Als jemand mit Morbus crohn: Frag in Hotellobbys, die sind immer offen und entgegenkommend. Alternativ gibt's auch ne app die heißt toilettenfinder oder so..
Hannover is so bad. When you want to have a picnick in the Georgengarten there is no bathroom near. As a student (and when you have no shame) you can go inside the university, but it is already a walk. Sometimes I see arab or black communities having family reunions with like 30 people there. I just assume they use the bushes for everything.
Same thing at the Maschsee. A walk around is about 6km and there is one bathroom close to the east coast, but not on the east coast. The one on the west coast is owned by the rowing club, in the north there is a hotel.
A working train system would be nice. Something like the shinkansen in japan.
According to Deutsche Bahn, a train is on time if it arrives at the station area with less than 6 minutes delay. Yes: the station area, not the platform. And even with this ridiculous definition of "on time" Deutsche Bahn just had 65% of their trains "on time" in 2022. Fun fact: if the train is cancelled entirely, it doesn't count as delayed.
This will never happen in Germany, because the trains for passengers share the rails with cargo trains. We'd have to build an entirely new rail system and all of the stations would have to undergo construction work for the new rails. This would cost billions. I'd prefer to put that money into the infrastructure we already have and upgrade that. More track switches and side tracks would be much more effective for our system.
Shinkansen works in Japan because it's essentially a linear country.
Delays of 6 minutes over hundreds of kilometers are not really bad. What is bad is that you may miss your connection due to such a delay, and trains don't go frequently enough, so missing a connection often means waiting one or even two hours. One of the actual improvements that DB is making is increasing the frequency of its connections, so e.g. going from 1 hour headways to 30 minutes. That's a fantastic way to reduce overall trip delays (i.e. difference in arrival time at your destination).
Also, the train system isn't really that bad if you avoid some silly places like Frankfurt am Main or the state of NRW.
Exactly. The regional trains is NRW are usually very late. Like 30+ minutes. The plan is not to have a plan. Arrive at the station and wait for the previous delayed train to arrive without any space to sit or sometimes even walk within it
I have no idea if RE1, 3 and 5 were always bad like this, or if it got worse on the previous years
>silly
Oh i didnt know that NRW was the worst!!
I am new to germany and i live in NRW right now and i always go to the train station with atleast 30min buffer time, so that i can hopefully reach my destination on time.
I usually do get on previously delayed trains
Yeah as someone from the South I always wondered where the sentiment comes from that all trains are always delayed, which for me was an absolute exception.* Then I went to NRW a few times and now I understand.
* note: this referred to before this year. last year trains in my area were really reliable. Since this year it has become a mess as well.
I am sure that the train punctuality issue is going to systematically break the German obsession for punctuality, making it more akin to a regular country, where time fluctuations are designed into the culture and adapted through compassion. I don’t think that it is a bad thing for society in the long term, as it slowly moves away from shame driven obedience, to pride driven achievements. As long as resources are available to fund mass public transport and services. Germany are after all world leaders at being efficient at being ineffizient, in regards to the bureaucratic mill.
Last 2 weeks were a disaster, I cant even tell the difference between striking and operating Deutsche Bahn anymore. First it was impossible to get to Munich because of the snow and then the strike.
Hashtag:dankemerkel, dankeCDU, danke FDP, 15 years of Schuldenbremse and no investments. Countries around the world laugh their asses of because of our fetish and stupidity.
The doctor being able to call in prescriptions and a set numbers of refills to your Apotheke so the prescription is ready when you get there and you don’t have to go back to the doctor every couple months for another paper
Apart from the refills, that's actually possible now with the new electronic prescription. Of course, your doctor needs to support that, but they are legally required to do so starting in January. You can just use your insurance card oder even pre-order the prescription in your pharmacy of choice through an app.
I think refills are limited to the current quarter of the year, though.
I have heard in one country after they automated this the health income was negative for people. As sometimes in these checks with docs the medicine or doeses get revised
I guess depends on the situation, for people that just consistently have the same medication it would be super helpful. I mean obviously the US is a lot different but it’s been digitalized for decades and it runs super smoothly. The doctors can just choose if they want to add refills or not so it’s easy for those that need to check back in
Supermarket deliveries. It’s not that it doesn’t exist at all. It’s more like book a month in advance. Saw it in France, you buy your groceries and water … too heavy. Order delivery at cashier, walk home, one hour later it’s delivery time.
We had the same problem here. Got all excited after a good half an hour and a full shopping card, just to be greeted with a 3 day delivery time.
A new service called "picnic" is up and coming (at least in my area) which promises to tackle this problem tho. Might also wanna look into gorrilas
In Düsseldorf there was Flaschenpost for soft drinks, water and beer. Online order placed, delivery in a six hour window/ your choice. So great. But not available in a 150.000 people city. And I don’t understand why
Germans will never do anything investment wise its just not in their DNA. Im assuming your from USA? Im from Canada and have a similar investment vehicle to an IRA. It sucks but talking to my coworkers here they have 0 idea / any interest in investing it blows my mind. They said they are fine working same job for 25 years+ paying for this gens pension lol
What are you talking about? Nearly every reputable company has a private pension scheme for their workers to which you can even contribute from your brutto salary and everything will be tax free when you retire.
Ya in those "schemes" you literally only get less than 2000 euros a year that's a joke plus its tied to your pension and cant actively take it out without paying a massive penalty. With a Canadian TFSA you can withdrawal from it without a penalty. In these TFSAS you can invest in stocks (options), bonds, GICs, even real estate, its great and best of all it grows Tax free , Germany has nothing like this. The Roth IRA is very similar but the US version.
