There are a few stories that I have been waiting for just the right moment to think back on. One refers directly to the goal of this entire blog, a goal that I set for myself in the "About me" section in which I try to give meaning to the phrase, "Das ist aber wirklich Deutsch".
The story begins two months ago actually, in the middle of library hopping and paper writing. I looked at shoes online as I occasionally do to procrastinate and found the exact red shoes I had been looking for, black heels, about 3", with a dark red leather strap, good for jeans and skirts. So now you know what this story is about. Red shoes. I thought since they rarely have size 36 shoes in stores (I hadn't met any Germans with my same shoe size over the age of 12) I could just order them online and they would arrive just as I was in the final stretch with my papers. A pick-me-up if you will, to get me through a lot of stress and then I could wear them if we go out at the end of the semester (there didn't end up being much time left for this, sadly). So all went simply, and I was expecting them in two weeks. Two weeks went by and I heard no doorbells ring, granted I wasn't home too much during the day since I was busy taking tests, etc. Usually a package will be delivered to any neighbor that answers his/her doorbell when you are not home yourself to pick it up, and then the delivery person would leave a blue note in your mailbox telling you which neighbor (or nearby "Lotto" store) has your package.
Instead of this system, I received a letter saying that someone had been by the apartment not once, not twice, but three times to drop off the package, and I had not been home. For security reasons (they are just shoes for goodness sakes!) the rightful addressee had to sign for them upon delivery. They had a number on the letter, which I called the next day during business hours. They were cordial, asked me if I knew a specific shop on the Dudenstrasse that had a partnership to the delivery company, the Salon Dela. I knew the address - around 12 minutes away walking - and thought that would be fine. It would be there the following Monday after 16.00 and I was to bring a government-issued ID. I was ready to pick up the package on Monday, but realized to my dismay as I walked up to the Salon at the indicated address that Salons were closed on Mondays. I was sure that place must have been the right one, although there were other stores around it, since it shared the aforementioned name of the Salon. I came back the next afternoon, asked at the Salon. They said, quite friendly, "oh no. We do not accept packages here, but the florist across the street just got a contract to do that a couple months ago." OK, I thought. Nothing too complicated. I went to the florist this time and asked a skinny woman perhaps in her early 60's who was standing outside the florist shop if she might have a package for me. Without saying much, she went behind the counter to check for packages - there were two, and one of them looked to be the size of a shoe box. She asked me for my ID, and I took my driver's license out from my wallet. She took one look at it and said, mit der kann ich gar nicht anfangen! And then she threw my driver's license on the counter in front of her and looked up at me, as if I was joking. I was a bit taken aback and said that I am American, and that is my ID. My driver's license. She said, sounding agitated, that is not an ID and I need to give her an ID. I said that that was a government-issued identification. Well, what do you use to cross borders, she asked me. I said my passport, but I don't have it with me. She said, putting the package away, well there's nothing I can do for you, because she is required to see proper identification or a passport. I was at a disadvantage, because all Germans have an identification card, sort of like a citizenship card, that has nothing to do with their passport, and I did not think that I would really need my passport just to pick up a package. I said I would go back to my apartment and get my passport, since there was clearly no way around that. I left the store and said goodbye, not impolitely. We were both quite agitated though, and I had very little time that week to go back and forth a few extra times just for these shoes.
Rather than thinking about the time I had wasted going to and from this place twice with no success, I went to Cafe Bilderbuch to do work that evening. I believe I did get a fair amount of editing done on my first big paper. I had taken an exam the day before and was sure I did not do so well - I had gotten very little sleep over the weekend and was scared, since the professor was essentially writing the test questions just for me; no other students in the class needed to take the test because they would be tested one semester later on multiple courses at once. The system is confusing, and I'm not sure I still understand everything about the combined tests, etc. In any case, I returned to this florist shop on my bike the next afternoon after having been at the FU all day reading for my next paper (finally). I was going to meet Kate that evening for dinner at her apartment and wanted to get everything done before going. So I parked my bike and walked up to the store. The woman was "busy" chatting with a rather large friend of hers with missing teeth. I waited by the door and said hello. She didn't stop her conversation for another five minutes or so and then they said goodbye. The ornery woman asks me, without saying hello, why I did not come back yesterday afternoon. I did not have time to come back yesterday, I responded, so I came back today. She hesitantly went inside and took the package out again and asked if I brought my passport this time. I showed her my passport and she thumbed through the pages, looking confused. No there is no number here! She said - I indicated which page had my information and she said but there's no passport number I need a number. I pointed to the number, thinking that she either wanted to make a big deal about the fact that it was not a German passport or she just didn't like me and did not want to give this package. Or maybe she just really couldn't find it. She told me to read it out loud as she entered it into her little registry machine. I did so twice, she fiddled with some buttons (clearly unsure of how to use the machine) and entered my passport number. I didn't like that one bit - why would they need my passport number in their system to give me the package?!? I waited, and a few beeps and scans of barcodes later, she turns to me and says something I will never forget....
