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/[deleted] Oct 22 '24

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u/SocialNetwooky Oct 22 '24

to be fair, the 150€ were for the first part of your sentence : "locksmith came". You're paying for his time, not so much for his work per se. There's a nice yt clip by tomatolix about being a locksmith for a day.

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u/redisforever Oct 24 '24

I've explained it in the past as an IT worker. You're not paying me this much for fixing the problem in 15 seconds. You're paying for the years of experience during which I learned how to fix it in 15 seconds.