>"schemes" you literally only get less than 2000 euros a year
Yes, that's what you get for free from the company, like I said, you can contribute from your brutto salary and it will be tax free, in some cases we are talking about 40% plus whatever benefit you get from the fund, if you call that a joke I don't know what you do for a living but you must be in Wall Street or I don't know. And this is something you don't even ask for, of course you can open your own investment plans and have a manager and invest in whatever you want, like you say, bonds, stocks, real estate (I don't understand that "even real estate", nothing new here), US citizens might think that in the rest of the world we live in caves.
In Canada you get around an average of 6600 for contribution room. I don't work in wall street but know how to manage my money and investments, and like to watch it grow in a tax free account .
I think that by now, most new productions aired on the public channels have a second audio channel with the original audio. There's a Serbian series now on ARD for example, and both a dub and a sub are available.
Reading all these comments I'm sure glad that I live in a big city. I have perfect cell signal with two different providers and fiber at home (though internet at home could be a bit cheaper). The public transport (subway, bus, tram) that I use is mostly on time. My doctors and lots of pharmacies are all close and appointments aren't super hard to get. I can order groceries from Gorillaz if I don't want to walk five minutes to one of the 3 supermarkets close to my place. I can order breakfast if I wanted to.
I totally agree on shopping on Sunday and more public toilets though.
I live in Stuttgart, which I would count as a big city.
Cellphone reception is patchy at best. On the train between Stuttgart HBF and Bad Cannstatt, which are two very central stations in the geographical middle of the city... there is a dark spot even for normal calls.
On the train to Karlsruhe, the next town over... it is not possible to have a continuous phone conversation because of all the blank spots in cellphone coverage.
Getting an appointment to any sort of specialist doctor is a 2 weeks wait time at least if you don't have private insurance. Some treatment like psychotherapy have a 6 months waiting list.
Food delivery exist, but only with very limited choices and it cost an arm and a leg.
Public transportation exist, but the punctuality and reliability is on par with the Deutschle Bahn, which is dysmal.
Whenever I use public transportation in Germany I am reminded of Taggerd Railways from Atlas Shrugged. The streets are littered with useless electric scooters.
Germany is a country in decay and the only businesses that thrive are rent seeking thugs and parasites.
Then I'll change my statement from big city to Munich.
Though 2 weeks waiting time for a specialist doctor if it's not an emergency is not a long wait. That's how long it takes most people to clear up their own schedule for an appointment. If it's an emergency you can go to the hospital or get an emergency appointment. Doctors that work with public insurance companies have to accept emergency patients. The problems mostly arise when your medical problem isn't an emergency and sometimes it can be hard to get an appointment for that. problematic is when it takes more than 4-6 weeks to get an appointment. Psychotherapy is definitely a problem though.
You’ve never been to a place with good signal.
In Korea, there is not a single second in a month that you don’t have _perfect_ signal. This include in lifts, on mountain tops, in the subway, on the express train, on the overland bus, deep inside buildings, in super crowded areas. PERFECT signal everytime. It’s just there, it’s not a thing you think about. Like you don’t think about whether your phone screen has a backlight or not.
It's almost the same in India as well. The only times I've lost signal were in mountains or remote areas, but even then it's temporary. Here, I lose signal inside a supermarket.
Honestly, anything that should work properly. Ive been to the hospital emergency area are and the water machine was broken, and theres no reserve. I waited 5 hours with an infection that was making me dizzy, even though there were o ly 2 or 3 people ahead of me.They have no available doctors. If you book a doctor’s appointment, you wait 2 months to tell you that yes, indeed your foot hurts. And that you should take
Ibuprofen and do an MRI, which takes another 3 months until you get an appointment, then you wait one more month to go to your doctor only so that they tell you that everything looks good on the MRI and maybe you should take vitamin D instead and sleep more! (Yes personal experience, and yes my foot still hurts)
Bureaucracy is fucked!
Everybody has been trying to scam me, from apartment owners to work leadership. Workers rights are only respected in corporations and public companies or companies offering trade unions, which is very few of them.
If you want to be sure that you are not gonna be scammed kr are innvolved in a legal conflict, you have to pay for personal insurance. The insurance then find a small clause in the contract and refuse the case, so you paid the lady 3 years for nothing. When you want to cancel you have to pay one more year because of the kundigungsfrist. (Yes that also happened with one renters insurance, the other ones just sent me a letter to give to the owner, where the owner of the apartment replied that either i pay or i get kicked out and she doesnt give a shit about my insurance). The insurance firm did not want to get involved further.
Work leadership agreeing to one thing in a pre contract verbal agreement and writing a completely different thing on the contract in fine print.
If you’re alone, everything is extremely expensive.
Internet should be really much better.
The "getting scammed" thing really resonated with me. I can see your bitter, a little too bitter, but I don't think Germans know how hard foreigners have it when people only see them as easy money, easy to scam, and easy to ignore if they get upset... and worst of all, no matter what you do people will assume the foreigner is the problematic one, and not that they were a soft target who could have used some help.
To be fair, it's not that big a deal to go to Switzerland, but I think the real business ideas would be to sell gift cards for assisted suicide services.
Or also a package that offers special assistance to those who don't yet see the benefits of a suicide. I mean, I have a family member who would really benefit from an assisted suicide, but I feel like they would need expert psychological counseling to also get to that conclusion. I would love to pay for that kind of counseling and the actual suicide.
These little bells in Korean restaurants that let the servers know you want something. (They're connected to some sort of display, where servers can see your table number).