"Na siehst du? Alles hat seine Ordnung!"
That means, don't you see, everything has it's order. Out of anything I'd heard that year, this seemed to me the "most German", taking pride when a foreigner must change his or her ways to cooperate with unnecessary rules, because without them simple things like a package delivery cannot occur. She repeated this and said with a big condescending smile on her face as if she had defeated me and held the power in her hands, "and if you want to return the package, just come back and I will send it back for you, no charge." I smirked back but was relieved to finally be putting the package in my backpack so that I could go home.
However, the exchange was not over yet. As I was fiddling with my zippers, trying to fit the box in my bag, she says "wait wait, do not put your passport away yet. I need it again." Something was not working right with the little registry machine. Apparently my package was still in its inventory, meaning that it had not actually been considered "picked up" yet. So we did it again - I read my number (memorized it by this time) and she entered it, tried scanning barcodes, and no change. She said to me, looking a bit annoyed, perhaps with herself, but she made it seem like I was the one at fault here for having a "faulty" non-German passport. She had me give her the package back and said I would have to come back the next day - she needed to check with the delivery man if it was incorrectly registered with the shoe company, because I was not allowed to take it from the store if it wasn't registered right. She said I should call them and clear up the problem. I told her that I did not have time to call (shouldn't she have done that?!?) and couldn't come back the next day. I had already been there three times (she corrected me, I'd only been there twice, but I didn't feel like explaining about the Salon mix-up) and I did not have any more time that Friday. She said well that's too bad, I needed to come back. She looked at the information on the package and somehow read that they had tried to deliver the package to the apartment before. She made this known to me by saying, "and they came three times and you were not there," shaking her head at me as if to scold me for my wrongdoings. I ignored her condescending comment and replied that I was leaving Germany that weekend and would not have any time to come back. She said well then, I'll just have to send it back myself - I just cannot give this to you now! She was yelling at this point, and I was at my wits end. Then she calmed down and said if I write down the passport information they would figure it out the next day. She would call me at 14.00 and let me know if it worked and then I could pick it up. I couldn't give her a cell phone number though for her to call (heaven forbid), only a landline would do. I knew that I could not be home then and asked instead if I would get my money back if she were to send it back. She said that was for me to arrange with whoever I was getting the package from (but I figured I would for a return like that to a shoe company). In a huff I said I would not leave her my passport number because that information was private. I would appreciate a call the next day, I added, and then I said goodbye and left the store, in desperate need for some fresh air.
I was a bundle of nearly exploding nerves when I got back to the apartment. How did that happen?! I had gotten so far in my German that I knew how to be polite and generally cautious not to say anything that might insult someone. But maybe I said "du" instead of "Sie" the first time I went there, and that is why she reacted negatively to me from the beginning. I told the story to Anna who thought that her behavior had been incredible and unacceptable, but some older Germans are just like that. It was not out of the ordinary to meet people as stubborn as she had been, so whereas I thought it was unheard of, she said everybody met people like that once in a while.
