Nothing Works Anymore: German Edition

A reader writes to share his recent experience attempting to get his car serviced.

Thought I would share my experiences with trying to get my car serviced in Germany.

I booked the appointment online at a major car garage chain, unfortunately when I booked I clicked the wrong service type, my bad, but the non-German guy at the garage gave me another appointment slot about 1 week later and confirmed it as he was clicking his computer. I ring up the day before to confirm that I can drop the car off that evening as I had to do a business trip. There was no record in the system that I have an appointment tomorrow. Now our holiday is approaching and we need the car serviced, I find a garage on their website that can do the service that week. It is a town about 80km away. I go there on the day and they told me that the IT system is not working and it´s allowing people to book services when there is no mechanic available. Fortunately, they were able to fit me in a day later. I caught the train 1.5hrs to fetch my car, on the day it was ready, and there is a big sign out the front of the shop that their IT system has problems so we cannot pay with card. I argued with the guy, another non-German, to let me drive my car to the nearest ATM instead of walking there and wasting 2hrs time. We finally negotiated that I leave my ID there. This is where they tell me they cannot give me an invoice as the entire IT system crashed but it will be back on line on Monday.

This was 3 weeks ago and needing the receipt to claim on my company they told me it will be another 2 to 4 weeks. Is it a coincidence that there has been a huge influx of Indian IT workers in Germany? My friend in IT says it´s almost 100 percent due to Indian programming and management.

Then, as I park in an underground garage, I found out about a day later before our holiday that they had scratched the shit out of the entire right back side of the car.

Apparently the German dirt is not magic either. And not being German, I can’t even imagine the full extent of how much this sort of inefficiency and incompetence must infuriate them. This is really just another lesson in the obvious:

  • Pick your own damn cotton.
  • Build your own platforms.
  • Utilize your own services.
  • Marry your own kind.

DISCUSS ON SG