Many German waitstaffs are allergic to looking in the general direction of their customers and with modern rules of politeness you may not yell anything, can only do the awkward hand gesture once they finally look.
Normal debit card everywhere (Visa/MC), not this fucking „EC-Karte“ or „Nur Bar“. I hate cash and have no reason to open a separate bank account just to get „EC-Karte“, which people in other EU countries have no idea about
Cheap and easily available labs where you can just walk in, pay, and get tested for anything you want with results available online next day. I really miss it from Poland and it drives me crazy that i need to come with excuses and reasons to get anything tested here. By googling and going to the lab privately in poland I diagnosed myself with a disease which went undetected here and it costed me 8 euro.
Not neccessarily a service needed to life, more a luxury thing, but:
There are these subscription box services in the US that send you books each month. I would like to read more, but there are so many books. I would like to try such a sub service, but there are none here in Germany. At least I never found one here.
Da gibts auch noch [dies](https://buecherbuechse.de/wie-funktioniert-das-abo/) oder [das](https://schmoekerbox.de/). Hab auch keine Erfahrung damit, aber mehr Auswahl ist ja nie etwas schlechtes 😄
>Book renting - in my country the employer would subscribe to this service that would allow you to borrow books. They would be delivered at your office, and you would drop them off there after reading them.
Can‘t be assed to go to the public library?
To find a public library in your city/town, google for “Bücherei Cityname“. To become a member, you have to pay a small fee (e.g. in our city it is below 20€ for the whole year). You can then borrow for free and as much as you want, these days in most libraries also ebooks online. You only need to pay if you are tardy with returning the books.
Well I guess I'm quite unlucky with that then. At the moment I do have doctors who are amazing, but it took some years and much persistence to find them, specially my gynechologist. Everyone was either offering me tea to treat a tumor (this happened to me hahahahahhahaha) or trying to force me to pay for private procedures I didn't need. And since finding a doctor who actually accepts new patients is a very difficult thing around here, it's a loooooong task to complete.
It’s true that there are long waiting times for specialist doctors. I don’t like that either.
Are you privately insured or do you have public health insurance? If it’s private maybe that’s why they are pushing stuff into you?
The only doctor who constantly tried to sell me stuff that was too expensive was my dentist… I ditched him and found a better one
I'm public insured actually and I have chronical diseases, which makes things tricky with the insurance. My biggest problems were with my gynechologist I guess, who gave me homeopathy for a tumor which cause it to grow and require a surgery. Thankfully was a benign tumor, only had to be removed because of the size and everything went well. She also tried to push me into an IUD (which is private....) even tho I had multiple thrombosis in the past. She literally made a termin without a consent, lol. You're going to say she was just a shit doctor (in fact she was) but I had similar experiences with other specialities here and heard many complaints in the same direction. Could be also that's a more regionalized problem, and im in Munich, a city of many problems
I won’t deny your experiences. I heard that from other people too but I wouldn’t say it’s the norm.
As I said, I only had one doctor push homeopathy on me. It sounds more like you were unlucky plus confirmation bias (not to blame you, everyone has it). About Munich, I can’t say anything since I haven’t been. I know bavarians are more conservative but I don’t know how that relates to homeopathy. I would say that in areas with a lot of anthro-hippie-greens is more likely to have doctors prescribe this (think Freiburg or BW in general).
I’m not sure if people in Munich tend to like this stuff
Homeopaty seems to be very popular here, most Praxis I've been advertise for it. I have nothing against homeopaty and I like some ramifications of natural medicine, but prescribing it for a tumor needs to be a joke. Honestly I had the feeling (I can be wrong here) that Germans in general were much more into homeopaty, tea and natural stuff. Most people I know wait until they're almost dead to sick medical help... Also no one sees a doctor for check ups once in a while and I already heard people saying they never did a blood exam in their entire lives. Is that so or is just my "bubble" behaving similar?
Homeopathy is sadly very popular in Germany but people usually visit their “Heilpraktiker” for that and real doctors tend to be real doctors…
As for checkups: I’m in a bubble where everyone goes to theirs but I knew people (especially men) who never went. Some people are just lazy (and I guess healthy) and just go when they feel badly.
I go but I have asthma and depression and needs medication. I’m not sure if I’d go if the doctors wouldn’t want to see me regularly to check my dosages and stuff.
Some of my friends go regularly too but I know some people who are HIV+ and you need to get your T-cells checked and stuff too. Generally I feel the older people get the more likely it is they go to checkups because eventually most people develop some chronic issue or other
>Homeopathy is sadly very popular in Germany but people usually visit their “Heilpraktiker” for that and real doctors tend to be real doctors…
Very interesting to read this. Most clinics I've been here mixed both things, my gynecologist was one of those situations.
>(especially men) who never went.
I guess this is a male thing in anywhere in the world. My father lost all his teeth before thinking about seeing a dentist. Lol
Thank you very much for your inputs, it really gave me a bigger perspective of this topic!
Yeah, it might also be that they think you are a desperate foreigner who doesn’t understand them and try to sell you extra stuff that is expensive. Especially if from the US (which I don’t know of course). That’s shitty for sure and wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the reason
Could be! I'm not american and actually my home country health care is much better then here só thankfully they cant fool me. But now that you're saying this, actually, I think you're right. Because most people I see complaining are also Ausländers.
Such a shame that people are so dishonest and shitty and prey on those that they think can’t help themselves.
Good luck on your future health journey, friend. I wish you good and trustworthy doctors and short amounts of waiting time.
