[aleph_minus_one]

> My favorite Berlin anecdote is when my wife (then girlfriend) and I first arrived in Germany, she was unemployed for the better part of a year as no-one would give her a chance. She actually got quite depressed about it, and reached out about state sponsored integration courses as the language lessons she was taking were expensive and she wanted to do something more holistic. The authorities told her in no uncertain terms that they didn't care and that there were no places available.

Honestly, as a native German this anecdote rather sounds like your girlfriend saw the good side of the German bureacracy (and life) (you likely haven't seen the bad side ... ;-) ): the girlfriend asked for something and got a direct honest answer. This is German directness, which I would rather consider a German virtue, but often confuses people from other countries where answers tend to be more sugar-coated.

[trueismywork]

Lol no. German directness like most other things is a myth. It only shows itself often enough because people who "show" that directness are just rude and can get away with it. I have now had multiple people in power being extremely indirect about things that would make their position weak.

In rest of the world, the behavior of being "direct" only when there's no negative consequence is just called being a jerk.

[dpeckett]

We're talking about an interaction with the authorities here. In all developed western nations I am aware of (there's maybe 4-5 countries I've interacted with personally) public authorities will communicate in clear and direct language.

No the point is my wife was struggling, and she asked for help integrating, and the state refused to help her integrate. Even as a hardcore capitalist you should be in favor of getting immigrants into the labor market ASAP.

The irony is that fifteen years ago when she was a new immigrant to Australia, the state sponsored TAFE system was amazing for her, taught her English, and totally turned her life around.

[ProjectArcturis]

If that was the good side, I certainly don't want to see the bad side. Maybe they gave her an honest answer, but the better answer would have been to help her learn the language.

[data_maan]

Duck this German "virtue"!