Adjusting to a land famous for Bureaucracy!

 The B word in Germany!

What is the B word? Bureaucracy, in this case.  I had no idea bureaucracy ruled every aspect of life here!  This was my short post I wrote on Facebook in September of 2019, two months after I moved to Erlangen, Germany.  I was running around to different Amts, or government offices to apply for my residence card, enroll for integration courses, obtain a drivers license, etc.  

"German bureaucracy is no joke....and I am learning to be patient which is not easy for me, coming from the US and being Korean!

Today I accomplished one major task, to apply for government permission to finally take a German integration course...

A program manager from the community college/school helped me enroll for the course and ruled out that I am not a foreign worker, temporary visitor or refugee/political asylum seeker. I was just a foreigner with a German spouse and an official residency card!

She helped me submit a form to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees which had the longest title ever:

“Application for admission to an integration course (language and orientation course) for foreigners in accordance with paragraph 4 sentence 1 of the residence act”

I used google translate of course!"

I am able to laugh about all of this looking back now, one year and a half later, And I had it easier with Marc helping me translate all the paperwork and letters and documents. I can't imagine what it is like for a foreigner to do this all by oneself....

I still remember vividly the day the teens and I went to the local bank to open our accounts. We just needed to open a basic bank account and apply for a debit card, or EC card. After meeting with the bank manager for almost 45 minutes, we finally had our new accounts. The funniest moment was when the manager apologized to me as he was handing us our bank folders. It was quite a full folder with at least 20 pages of paperwork. Then he started apologizing profusely and said, I am so sorry for all the papers, Mrs. Chang. In Germany, we have too much paperwork!" I started laughing and assured with him that it was totally fine and not his fault! I also added that I hope German businesses becomes more online focused and save the trees! He laughed with me and wished us a good day.

Being Patient is a Virtue.....in Germany!

The car buying experience was so different and time consuming when we started looking for a car in August of 2019. We arrived in July and used a rental car from time to time and Marc joined a car sharing membership as well. It worked out ok for few months but we really needed to get a car for bigger shopping trips and longer trips. I remember the day when we walked into the local VW dealer and asked if we could test drive a car. The sales person looked at us a bit puzzled and said, no, you need to make an appointment. No one is available to help you and no car is free for a test drive. What the heck? I looked at Marc and gave him a long annoying look. Hmmmm this is interesting.....

It turns out that in German car dealers, you need to make an appointment to arrange the test drive because they test drive car has to have a special license plate while test driving. And of course the available appointment was two weeks later because the sales person was going to be on vacation! OH, My! I forgot about the summer holidays in Germany! After all it was August and everyone was on vacation! This was before corona times of course.

This experience reminded me how different business culture was in Germany and how things are more formal and appointment based. I was quite surprised that the car dealer guy did not want to sell me a car that day while we were there! What kind of business man is he? Does he want to make a sale today? It was so different from the States. I remember buying my first car in the US, a VW Jetta, funny enough, and the car dealer was so eager and excited to sell the car ASAP! It was a bit annoying since he was definitely an aggressive sales person, but at least I got my car in the next few days!

I remember an American friend of mine also relating her experience about buying furniture here. She was so excited to buy new furniture but then when she went to the store to actually buy a sofa, the salesperson said the furniture would need to be ordered and it would take at least 3 months! And this was not even during the pandemic. So, she and her family begged the salesperson to buy any furniture available from the show room. It was hilarious as she was telling me the story.

I can now write about these events and smile and joke about them. However it was difficult during the experience and sometimes just puzzling and confusing. If we were told what to expect, that would have made things easier, or at least better prepared. Bureaucratic wait times and paperwork is notoriously well known here. As I started establishing a Kimchi business here in Germany, Marc and I were both learning how challenging and time consuming some regulations are here to follow. Especially food regulations... But as my husband keeps saying, patience is a virtue especially in the land of bureacracy. Unfortunately my patience is running out at times! Wish me luck.....and thanks for reading!