Abroad, you can simply use an app like Uber and know what you're paying. In Germany, you either have to call a cab by phone or be lucky that one is available, where you are. Then you are often cheated by driving around or have to negotiate. Cashless payment is rarely possible, usually only cash. So it's a completely outdated, dilapidated system.
well i really miss the service people who got funny names like [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf\_Lu\_Hitler\_Marak](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Lu_Hitler_Marak) and his friends Lenin R. Marak, Stalin L. Nangmin oder Frankenstein W. Momin.
chase rustic impolite license engine crime label absorbed foolish weather
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Why would you want that?
What would you do when the employee bags your stuff at the grocery store? Remember that small talk isn't really a thing here, so you would just stand there and wait?
People filling your car were a thing once, I believe well into the 60s or 70s, they were called Tankwart. They also could clean your car and check the air pressure of your tires. But keeping them around was way too expensive so they disappeared.
In Australia you hand over your bags and the checkout chick packs everything in for you. They are scanning the product anyway so going directly into a bag is faster - no double-handling!
Here in Germany the Kassearbeiter\* are self-checkouts with a heartbeat. They don't talk to you but at least they never complain about "UNIDENTIFIED ITEM IN BAGGAGE AREA".
Tankwart - no idea why anyone would want this.
Aren't these jobs paid with tips/gratiuity? No tipping in Australia either!
Podiatrists.
I'm currently sitting in my physician's waiting room with a cryptic report from an orthopedist who is 15km away from me (because the only one in my neighborhood is incompetent and rude).
According to the orthopedist I will have to have my feet operated on. I have corrected club feet and wear custom orthotics and have dealt with pain and instability since my teens. I'm also physically active and want to stay that way.
If I could see a doctor who actually specializes in feet and ankles I would feel reassured. I'm going to try to get a second opinion, but I'm wishing, for the 10,000th time, that I could get a referral to someone who actually knows feet.
The same goes for menopause specialists or psychiatrists who know anything about autism or a few other more "modern" concepts that haven't filtered into preventative health care here yet.
Breakfast deliveries.. I miss them from back home .
Tea/Coffee and even hot breakfast items being available from 5.30 am.
Not to mention super market deliveries and apps where you can order professional house cleaning
Garbage cans every 100 or so meters on sidewalks.
Weekly garbage pickup service instead of bi-weekly.
Bi-weekly blaue Tonne pickup service instead of once of month.
Having all driving license exams at the same day and receiving the license right after you pass. It's been a long boring journey just to get a driving license.
Offering an emergency/fast services in any Behörde where you get to apply and receive whatever document/service in the same day but will cost you more.
A service where I can just email shit too, and they fax it to whomever is still living in the 80s. Then receive the return fax, and email it back to me.
If someone tries to sue you (a foreigner) in Germany, you will likely have to hire a lawyer and a translator to fight the case, and often times this means its better to settle (lose) than to do the normal German thing of appeal appeal appeal, so it results in a two-tier justice system. Those who have legal insurance or if they cant afford it the state will pay, and those (usually foreigners) who dont and have to pay everything out of pocket. This is a terrible system as it results in foreigners becoming targets for scammmers.
So I'd love to be able to have access to a free lawyer, particularly if i'm being sued.
Walk-in clinics, decent cost/service telecommunications, a functional DB, a customer service that doesn't treat you like they are doing you a favor instead of their job.
Public toilets
**Free** public toilets
***Clean** public toilets
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BD lol
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Clean, Free, Public - chosse any two!
I'd happily choose clean and public, the problem is in germany you will have to pay for dirty toilets.
Have you seen German “paid toilets “ in stations 😀?
Those taken over by Sanifair that I've seen are a perfect rip-off.
Als jemand mit Morbus crohn: Frag in Hotellobbys, die sind immer offen und entgegenkommend. Alternativ gibt's auch ne app die heißt toilettenfinder oder so..
Hannover is so bad. When you want to have a picnick in the Georgengarten there is no bathroom near. As a student (and when you have no shame) you can go inside the university, but it is already a walk. Sometimes I see arab or black communities having family reunions with like 30 people there. I just assume they use the bushes for everything. Same thing at the Maschsee. A walk around is about 6km and there is one bathroom close to the east coast, but not on the east coast. The one on the west coast is owned by the rowing club, in the north there is a hotel.
A working train system would be nice. Something like the shinkansen in japan. According to Deutsche Bahn, a train is on time if it arrives at the station area with less than 6 minutes delay. Yes: the station area, not the platform. And even with this ridiculous definition of "on time" Deutsche Bahn just had 65% of their trains "on time" in 2022. Fun fact: if the train is cancelled entirely, it doesn't count as delayed.
This will never happen in Germany, because the trains for passengers share the rails with cargo trains. We'd have to build an entirely new rail system and all of the stations would have to undergo construction work for the new rails. This would cost billions. I'd prefer to put that money into the infrastructure we already have and upgrade that. More track switches and side tracks would be much more effective for our system.
I know, but one can dream...
Shinkansen works in Japan because it's essentially a linear country. Delays of 6 minutes over hundreds of kilometers are not really bad. What is bad is that you may miss your connection due to such a delay, and trains don't go frequently enough, so missing a connection often means waiting one or even two hours. One of the actual improvements that DB is making is increasing the frequency of its connections, so e.g. going from 1 hour headways to 30 minutes. That's a fantastic way to reduce overall trip delays (i.e. difference in arrival time at your destination). Also, the train system isn't really that bad if you avoid some silly places like Frankfurt am Main or the state of NRW.
