[woodcut]

Welcome to Berlin. :)

I came to Berlin roughly 5 years ago before the investment started pouring in and most startups were existenz grundungs, this is when you get 50k from the government and you underpay some interns to build your MVP. It was pretty shabby back then, and things have changed dramatically in the intervening years, but most people came for this vague idea of living cheaply and doing what they want - you could say they washed up here as tourists and stayed. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but these people are being replaced with people coming here for startup jobs that pay real salaries. It used to be that ~500 euros a month was a good startup job, now it's more like 4-5k.

All of this change is happening while Berlins administration is still the bureaucratic and slow machine that it always has been, they haven't built affordable housing in 25 years, there's no plan on how to reduce congestion or prevent gentrification from wiping out existing communities. Registration takes ~3-5 months to get an appointment, god forbid you're a foreigner and have to also register at the ausländerbehörde and wait from 3am for the 1 of 50 tickets available that day.

It's nice that people still see a future here, but i take an issue with such a rosy picture of what it's like to live here, because it really isn't the case.

[wheels]

"Existenz grundung" just means "founding a company". It doesn't imply anything about grants being taken. What you're probably referring to is a "Gründerzuschuss", which is a form of unemployment payment which gives you about 60% of your former salary with a fixed amount of time to get out of unemployment benefits via founding your own company. It's only available to those that were previously full-time employees.

Also, it's horseshit that €500/month was a good salary 5 years ago. More like €3500/month. Rent is also still far cheaper in Berlin than virtually any other western European major city.

[woodcut]

Apologies i meant eXist Gruenderstipendium [1]. I'm aware of the Gründerzuschuss but it's not what most tech startups at that time were funded on, specifically not the one i worked for during my initial 3 months in Berlin.

I should have mentioned the 500 was from a eXist funded startup and i worked at as an "intern" although i was qualified, i just wanted to keep myself fed until i found something that paid, but for internships that was a lot as most got ~300 or nothing, with 500 a month + coffee I could rent by day a bed off of WG gesucht and subsist on falafel. Back then the number of jobs in berlin was really minimal, i struggled to find anything so i moved to Munich.

[1] http://www.exist.de/DE/Programm/Exist-Gruenderstipendium/inh...

[hawski]

I can recommend going to Bürgeramt in Pankow.

My first registration was in Bürgeramt Wedding - appointment was scheduled one month before via Internet. There were lots of people waiting. Later on when I moved and had to register again, I tried to make an appointment, but it was impossible. My co-worker went to the Bürgeramt without appointment one hour before opening. Then he had to wait 3-4 hours. I went to Bürgeramt Pankow on Friday around 10:00 and there in 30 minutes it was done. It was not crowded. Later on when I asked around at work how is that, they told me that people seem to prefer to go to the nearest office (with hope that it will be quick enough) and wait several hours, than take 20-40 minutes of journey more and wait 0.5 an hour.

[crucialfelix]

I got there at 7am, finally got sent 8 hours later. It's a mess and everybody knows it. The lady said everybody has quit or the desks were shut. You can't get an appointment in less than a 7 weeks and if you aren't angemeldet then you can't do anything. Life is on hold.

[GunboatDiplomat]

>Registration takes ~3-5 months to get an appointment, god forbid you're a foreigner and have to also register at the ausländerbehörde and wait from 3am for the 1 of 50 tickets available that day.

Your bureaucracy makes American bureaucracy seem amazingly efficient in comparison. I did not know such a thing was possible outside defunct communist states.

[wheels]

That's because he's exaggerating:

You can still make an appointment at the Ausländerbehörde (foreigner's office) a couple months in advance, and then you just have to show up on time. And as recently as a year ago, the last time I needed something same-day, showing up two hours before they opened (6 a.m.) was still enough to be at the front of the line. There were at that time not a fixed number of tickets for the day. Historically (meaning over the course of the decade I've lived in Berlin), if you needed an appointment same day, at any time, you'd usually wait less than two hours, no matter when you showed up. Much of this has worsened recently because of the refugee crisis, but it's a temporary overload of the system, not a systematic failure.

[woodcut]

I wish i was.

Where those figures come from is the time my gf had her wallet stolen with her blue card inside, she was travelling outside of the EU and needed to replace it or get a note asap otherwise she would have a lot of trouble re-entering the country. We queued up from 3am on monday morning at the Ausländerbehörde and were turned away by the administrator because my gf was officially registered in mecklin-vorpommmern and she had to travel there to get this temporary pass. Problem is, she could only take the first train on tuesday morning so she got there at ~9:30am, she was ticket 51, and the office only deals with 50 tickets a day. i kid you not. she was the last in the line as turned away at just pass 17:00, and told to come back tomorrow and try again.

[woodcut]

in part it's since the refugee crisis, there just aren't enough skilled administrators in germany to handle the number of people migrating here. That said, once you've got the paperwork, things are relatively easy.

What i mean by registration is that you have to register where you live, to do that you'll need your passport, copy of the contract and a letter from the landlord saying you have the right to live there. Sounds easy, but then not many landlords will rent to you if you're not planning on staying a long time or you don't have a permanent contract for your job...

you need the registration for everything here, you don't really exist without it, you can't get health insurance, you can't pay tax, you can't be paid your salary by a company, and you'll find it hard to open a bank account.

[TillE]

This is a recent issue particular to Berlin caused primarily by a terrible "grand coalition" city government (which is about to be replaced), and then exacerbated somewhat by an influx of refugees. It should be gradually fixed in the near future.

[parennoob]

> Your bureaucracy makes American bureaucracy seem amazingly efficient in comparison.

Yeah, and I thought waiting at the DMV in the USA was a bit of a pain as a foreigner. :)

"Wait from 3am for the 1 of 50 tickets available that day" makes Berlin sound worse than even the third world country I come from.

[GunboatDiplomat]

The DMV is a pain as an American. Even if every worker in the DMV is diligent, helpful, and courteous, the DMV somehow conspires to make the whole process difficult. Go to the front desk. Fill out this form. Stand in that line. Get a stamp on the form. Stand in another line. Get another stamp, pay $5. Go stand on another line, get yet another stamp. Go back to the previous line, get photo taken, get endorsement on license. It's crazy.

[denzil_correa]

Check out the driving license process in Germany.

[parennoob]

Yes, but I was under the impression that getting a driver's license was kind of optional in Germany, with good public transport. Being a foreigner is not :)

[JBlue42]

Yeah, the DMV is probably the most difficult and time consuming part about getting a license in this US.