A lesson teached by the Deutsche Bahn
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
I know that people all around the world say that german people are very punctual and reliable. This may be right, but what definetely isn’t is that german companies are as reliable as their employees. Right know I am working in Frankfurt and have to take a train trip over there twice a day. I need to ride on a so called ICE train, which only covers longer distances mostly between bigger german cities. As you may guess these trains are very expensive and mostly used by business people and commuters.
Right now it is snowing over here and the temperature goes under 0 degree celcius most nights. So it is no surprise that you wake up to snowy and sometimes even icy streets. The Deutsche Bahn doesn’t seem to have understood the german winter in the last 15 years of it’s existance. So the train schedules right now are a mess and you even have to sit in your train for hours when the mean snow doesn’t let the poor trains pass. These situations are so frustrating for all the passengers that are headed to work in the morning or back home after a long day. But do you think that bothers the company? No! They actually seem to make fun of you. They offer you cold drinks to make up for the hours you waited in the freezing cold or just ignore that people just paid a hundred bugs to stand in a horribly full train which is hours delayed.
This made me realize again how horrible the service of german companies is compared to the ones in the US. Nobody gives you a warm welcome or hello when you enter a german store. The bored staff mostly gives you a cold hello with the underline “get the f*** out, you are annoying me in my boredom”. And isn’t it a barefacedness that you don’t get a free coffee or a free ticket when you wait hours to get home by train?
The Deutsche Bahn is definitely a thing that I will add to my just forget it list when I leave Germany. But for their favour I have to say that the amateruish announcements the train drivers make for their foreign guests are something I would recommand to every english-speaking visitor in to not miss!