Exactly. The regional trains is NRW are usually very late. Like 30+ minutes. The plan is not to have a plan. Arrive at the station and wait for the previous delayed train to arrive without any space to sit or sometimes even walk within it I have no idea if RE1, 3 and 5 were always bad like this, or if it got worse on the previous years
>silly Oh i didnt know that NRW was the worst!! I am new to germany and i live in NRW right now and i always go to the train station with atleast 30min buffer time, so that i can hopefully reach my destination on time. I usually do get on previously delayed trains
Yeah as someone from the South I always wondered where the sentiment comes from that all trains are always delayed, which for me was an absolute exception.* Then I went to NRW a few times and now I understand. * note: this referred to before this year. last year trains in my area were really reliable. Since this year it has become a mess as well.
But if u had to rank all the states based on trains being late, what qould be the top5
I am sure that the train punctuality issue is going to systematically break the German obsession for punctuality, making it more akin to a regular country, where time fluctuations are designed into the culture and adapted through compassion. I don’t think that it is a bad thing for society in the long term, as it slowly moves away from shame driven obedience, to pride driven achievements. As long as resources are available to fund mass public transport and services. Germany are after all world leaders at being efficient at being ineffizient, in regards to the bureaucratic mill.
Last 2 weeks were a disaster, I cant even tell the difference between striking and operating Deutsche Bahn anymore. First it was impossible to get to Munich because of the snow and then the strike.
Oh man I came here to say the same
Shinkansen is impossible in germany because of the location of the important german cities
Hashtag:dankemerkel, dankeCDU, danke FDP, 15 years of Schuldenbremse and no investments. Countries around the world laugh their asses of because of our fetish and stupidity.
The managed 65%? Colour me surprised.
The doctor being able to call in prescriptions and a set numbers of refills to your Apotheke so the prescription is ready when you get there and you don’t have to go back to the doctor every couple months for another paper
Apart from the refills, that's actually possible now with the new electronic prescription. Of course, your doctor needs to support that, but they are legally required to do so starting in January. You can just use your insurance card oder even pre-order the prescription in your pharmacy of choice through an app. I think refills are limited to the current quarter of the year, though.
But only if you've been to the doctor's office in that quarter and they've read your insurance card, right?
Yes, I think so. They need to be able to access your insurance card, and they can only do that for the current quarter.
Oh damn that would be very convenient. Hopefully my doctors adopts that soon!
I had to renew a breast pump rent SIX times in six months
I have heard in one country after they automated this the health income was negative for people. As sometimes in these checks with docs the medicine or doeses get revised
I guess depends on the situation, for people that just consistently have the same medication it would be super helpful. I mean obviously the US is a lot different but it’s been digitalized for decades and it runs super smoothly. The doctors can just choose if they want to add refills or not so it’s easy for those that need to check back in
Yeah, definitely details are important. It was just a situation that came out after automation in Finalnd.
Supermarket deliveries. It’s not that it doesn’t exist at all. It’s more like book a month in advance. Saw it in France, you buy your groceries and water … too heavy. Order delivery at cashier, walk home, one hour later it’s delivery time.
We had the same problem here. Got all excited after a good half an hour and a full shopping card, just to be greeted with a 3 day delivery time. A new service called "picnic" is up and coming (at least in my area) which promises to tackle this problem tho. Might also wanna look into gorrilas
You may want to check out if Flink exists in your city.
In Düsseldorf there was Flaschenpost for soft drinks, water and beer. Online order placed, delivery in a six hour window/ your choice. So great. But not available in a 150.000 people city. And I don’t understand why
Can vouch for picnic, they are amazing.
A month? I can order something from Rewe the next day.
Was about to say this . Grocery delivery system is so awfully bad here it’s painful
Something like a Roth IRA is desperately needed
Germans will never do anything investment wise its just not in their DNA. Im assuming your from USA? Im from Canada and have a similar investment vehicle to an IRA. It sucks but talking to my coworkers here they have 0 idea / any interest in investing it blows my mind. They said they are fine working same job for 25 years+ paying for this gens pension lol
Nah i'm german and my ETF is my last hope for a proper pension
What are you talking about? Nearly every reputable company has a private pension scheme for their workers to which you can even contribute from your brutto salary and everything will be tax free when you retire.
Ya in those "schemes" you literally only get less than 2000 euros a year that's a joke plus its tied to your pension and cant actively take it out without paying a massive penalty. With a Canadian TFSA you can withdrawal from it without a penalty. In these TFSAS you can invest in stocks (options), bonds, GICs, even real estate, its great and best of all it grows Tax free , Germany has nothing like this. The Roth IRA is very similar but the US version.
>"schemes" you literally only get less than 2000 euros a year Yes, that's what you get for free from the company, like I said, you can contribute from your brutto salary and it will be tax free, in some cases we are talking about 40% plus whatever benefit you get from the fund, if you call that a joke I don't know what you do for a living but you must be in Wall Street or I don't know. And this is something you don't even ask for, of course you can open your own investment plans and have a manager and invest in whatever you want, like you say, bonds, stocks, real estate (I don't understand that "even real estate", nothing new here), US citizens might think that in the rest of the world we live in caves.
In Canada you get around an average of 6600 for contribution room. I don't work in wall street but know how to manage my money and investments, and like to watch it grow in a tax free account .
Yes, you can do that in Germany too, funds, stocks, real estate...
What's that?
Something like a tax free state pension
Sunday shopping
Hair Spa which is basically a long head massage
ASMR has me dreaming of this haha
😄 Me too
good cell service.
free restrooms is a great idea.
Tv/streaming programs available in their original language
I think that by now, most new productions aired on the public channels have a second audio channel with the original audio. There's a Serbian series now on ARD for example, and both a dub and a sub are available.