I talked to Jan later that night about it when we met a bunch of people in the Mauerpark for a late-night grill party. At that point I was glad to be done with the whole situation (no regrets about not having those red shoes, in other words. Jan shared in my disbelief and suggested that it had something to do with the fact that I wasn't German. Not specifically that I was American, but that some people are just not willing to bend the rules for non-Germans. There world's are for example too small to know what to look for in a foreign passport. I'm not sure that she was anti-foreign, because she did not know I was foreign until I tried to explain about my driver's license. I think that her rudeness was a cover-up for the fact that she didn't know the rules of the delivery system herself. I see that accepting my driver's license would have been bending the rules a bit, but ultimately it was her fault that her device thing wasn't working properly because I had the right means of identification (the second time). She should have called the delivery company while I was still there. She would not apologize for her inability to work the device; it was my fault right away every time something went wrong. She had TWO packages to worry about, and with one her customer (me) got so fed up that she did not want the merchandise any more. At the least she was being a poor representative both of the delivery company and the shoe company that uses the delivery company. I mean, the delivery company had rules that were too strict in general too - someone needed to sign for the package, they only came to deliver during business hours when people are generally not home (was I supposed to sit and wait at home an entire week for a package?!?), and then they require that we enter very personal information into their database. But I mean, all that could have been much easier had she acted a little less horrific towards me.
This pig-headed way of conducting a business transaction is something that all of my German friends have encountered. They hate it too, and try their best to deal with people like that as little as possible. Robert, who had been living with an entire building of "Spiessers", or people who live within strict sets of rules without hints of kindness or understanding (my definition), decided to move out upon returning to Heidelberg. He does not need to live with people who are unfriendly to students, so he won't. And this brings me to an important conclusion. I noticed an incredible divide between young people and old people in Germany. Young people who I met all over Berlin would repeatedly swear over their frustrations with the close-minded older populations, while the old people talk about the young people who are in the process of "ruining the society" because of their lack of manners. I actually heard an older woman say exactly that to a young couple on a bus, because they wanted the window open and they omitted to ask if she minded the wind. It must be said that I cannot generalize. But just as big as the difference between old and young people in Germany is the difference between one's public (or professional) life and one's private life. One does not often break the barrier from one to the other, for instance by inviting a colleague home for dinner or by asking one's best friend's father for a job.
But I guess everything has its order. It really was an interesting culmination of what has bothered me about Germany from the beginning: general stubbornness. In the public sector (as in not in your personal circle of friends) people do not apologize when they are in the wrong. Instead they redirect the blame or tell you they cannot help you solve your problem. Robert is right, the only amiable people are the bankers, since they wouldn't get any money from you if they were not obliging. That is something that was very new to me this year, realizing that rules are much more bendable in the US and that elsewhere everyday frustrations arise in unlikely places. I remember in the Fall being in a long line to buy groceries in a grocery store. After laying out all of my groceries I went to pay with my debit card. The machine did not accept my card (for no obvious reason that I can think of), and I had no cash. So my card was deemed faulty and I had to pack my stuff in bags, leave it behind the register, go to the nearest ATM (which charged me a 5-euro fee) to get cash, and when I came back I had to wait in line for another ten minutes, take all of my stuff out of the bags, and purchase everything all over again. I wish I can say that these little frustrations teach me some deep life lesson, but really the only thing I learned from that is that I should always have enough cash on me in that grocery store in case it happened again (the next time, my card worked fine). But one thing is clear: rules have no exceptions. Is this indicative of "being German"? How is the need for order, rules and regulations really tied to the German way of life? I know of many instances where I would arrive at a deserted crosswalk with no traffic. Someone would eventually join me just when I make the decision to jay walk across the street. I have repeatedly seen heads shake at me in disapproval at such times. One mother even covered the eyes of her young child as I crossed. I was, however, proud of my American jay-walking ways.
What did I learn from the shoe incident? Well, not to order anything online in Germany, especially using that delivery company, and not to expect that people will recognize American driver's licenses. But maybe the more of those little pieces/hints of advice you collect the easier one's daily life becomes. The red shoes... that was a reminder that although I felt like I had "conquered" the majestic city of Berlin and had survived unscathed, there will always be unexpected frustrations that I cannot expect, that remind me that things would be easier at "home". And in that incident I did come closer to my initial goal of learning what being German really is. Being German means consistently being on the receiving end (like Robert) or on the perpetrating end (like florist shoe lady) of irreproachable stubbornness.
Incidentally, during my first week home I rejoiced at the general ease with which I could do things: make a dentist appointment, set up doctor's check-ups, pick up prescriptions, order printed photographs online, pick up take-out pizza and change my order after I called... I am relieved to be in the land of supreme customer service once again.
