issue with anecdata, missing context (and why I like being corrected).
  - wink 3y ago
    Now I'm curious how you think it is non-representative? If we're going off waiting times for government stuff it seems to be 10x better than Berlin but 3x worse than any small town where I have friends.
nicbou 3y ago
Even if you do speak German, it's horrendously slow. You can't sit idle for months because this or that office has no appointments to do this or that thing. Things that can be done online elsewhere must be done in person, by appointment. The appointments are hard to get, come weeks later, and only trigger a 2-8 week wait. Language is just icing on the cake.
- jwestbury 3y ago
  I think slow appointments are a thing across the western world right now (and possibly elsewhere, but my knowledge is lacking). I'm currently trying to get my driving license in the UK, as a US immigrant. This means I need to go through the same process as a new driver. The wait was about a month between application and approval for my provisional license, then 1.5 months to take a theory test, then 2 months to take a practical test -- but that was choosing to drive four hours to a test centre with a test available, and if I'd wanted to take one in London, it would have been ~6 months, which is long enough that my American license would have expired and I'd be left unable to drive at all in the interim. (There's still a decent chance this happens, because if I fail the test, it's a month before I can reschedule, and then I probably have to schedule multiple months out again.) Wait times were pretty bad in the US, too, before we left last year. It's not a government thing, but we had foundation work done on our house last year, and the lead time was about eight months between signing the contract and the work being carried out. Permitting alone took several months for what was relatively straightforward work on a single-family dwelling.
  - arprocter 3y ago
    The 6 months expiring thing happened to me - the only amusing thing was the confused look on someone's face after I passed the provisional test and then got in my car by myself and drove off I always found it a little backwards how you can just arrive at Heathrow with a license from anywhere else and jump behind the wheel, but after 6 months you magically lose the ability to drive. Best of luck
  - nicbou 3y ago
    The same thing happened to me in Germany. It got me to start a website about bureaucracy, and now I live from it. Broken bureaucracy is a safe bet. My job is secure for the decades to come.
jamil7 3y ago
Don’t worry, they’re unfriendly if you speak German too.

orwin 3y ago

Not my experience in Munich, but French are quite 'rude' too compared to southern Europeans and Anglos, so I would understand why people would think so.

n_ary 3y ago
Using Munich, a city entirely non-representative of the rest of the country is a bad idea. Munich in my experience feels like a modern post—current Germany entirely.
- orwin 3y ago
  I don't know Germany very well, so I bow to your expertise. That's the issue with anecdata, missing context (and why I like being corrected).
- wink 3y ago
  Now I'm curious how you think it is non-representative? If we're going off waiting times for government stuff it seems to be 10x better than Berlin but 3x worse than any small town where I have friends.

nicbou 3y ago

Even if you do speak German, it's horrendously slow. You can't sit idle for months because this or that office has no appointments to do this or that thing. Things that can be done online elsewhere must be done in person, by appointment. The appointments are hard to get, come weeks later, and only trigger a 2-8 week wait. Language is just icing on the cake.

jwestbury 3y ago
I think slow appointments are a thing across the western world right now (and possibly elsewhere, but my knowledge is lacking). I'm currently trying to get my driving license in the UK, as a US immigrant. This means I need to go through the same process as a new driver. The wait was about a month between application and approval for my provisional license, then 1.5 months to take a theory test, then 2 months to take a practical test -- but that was choosing to drive four hours to a test centre with a test available, and if I'd wanted to take one in London, it would have been ~6 months, which is long enough that my American license would have expired and I'd be left unable to drive at all in the interim. (There's still a decent chance this happens, because if I fail the test, it's a month before I can reschedule, and then I probably have to schedule multiple months out again.) Wait times were pretty bad in the US, too, before we left last year. It's not a government thing, but we had foundation work done on our house last year, and the lead time was about eight months between signing the contract and the work being carried out. Permitting alone took several months for what was relatively straightforward work on a single-family dwelling.
- arprocter 3y ago
  The 6 months expiring thing happened to me - the only amusing thing was the confused look on someone's face after I passed the provisional test and then got in my car by myself and drove off I always found it a little backwards how you can just arrive at Heathrow with a license from anywhere else and jump behind the wheel, but after 6 months you magically lose the ability to drive. Best of luck
- nicbou 3y ago
  The same thing happened to me in Germany. It got me to start a website about bureaucracy, and now I live from it. Broken bureaucracy is a safe bet. My job is secure for the decades to come.

jamil7 3y ago

Don’t worry, they’re unfriendly if you speak German too.