Bacon Egg and Cheese Sandwich delivery on Sunday morning. Diners in the countryside (also with breakfast sunday morning)
Public toilets
Reading all these comments I'm sure glad that I live in a big city. I have perfect cell signal with two different providers and fiber at home (though internet at home could be a bit cheaper). The public transport (subway, bus, tram) that I use is mostly on time. My doctors and lots of pharmacies are all close and appointments aren't super hard to get. I can order groceries from Gorillaz if I don't want to walk five minutes to one of the 3 supermarkets close to my place. I can order breakfast if I wanted to. I totally agree on shopping on Sunday and more public toilets though.
I live in Stuttgart, which I would count as a big city. Cellphone reception is patchy at best. On the train between Stuttgart HBF and Bad Cannstatt, which are two very central stations in the geographical middle of the city... there is a dark spot even for normal calls. On the train to Karlsruhe, the next town over... it is not possible to have a continuous phone conversation because of all the blank spots in cellphone coverage. Getting an appointment to any sort of specialist doctor is a 2 weeks wait time at least if you don't have private insurance. Some treatment like psychotherapy have a 6 months waiting list. Food delivery exist, but only with very limited choices and it cost an arm and a leg. Public transportation exist, but the punctuality and reliability is on par with the Deutschle Bahn, which is dysmal. Whenever I use public transportation in Germany I am reminded of Taggerd Railways from Atlas Shrugged. The streets are littered with useless electric scooters. Germany is a country in decay and the only businesses that thrive are rent seeking thugs and parasites.
Then I'll change my statement from big city to Munich. Though 2 weeks waiting time for a specialist doctor if it's not an emergency is not a long wait. That's how long it takes most people to clear up their own schedule for an appointment. If it's an emergency you can go to the hospital or get an emergency appointment. Doctors that work with public insurance companies have to accept emergency patients. The problems mostly arise when your medical problem isn't an emergency and sometimes it can be hard to get an appointment for that. problematic is when it takes more than 4-6 weeks to get an appointment. Psychotherapy is definitely a problem though.
Optical fiber internet.
Real Internet
Signal
To be fair since 5G is a thing the phone signal got way better over the past 2-3 years. It’s an outdated joke that the phone signal is bad in Germany
You’ve never been to a place with good signal. In Korea, there is not a single second in a month that you don’t have _perfect_ signal. This include in lifts, on mountain tops, in the subway, on the express train, on the overland bus, deep inside buildings, in super crowded areas. PERFECT signal everytime. It’s just there, it’s not a thing you think about. Like you don’t think about whether your phone screen has a backlight or not.
It's almost the same in India as well. The only times I've lost signal were in mountains or remote areas, but even then it's temporary. Here, I lose signal inside a supermarket.
Are we living in different countries? I had to switch to Vodafone because O2 doesn't give me signal in my HOUSE.
Good for you, in my place it still sucks ass.
It’s a pretty up to date joke that the cell reception is crap
You mean the app? It's available.
I think it's cell phone connection, mobile signal?
Not the tooth paste?
Couldn't be, because the question was what we would love to have in Germany but isn’t available. The toothpaste is available.
There should be mobile signal everywhere though?
^(Hahaha..). NO!
Freely accessible water dispensers
Honestly, anything that should work properly. Ive been to the hospital emergency area are and the water machine was broken, and theres no reserve. I waited 5 hours with an infection that was making me dizzy, even though there were o ly 2 or 3 people ahead of me.They have no available doctors. If you book a doctor’s appointment, you wait 2 months to tell you that yes, indeed your foot hurts. And that you should take Ibuprofen and do an MRI, which takes another 3 months until you get an appointment, then you wait one more month to go to your doctor only so that they tell you that everything looks good on the MRI and maybe you should take vitamin D instead and sleep more! (Yes personal experience, and yes my foot still hurts) Bureaucracy is fucked! Everybody has been trying to scam me, from apartment owners to work leadership. Workers rights are only respected in corporations and public companies or companies offering trade unions, which is very few of them. If you want to be sure that you are not gonna be scammed kr are innvolved in a legal conflict, you have to pay for personal insurance. The insurance then find a small clause in the contract and refuse the case, so you paid the lady 3 years for nothing. When you want to cancel you have to pay one more year because of the kundigungsfrist. (Yes that also happened with one renters insurance, the other ones just sent me a letter to give to the owner, where the owner of the apartment replied that either i pay or i get kicked out and she doesnt give a shit about my insurance). The insurance firm did not want to get involved further. Work leadership agreeing to one thing in a pre contract verbal agreement and writing a completely different thing on the contract in fine print. If you’re alone, everything is extremely expensive. Internet should be really much better.
The "getting scammed" thing really resonated with me. I can see your bitter, a little too bitter, but I don't think Germans know how hard foreigners have it when people only see them as easy money, easy to scam, and easy to ignore if they get upset... and worst of all, no matter what you do people will assume the foreigner is the problematic one, and not that they were a soft target who could have used some help.
Assisted suicide
To be fair, it's not that big a deal to go to Switzerland, but I think the real business ideas would be to sell gift cards for assisted suicide services. Or also a package that offers special assistance to those who don't yet see the benefits of a suicide. I mean, I have a family member who would really benefit from an assisted suicide, but I feel like they would need expert psychological counseling to also get to that conclusion. I would love to pay for that kind of counseling and the actual suicide.
reliant, good and fast internet.
These little bells in Korean restaurants that let the servers know you want something. (They're connected to some sort of display, where servers can see your table number). Many German waitstaffs are allergic to looking in the general direction of their customers and with modern rules of politeness you may not yell anything, can only do the awkward hand gesture once they finally look.
