xxx
Friday, June 01, 2007
Freaking pissed
If this was my first trip to Germany, I might never come here again.
The endless irritaing circumstances.
The inefficiencies.
Only 2, but that's enough for me.
Since when do lecturers conduct a class which they find have too many students and even let students attend FIVE boring lectures sitting in an ovbviously over-crowded classroom before anouncing that the group has to split and join a new group? When 90% of the students can't make it for the 2nd time slot not only because it's a saturday, but also because of an exam clash, nothing is done and students are told "Too bad, take it next semester." Nothing is done even when the module is a pre-requisite for modules in the next semester. Lectures in the 2nd group are conducted in seminars and students are expected to attend ALL the seminars. The rule of the school is that students are only allowed to absent themselves for a maximum of 180 minutes per module and in this case, even if it's only one day, you are NOT supposed to be absent. Why? Because the dumb seminars are 4-5 hours long.
So what happens if you are an exchange student and you don't know your way around the school especially the way things work here and you end up having to change ALL the plans you made way before you even reach Germany? Who cares? Those are the rules and "No, I am not allowed to make any exceptions".
For a developed country, Germany exhibits real inefficiencies and inflexibilities. The slower way of life here is fine as long as they do not create unnecessary troubles at the expense of others. In fact, slower is nice and relaxing. Take another example:
Annette applied for internet in my room way before I moved in and I was supposed to be able to start using on 1.05.07. This is however not the case. The modem arrived before the scheduled date but it was the rule to pay for a man to come install something in the house. And that something was what I (the computer illiterate) can do without help. In my opinion, that was an absolute waste of money. Next, comes the worse part. The password and welcome pack were supposed to arrive in the mail before the man was supposed to come. Right, as you guessed, the password and welcome pack came after the man. Again why? Because the lady who was in charged of sending the welcome pack sent it A FEW days (more than 1) later than she was supposed to. So basically, Annette paid the man to do what I could have done myself.
On the other hand, this case is extremely efficient. My buddy told me that the Germans do make noise even when the public transport is ONE minute later than scheduled. So why can't they apply the same type of efficiency to other stuff?
Efficiency doesn't show itself in the Rathaus too. I was there to register myself and get the Aufenthalterlaubnis (Residence Permit) some time at the end of April. The queue was super long, the machine to press for number was somewhere in a little corner and the lady who attended to me didn't know how to use the machine to print the sticker. She had to ask her colleague like at least 5 times what to fill in here, what's the short form for my reason of stay blah blah, how to print the sticker and why isn't the printer responding although she pressed print a few times. A simple and I'm very sure usual procedure (the Rathaus in Vaihingen where I went, are where students normally go to register themselves), took a freaking 40 minutes. Yea I know everyone has their own first day at work, but shouldn't there be some sort of training beforehand? The unintended delay caused me to be late for an appointment with the Hausmeister and made me miss my tutorial. Which in turn caused more trouble because the assignment was to be given out that day and it was in German and that means I couldn't get any chance to ask the tutor anything I was unsure about and the next meeting was 2 weeks from then because of the many (yay good) public holidays. But it seriously cause me a lot of effort and pain to finish that assignment because of my lousy German and misinterpretations.
Ok ok I know I'm ranting but the list just goes on and on and on. More inefficiencies coming up next time. There are still like tons of incidents which already happened. For now, I think I'm going to email the sekretariat and act pathetic. Maybe crocodile tears might work better at winning me sympathy points.
If this was my first trip to Germany, I might never come here again.
The endless irritaing circumstances.
The inefficiencies.
Only 2, but that's enough for me.
Since when do lecturers conduct a class which they find have too many students and even let students attend FIVE boring lectures sitting in an ovbviously over-crowded classroom before anouncing that the group has to split and join a new group? When 90% of the students can't make it for the 2nd time slot not only because it's a saturday, but also because of an exam clash, nothing is done and students are told "Too bad, take it next semester." Nothing is done even when the module is a pre-requisite for modules in the next semester. Lectures in the 2nd group are conducted in seminars and students are expected to attend ALL the seminars. The rule of the school is that students are only allowed to absent themselves for a maximum of 180 minutes per module and in this case, even if it's only one day, you are NOT supposed to be absent. Why? Because the dumb seminars are 4-5 hours long.
So what happens if you are an exchange student and you don't know your way around the school especially the way things work here and you end up having to change ALL the plans you made way before you even reach Germany? Who cares? Those are the rules and "No, I am not allowed to make any exceptions".
For a developed country, Germany exhibits real inefficiencies and inflexibilities. The slower way of life here is fine as long as they do not create unnecessary troubles at the expense of others. In fact, slower is nice and relaxing. Take another example:
On the other hand, this case is extremely efficient. My buddy told me that the Germans do make noise even when the public transport is ONE minute later than scheduled. So why can't they apply the same type of efficiency to other stuff?
Efficiency doesn't show itself in the Rathaus too. I was there to register myself and get the Aufenthalterlaubnis (Residence Permit) some time at the end of April. The queue was super long, the machine to press for number was somewhere in a little corner and the lady who attended to me didn't know how to use the machine to print the sticker. She had to ask her colleague like at least 5 times what to fill in here, what's the short form for my reason of stay blah blah, how to print the sticker and why isn't the printer responding although she pressed print a few times. A simple and I'm very sure usual procedure (the Rathaus in Vaihingen where I went, are where students normally go to register themselves), took a freaking 40 minutes. Yea I know everyone has their own first day at work, but shouldn't there be some sort of training beforehand? The unintended delay caused me to be late for an appointment with the Hausmeister and made me miss my tutorial. Which in turn caused more trouble because the assignment was to be given out that day and it was in German and that means I couldn't get any chance to ask the tutor anything I was unsure about and the next meeting was 2 weeks from then because of the many (yay good) public holidays. But it seriously cause me a lot of effort and pain to finish that assignment because of my lousy German and misinterpretations.
Ok ok I know I'm ranting but the list just goes on and on and on. More inefficiencies coming up next time. There are still like tons of incidents which already happened. For now, I think I'm going to email the sekretariat and act pathetic. Maybe crocodile tears might work better at winning me sympathy points.
posted by Shu at 6:36 AM
