191–200 of 320 posts
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Yet for some reason Europeans feel so strongly against privitization of public services
Most of these shitty online services are already run by private consulting companies that burn your tax money.
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The German authorities have no incitive to digitize and fix the broken bureaucracy because for one, in their mind there's nothing wrong with it because Germany is Europe's wealthiest country so it can never be wrong, and secondly, digitizing bureaucracy means increased efficiency which means less public servant jobs and they don't want that. What they want is more bureaucracy and more cushy public servant jobs pushin…
I'm sorry, but that's just complete nonsense. > in their mind there's nothing wrong with it because Germany is Europe's wealthiest country so it can never be wrong There's literally not a single political party that doesn't admit that Germany is being too slow here or that doesn't admit that it's embarassing. On a national and on a local level. You can Google that if you don't believe me. > digitizing bureaucracy mea…
We're talking about people, not parties, and I've definitely met people who have this view. To them, the German way is the proper way, and any way that's easier must be cheating or skipping something.
Of course they want digitalization, but they want a German digitalization. A good and proper German one, and not a flimsy foreign one.
Of course this is nationalistic cope, but it's pretty common.
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Not for people like me who always set their browser language to en-us (or just “en”) because they mostly peruse the internet in English.
Then you'll have to press one or two extra keys on your keyboard.
> Usually [you get] 194 other countries in a loooooong list
(cue this website having precisely that list)
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That's... exactly what this is as well? Are you getting a different UI that I'm not?
If you have different browser language settings, then yes, you are getting a different UI.
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The German authorities have no incitive to digitize and fix the broken bureaucracy because for one, in their mind there's nothing wrong with it because Germany is Europe's wealthiest country so it can never be wrong, and secondly, digitizing bureaucracy means increased efficiency which means less public servant jobs and they don't want that. What they want is more bureaucracy and more cushy public servant jobs pushin…
None of that is true. They'd love to "digitise" but their problem is that there is ZERO Software culture in Germany. Likely they'd have some shitty accounting or consulting firm with their 24 yr old associate who can do some Java code something for 10 Billion EUR. It'll take 10 years and obviously won't scale or work properly. That's why it still hasn't happened. There is no one who can write a requirements doc with…
Not sure if this is true but it sounds like it absolutely could be.
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I mean, from what I hear Berlin does take the cake on this one, but yes: its a country-wide phenomenon. For what its worth, I was pleasantly surprised by the things you can do digitally in Kiel. Schleswig-Holstein, Niedersachsen, Hamburg and Bremen have "Dataport", a publicly owned company which does a lot of the tech for public institutions in the area. While they are not operating at the efficiency of a normal comp…
For Berlin specifically it is important to note the city-state was super broke until around 10 years ago. Many causes for this including mismanagement by the government, but the main cause is the GDR, how Berlin was divided, and how very little industry settled in or around Berlin. Now this has changed a lot in the last decade or two, but it has been accompanied by avg. yearly net migration of 80k people which is put…
Berlin isn't centralized, but the districts (Bezirke) have quite some freedom to structure their work (similar to "kommunale Selbstverwaltung" in other states) and how they run the administration offices (Bürgerämter etc.) which then leads to city administration passing a law for something and each district implementing it differently and city administration having no authority to override district decisions, while taking the blame.
Fixing this requires a change to the constitution, but that requires a 2/3 majority in the city assembly (Abgeordnetenhaus) or a referendum. Getting the majority is hard as there are varying differences (from parties being happy about number of posts to full, like district mayors etc.) and "dislike" between districts (East/West, center/outer, ..)
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Yes, as a non-European expat moving to Denmark in 2017, my experience was eye-opening. I needed one physical visit to the International affairs section of the citizens service(Borger service), where they took my biometrics, and issued me a CPR number(a national Id equivalent I that of social security number in the US, or Aadhaar ID in India), and another set of codes called Nem-Id which serves as a second factor auth…
As a German living in Denmark I often wonder why we Germans don't do it a bit like the danes .. it's just a hop over the border and ask them ;_; Also if you change to a different bank or want a different "main" bank account both your monthly payments and wages get applied to your new bank account without you having to inform anyone.
As a non-eu person living in Germany. It was easier to go to Denmark to marry because of the unreasonable paperwork in Germany. Like "Get a certificate you haven't been married in any country you have lived". Many countries don't issue those certificates.
Every scandinavian person knows how a good digitalized country looks like, Germans just can't even accept they are inefficient.
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to be fair, many countries' governments have this same issue, and even when they do something the UX feels like something from 2002. The thing is, its complex, often the job pays way below market rate and government jobs often have rigid salary tiers, hiring might not be done like a normal tech co. as you might also have specific public servants to do it, and then you have culture, which might rule out certain people…
This is a major problem. It's hard to attract talent when you have low incomes and an inflexible work culture. The incentives just aren't there. Let's say Berlin wanted to hire me tomorrow to do the same exact work for them. That would mean return to office, fixed schedule, a return to rigid corporate culture, and a significant drop in income. A friend of mine works in government IT, and the stories are both hilariou…
Bravo! Bürgerämter are most of the time a fucking joke. My registration in Berlin took months after I already moved there, the waiting times are just that long, and this seems to apply to many cities. I live in another city now, and my ID card has been expired for months now (which, legally, is a misdemeanor). There isn't a single free appointment anywhere, citywide. You can attempt to go personally there in the earl…
Of course, the Irish government did eventually put in place an appointment booking system that was so comically bad bots would take all of the appointments immediately for resale on Facebook marketplace. It never crossed their mind to use a CAPTCHA. I only got my own appointment by writing a scraper for it.