[jbarrow]

This explains a lot; I’ve been thinking for years (ever since being diagnosed with a chronic health condition) about writing an essay likening the American insurance system to Kafka’s _The Trial_. The bureaucracy is absolutely soul-crushing, and has left me in tears on multiple occasions. While nearly no individual person you deal with is at fault or malicious, the whole experience ends up being something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

[hutzlibu]

Yeah, it is probably helpful to be aware, that quite often the person you are complaining to, knows the flaws of the system way better than you, but is equally powerless to change anything about it.

But sometimes they can do something that helps you, so it often helps to not treat them like they are personally responsible for everything, just because they work there.

[version_five]

Yes, it's important to remember that Kafka didn't invent "Kafkaesque" - it's literally just an artistic description of bureaucracy. So when people talk about Kafkaesque interactions with government or large companies, that adjective is generally redundant.

[rgrieselhuber]

The Metamorphosis always read (to me) as the dread felt by a society as it unwittingly becomes increasingly bureaucratic and atomized.