Two weeks ago i thought of introducing a new category to my blog: Grouch of the month. I wanted to honour wonderful and lovely behaviour like the one cashier at my local grocery store. We had a thanksgiving dinner for friends and part of it was a pumpkin dish with sage (Amazingly good!!!!).
I went to the store and just found an awful looking old plant which they called sage. I saw that you could maybe use half of it so i asked the cashier for a discount. She looked at me like i told her she wouldn't get any vacation days for the rest of her life anymore. In the typical nasty berliner Schnauze-style she said: Det kann ick nich entscheiden und det mach ick och hier nich. (I can't decide that and something like that I don't do). That made me really angry and I said: So get me one who can decide that. At that point I didn't care that the line behind me got bigger. It is not my fault that even in better stores normally just 2 cash outs are open? Her face expressed sheer hate and with the biggest disgust ever she called someone. The superior who came gave it to me for 1/2 price. When I left I smiled at the grouchy woman and thanked her for her wonderful service. She must have had a muscle paralyzation because her expression didn't change at all the whole time I was there. If not I would recomend therapy: How can I learn to get happy in life and if it is not possible for me how can I hide my negative attitude so I don't ruin the day of other people!!!!! Does anybody know a therapist who offers that??? I would love to hand over the adress and phone number!!!!
Well, the story above is nothing compared to the experience my girlfriend and I had with a Deutsche Beamtin. And she will be named: GROUCH OF THE YEAR and we should send her a thank you-card for making our life so difficult.
As I mentioned in an earlier post my gf does a master program at Humboldt-University here in Berlin. In 2008 she got granted a 2 years student visa. Since she needs another half a year to finish she had to renew her visa. So we went to the Ausländer-Behörde together and we thougt we were prepared. Boy was I wrong!!!
First the Beamtin was kind of nice and she asked for her health insurance status. In Germany everyone needs health insurance and if you don't have it as a foreigner you have to leave. Since she is covered under her mothers plan in the US for free she opted out of the German system to save 65 Euro every month. She has a very good health care plan with her mother and since she goes back to the US every semester break for some time she always went to the necessary doctors appointments. She was told in 2008 by the student who did the visa stuff for her at her school that this is possible but she could never get the German states health care anymore for the rest of the master-program, she would have to get private insurance if needed. So she took the document which showed that she opted out to the Ausländeramt in 2008 and since then it wasn't a problem.
This time the Beamtin looked at it and said she doesn't have health insurance and that her college must have been overworked so she misread the document as a confirmation from AOK that she is insured there. WHAT ???? If it wouldn't be so urgent I could have found some unintentional humor in this statement. If someone in 2008 would have told her the problems with her mothers plan she would have gotten the German one. Now she has to send a document to her insurance. I asked the Beamtin if you could get this formular in English because it might be difficult for someone in the US to read it. She didn't care and just said: Hamwa nich!!! (We don't have that). So the only possible option might be now to get private health insurance here, because AOK won't take her anymore and her insurance in the US can't guaranty what this document asks for: No time limit for the plan (her plan will expire in 2012) and no co-payments (she has very little but even that is to much).
This is just the little of the 2 problems the Beamtin caused. She asked her then to show that she has a monthly income. Her grandma and her mother give her money every month. She showed the notified statement from both of them. Then the woman got really nasty: "No, no, no that is enough that doesn't work here you have to have a blocked account where the minimum they have to put in is 8000 Euro and you can just take out 650 Euro every month. Otherwise you have to show me your bank statements wchich shows this amount to be put on every month in the past". She then decided to not renew her visa and just give her an extension of the old one untill January 18, 2011. Thank you wonderful lady. If your "overworked" collegue from 2008 wouldn't have missed to tell her that, too she might have been able to put the money she lived of in her first year into this blocked account. She sold her car in the US and it was a big part of the required amount of 8000 what she got for it. But nobody told her to do so, especially NOT the overworked Beamtin in 2008. In the last 2 years my girlfriend always took the money out of her US-Bank account and put the money into her German account. That was the cheapest and easiest way to get money from the US. Why should she have done it differently. Of course she did not put all the money into her German account because sometimes, liebe Beamtin, you have to do something like grocery shopping or you need other stuff.
Since her brother is in a masters program in the US her family doesn't have 8000 Euro in cash to put on her account at once now. So what to do ???? Not your problem, liebe Beamtin, I know. If you want people to follow the schei.... Deutsches Beamtenrecht than teach your collegues better and don't blame it on someone who can't know your silly rules.
At home I went on the internet just to find out that for a renewal of her student visa you don't have to proof all the things she asked for. Did anybody experience similar problems??? Why does this country make it so difficult and complicated for you always...