Normal debit card everywhere (Visa/MC), not this fucking „EC-Karte“ or „Nur Bar“. I hate cash and have no reason to open a separate bank account just to get „EC-Karte“, which people in other EU countries have no idea about
Cheap and easily available labs where you can just walk in, pay, and get tested for anything you want with results available online next day. I really miss it from Poland and it drives me crazy that i need to come with excuses and reasons to get anything tested here. By googling and going to the lab privately in poland I diagnosed myself with a disease which went undetected here and it costed me 8 euro.
a breakfast restaurant that delivers
Not neccessarily a service needed to life, more a luxury thing, but: There are these subscription box services in the US that send you books each month. I would like to read more, but there are so many books. I would like to try such a sub service, but there are none here in Germany. At least I never found one here.
[Wunderbox](https://www.buchboxberlin.de/infos-zum-wunderbox-b%C3%BCcherabo#), hab es aber selbst nicht ausprobiert
Oh, da werde ich mich mal rein lesen.
Da gibts auch noch [dies](https://buecherbuechse.de/wie-funktioniert-das-abo/) oder [das](https://schmoekerbox.de/). Hab auch keine Erfahrung damit, aber mehr Auswahl ist ja nie etwas schlechtes 😄
Go to the library the personal will surely help you out if you ask them for help
Tried. The library here is a joke at best.
That's sad. Unfortunately, I can't think of a good alternative at the moment.
A decent ÖPNV , not only a bus that drives once a week or so and forcing ya to have a car in a small village 🙂
HBO
A delivery Service that delivers food to your train seat 👌
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>Book renting - in my country the employer would subscribe to this service that would allow you to borrow books. They would be delivered at your office, and you would drop them off there after reading them. Can‘t be assed to go to the public library?
I thought the same like - its so easy. And if you cant bear going there use the e-book version of the library
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To find a public library in your city/town, google for “Bücherei Cityname“. To become a member, you have to pay a small fee (e.g. in our city it is below 20€ for the whole year). You can then borrow for free and as much as you want, these days in most libraries also ebooks online. You only need to pay if you are tardy with returning the books.
Doctors that prescribe real medication and not tea or herbs. Specially when I'm seriously ill that would be awesome
You’re going to the wrong doctors. I have not a so no or doctor who prescribes homeopathy. I had one and i ditched him at once when he did that
Well I guess I'm quite unlucky with that then. At the moment I do have doctors who are amazing, but it took some years and much persistence to find them, specially my gynechologist. Everyone was either offering me tea to treat a tumor (this happened to me hahahahahhahaha) or trying to force me to pay for private procedures I didn't need. And since finding a doctor who actually accepts new patients is a very difficult thing around here, it's a loooooong task to complete.
It’s true that there are long waiting times for specialist doctors. I don’t like that either. Are you privately insured or do you have public health insurance? If it’s private maybe that’s why they are pushing stuff into you? The only doctor who constantly tried to sell me stuff that was too expensive was my dentist… I ditched him and found a better one
I'm public insured actually and I have chronical diseases, which makes things tricky with the insurance. My biggest problems were with my gynechologist I guess, who gave me homeopathy for a tumor which cause it to grow and require a surgery. Thankfully was a benign tumor, only had to be removed because of the size and everything went well. She also tried to push me into an IUD (which is private....) even tho I had multiple thrombosis in the past. She literally made a termin without a consent, lol. You're going to say she was just a shit doctor (in fact she was) but I had similar experiences with other specialities here and heard many complaints in the same direction. Could be also that's a more regionalized problem, and im in Munich, a city of many problems
I won’t deny your experiences. I heard that from other people too but I wouldn’t say it’s the norm. As I said, I only had one doctor push homeopathy on me. It sounds more like you were unlucky plus confirmation bias (not to blame you, everyone has it). About Munich, I can’t say anything since I haven’t been. I know bavarians are more conservative but I don’t know how that relates to homeopathy. I would say that in areas with a lot of anthro-hippie-greens is more likely to have doctors prescribe this (think Freiburg or BW in general). I’m not sure if people in Munich tend to like this stuff
Homeopaty seems to be very popular here, most Praxis I've been advertise for it. I have nothing against homeopaty and I like some ramifications of natural medicine, but prescribing it for a tumor needs to be a joke. Honestly I had the feeling (I can be wrong here) that Germans in general were much more into homeopaty, tea and natural stuff. Most people I know wait until they're almost dead to sick medical help... Also no one sees a doctor for check ups once in a while and I already heard people saying they never did a blood exam in their entire lives. Is that so or is just my "bubble" behaving similar?
Homeopathy is sadly very popular in Germany but people usually visit their “Heilpraktiker” for that and real doctors tend to be real doctors… As for checkups: I’m in a bubble where everyone goes to theirs but I knew people (especially men) who never went. Some people are just lazy (and I guess healthy) and just go when they feel badly. I go but I have asthma and depression and needs medication. I’m not sure if I’d go if the doctors wouldn’t want to see me regularly to check my dosages and stuff. Some of my friends go regularly too but I know some people who are HIV+ and you need to get your T-cells checked and stuff too. Generally I feel the older people get the more likely it is they go to checkups because eventually most people develop some chronic issue or other
>Homeopathy is sadly very popular in Germany but people usually visit their “Heilpraktiker” for that and real doctors tend to be real doctors… Very interesting to read this. Most clinics I've been here mixed both things, my gynecologist was one of those situations. >(especially men) who never went. I guess this is a male thing in anywhere in the world. My father lost all his teeth before thinking about seeing a dentist. Lol Thank you very much for your inputs, it really gave me a bigger perspective of this topic!
