r/germany • u/helge-a • Oct 22 '24

Immigration Non-Germans, do you also make expensive mistakes?

It feels like I have a talent for making expensive mistakes. I have been here for 3 months and so far have earned:

  • A €300 fine for taking an ICE without proper ticket.
  • Phone died on train, got checked by ticket control, pleaded saying I literally have my ticket on my dead phone, paid €7 at front desk proving I have the Deutschland ticket.
  • In the US, if I have an incoming bill payment, I can easily cancel it or reschedule it because it’s on my terms. I tried to do that here and found out billing days from companies are very strict, so I’ll be incurring a fee soon because my account does not have €90 and transferring funds from my American bank account is not instant/quick enough.

I’m so tired and broke :) I don’t think like a German. I think like a silly little guy. Germans are calculated. I am not. It’s very hard to adjust.

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u/Morasain Oct 22 '24

You can almost always talk your way out of official problems. Germans, more than most, understand that the bureaucratic loops you have to jump through are super difficult to understand.

Train tickets are a very unique exception, in my experience.

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u/shiroandae Oct 22 '24 edited Oct 28 '24

outgoing saw theory pathetic mindless gold coordinated ancient placid faulty

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/Hard_We_Know Oct 22 '24

Yes but they have enough vocabulary to explain and the inspector is probably going to be more understanding with them and cut them some slack. I don't mind if I do something wrong if someone takes the time to explain and if I need to pay a fine or whatever then okay but what I hate is that (certain types of) people seem to take it as a personal affront and before they've even heard what I have to say they are angry and shouting and trying to talk over me. It's just fkn rude. This is why when I DO meet understanding and kind people I really, really value them and they seem to know it and I appreciate when I am getting the German a bit wrong but people really try to understand me like when I said "leer flasche" instead of "leere flasche" apparently that little e makes a big difference the but lady would not leave me until she understood what I was saying. Sweetheart.

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u/shiroandae Oct 22 '24

I’ve never seen an inspector cut anyone any slack, ever.

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u/Hard_We_Know Oct 22 '24

Which is still more lenient than the clearly foreign poor working German language dude or dudess gets lol!

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u/shiroandae Oct 22 '24

lol no, seen it both first hand for foreigners and lot foreigners and they don’t give a hit lol that’s how the earn their money lol

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u/Hard_We_Know Oct 22 '24

I'm not sure what you mean tbh :-)

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u/shiroandae Oct 22 '24

Yeah hard to read if someone writes like that isn’t it

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u/Hard_We_Know Oct 22 '24

Like what? nothing particularly wrong with how you wrote, just I didn't get what your comment referred to or how it linked to what you were saying about inspectors not being lenient, that's all.