Photo: pisch-music.de
Roland: Eight years ago, when we came to Canada, one of our first tasks was to exchange our German driver's licence into a Canadian one. Back then this took us approximately one hour to get a temporary licence, and a few days later we had our plastic cards in the mail.
Yesterday we went to the local department of motor vehicles to exchange our Canadian licences back into German ones. After a short waiting time we were asked to the desk of an officer who looked astonishingly similar to the Gentleman above (the late comedian Diether Krebs in his role as 'Martin').
When we told the officer our request he said that he could not just give us a German driver's licence; he would first have to ask the department at our last German address whether our German driver's licences have been sent back from Canadian authorities. If so we would get our old licences back, if not we would have to issue a notice of loss for our licences. Only then he could start the process of replacing them.
Naively (and spoiled by the excellent public service in Canada) we expected that he would pick up the phone and call the other department or at least would send them an email with a search request for our old licences, but instead he opened a Word document, manually entered the address of the other department, printed that thing, crossed a few paragraphs, put it into an envelope and told us to call him again in three weeks(!!!) to check on the results.
When I said that I would need a new driver's licence anyway as I had added a Motorcycle licence in Canada he explained to me that he would need an official translation of my Canadian licence first (look at the guy in the picture: does he look like he speaks English?). When I asked if my (official!) International Driver's Licence would suffice he just laughed and said 'No!'.
Then he took out a little red book with the official procedures for exchanging international driver's licences, checked for British Columbia and stated that he cannot exchange my Motorcycle licence (a licence 6 in BC), because his list would not include a licence 6. This surprised us as we had checked this on the internet before, and it clearly said that licence 6 can be exchanged, so we kindly asked him if he was sure that he has the latest version of the red book (which would be the August 2012 version).
He thought for a moment, said "well, there was a new one", checked another drawer, and within a moment came up with another (obviously never used) red book, looked it up again and agreed "yes, this one says it is possible"...
The other thing we noted was his mumbling and bad grammar. We can only imagine how irritated a new immigrant with limited language skills must feel when encountering such a role model of German bureau-crazy.
To be continued...
Sorry ... laughed sooo hard, can't wait for part 2. Never underestimate the power of the "Martin" ;-)
ReplyDeleteExactly, and we expected no less from somebody like this ;-)
DeleteYikes. I wouldn't think it would be that difficult considering you'd had German licenses before. What if you wanted to apply for brand new ones not exchange them. Can you take a test and get new ones?
ReplyDeleteMakes me realie how easy it was to exchange our BC ones for Oregon ones. Write the written test and ta-da done.
Will be interesting to read part II.
German efficiency usually stops when public service is involved. On the other hand, registry and health care was significantly easier to obtain. It probably depends on the location.
DeleteOy beaurocracy at its best. Sonja I hope it gels soon and you get it sorted out!
ReplyDeleteYep, but so far it went quite swimmingly. This seems to be the exception. Other services provided at the registry and health care services were good.
DeleteI guess this is the place for "Are you kidding!" I thought it was bad around here!
ReplyDeleteI think maybe the problem is you have not been entering into the surreal spirit of a top class bureaucracy and that you have missed a trick.
ReplyDeleteIf you had changed your licences for UK ones when you were in London (whick I believe is pretty easy) and then changed that into a german one by pushing the EU button (which cannot be resisted) it might have gone like a charm. At least three times as many officials would have been involved and they would have shown their appreciation by granting your wish. Or perhaps not.
Darn, we should have thought about this! It likely would have tripled the fun... or not ;-)
DeleteI'm sorry but this had me chuckling ;-D
ReplyDeleteI'm just catching up but it looks like things aren't moving that fast over there, cept you guys .. nothing can stop you's now!!
PFFFT! We are definitely moving too fast for this society. We gotta learn to slow down to have the feeling that we go with the flow.
DeleteTry Greece?
ReplyDelete