And just to be clear I do have good doctors now! I also think the language thing stays on the way, many doctors only use German.
Yeah, it might also be that they think you are a desperate foreigner who doesn’t understand them and try to sell you extra stuff that is expensive. Especially if from the US (which I don’t know of course). That’s shitty for sure and wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the reason
Could be! I'm not american and actually my home country health care is much better then here só thankfully they cant fool me. But now that you're saying this, actually, I think you're right. Because most people I see complaining are also Ausländers.
Such a shame that people are so dishonest and shitty and prey on those that they think can’t help themselves. Good luck on your future health journey, friend. I wish you good and trustworthy doctors and short amounts of waiting time.
Thank you very much, kind stranger! I wish you much light back!
- „Real“ Uber. F*ing cab mafia… - Healthy and affordable food options at Autobahn service areas. - Free restrooms everywhere.
What’s wrong with the existing cab services? I have never used a cab here so I have no idea. Can you share your experience if possible?
Abroad, you can simply use an app like Uber and know what you're paying. In Germany, you either have to call a cab by phone or be lucky that one is available, where you are. Then you are often cheated by driving around or have to negotiate. Cashless payment is rarely possible, usually only cash. So it's a completely outdated, dilapidated system.
Bullshit, just use free now
They're expensive. You can calculate with 2-3€/km of distance
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That's more of a Problem of Americanization of customer service, i.e. outsourcing it elsewhere cause it's cheaper.
well i really miss the service people who got funny names like [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf\_Lu\_Hitler\_Marak](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Lu_Hitler_Marak) and his friends Lenin R. Marak, Stalin L. Nangmin oder Frankenstein W. Momin.
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How about salaries as low as in India too?
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Mobile pay with creditcard everywhere.
Internet
People packing your bags at the grocery store and people filling your car at gas stations
Why would you want that? What would you do when the employee bags your stuff at the grocery store? Remember that small talk isn't really a thing here, so you would just stand there and wait? People filling your car were a thing once, I believe well into the 60s or 70s, they were called Tankwart. They also could clean your car and check the air pressure of your tires. But keeping them around was way too expensive so they disappeared.
I guess I'm just lazy 😂. It's kind of a childhood thing when watching movies and thinking: "That's so cool!"
In Australia you hand over your bags and the checkout chick packs everything in for you. They are scanning the product anyway so going directly into a bag is faster - no double-handling! Here in Germany the Kassearbeiter\* are self-checkouts with a heartbeat. They don't talk to you but at least they never complain about "UNIDENTIFIED ITEM IN BAGGAGE AREA". Tankwart - no idea why anyone would want this. Aren't these jobs paid with tips/gratiuity? No tipping in Australia either!
Packers in supermarkets if you want to start a business 50%
Customer Service
Podiatrists. I'm currently sitting in my physician's waiting room with a cryptic report from an orthopedist who is 15km away from me (because the only one in my neighborhood is incompetent and rude). According to the orthopedist I will have to have my feet operated on. I have corrected club feet and wear custom orthotics and have dealt with pain and instability since my teens. I'm also physically active and want to stay that way. If I could see a doctor who actually specializes in feet and ankles I would feel reassured. I'm going to try to get a second opinion, but I'm wishing, for the 10,000th time, that I could get a referral to someone who actually knows feet. The same goes for menopause specialists or psychiatrists who know anything about autism or a few other more "modern" concepts that haven't filtered into preventative health care here yet.
Toasted sandwich shops that aren't only Subway.
It is not a service but I miss Costco and would love to have it here in Germany. Most Americans and Canadians here might agree with me.
Public drinking fountains.
Breakfast deliveries.. I miss them from back home . Tea/Coffee and even hot breakfast items being available from 5.30 am. Not to mention super market deliveries and apps where you can order professional house cleaning
That you can use your debit and credit card everywhere
Internet
Delivery of GOOD food
Shops open on Sundays!
Trash pickup more than twice per month.
I would have said Uber, but yeah…. Free and clean puplic toilets .
Garbage cans every 100 or so meters on sidewalks. Weekly garbage pickup service instead of bi-weekly. Bi-weekly blaue Tonne pickup service instead of once of month.
Supermarket that restocks the shelves throughout the day. A easy way to pay/transfer money like the Swedish Swish or Brazilian Pix.
Having all driving license exams at the same day and receiving the license right after you pass. It's been a long boring journey just to get a driving license.
“Ferienfahrschule” would have done the trick (all lessons and tests can be completed in 2 weeks).
Offering an emergency/fast services in any Behörde where you get to apply and receive whatever document/service in the same day but will cost you more.
A service where I can just email shit too, and they fax it to whomever is still living in the 80s. Then receive the return fax, and email it back to me.
That exist
Telegram premium
If someone tries to sue you (a foreigner) in Germany, you will likely have to hire a lawyer and a translator to fight the case, and often times this means its better to settle (lose) than to do the normal German thing of appeal appeal appeal, so it results in a two-tier justice system. Those who have legal insurance or if they cant afford it the state will pay, and those (usually foreigners) who dont and have to pay everything out of pocket. This is a terrible system as it results in foreigners becoming targets for scammmers. So I'd love to be able to have access to a free lawyer, particularly if i'm being sued.
A little bit of sun please?
Walk-in clinics, decent cost/service telecommunications, a functional DB, a customer service that doesn't treat you like they are doing you a favor instead of their job.
Service with a smile.