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Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

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Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#411

Post by addandsubtract »

bcye wrote: post #186
indiantinker wrote: post #17

DB is weird. They seem to make their own rules and then run the game and “dont tell the rules to anyone”. I was on my way to catch a flight from Munich to my home (Madrid). I didn’t knew that apparently at one point the train splits into two parts and the front part goes to the airport and the other part just goes to the nearby cattle farms and comes back in 3 hours. Google Maps - No idea Citymapper - what? English a…

Splitting trains is a quite common thing in Germany (though more long distance) and communicated in the official app. If third party apps don't show that information that's on their part. Usually it's also said after departure inside the train by the conductor, though maybe just on long distance trains.

They still get it wrong quite often. Worst case is when the train arrives in reverse cart order, and the carts are labeled wrong. Bonus points if your reserved seat is in a cart that's missing.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#412

Post by fbcpck »

p00dles wrote: post #332
Zealotux wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for a massive German company you heard of, this sounds more like the typical German philosophy of strictly following the process -- as absurd as it might be -- and refusing to take initiative for anything that is not explicitly defined as one's responsibility. As a French, the culture shock was brutal and I never really got around that work attitude. I went through a similar issue back when I used to take a…

you summarized my 5+ year experience living in Germany with one sentence in a way that I have never found the words for - thank you, really, thank you I feel that in Germany, the original intent of the many rules, processes, and procedures has been lost. Employees are trained to operate such that every situation is governed by a rule/process/procedure, and their job is to look up the situation in a massive leather-bo…

It is certainly my biggest dislike factor with my stay in Germany, and I'm still struggling to come to terms with it: do I dislike it enough to compel me to move away? is this something I can accept? How much can I influence and improve things that I directly interact with?

It seeps in everywhere too, with almost all aspects.

Day-to-day with restaurants, cafe, shops. Almost all interaction feels like it's actively checked if it's in their process or job description. Shop staffs are typically disengaged and can't really help you with anything outside the normal process.

Healthcare, both receptionist and doctors. You can see the rushed service because they are only compensated for limited amount of time by the state insurance. This took me a while to figure out; the process really defines what treatment you get, with what equipments, as well as the duration, and they have to do their best with the constraints put by the process.

An example: with Wurzelkanalbehandlung, the process says (at least back then) only 1 hour of Laborkosten can be compensated by the state insurance. This means if the dentist took more than 1 hour to work on you, that would be done at their personal loss, and thus the incentive to rush the procedure.

Going private helps (they tend to be more relaxed after the mention of of Privatzahler, and gives you access to newer equipments not yet acknowledged by the state insurance processes), but you still have to research, find, and pick the right practice.

Bureaucracy, administrative. You often have to deal with clerks that just go "I just work here", the rules says this and there's nothing I can do, throws hand in the air. Goodbye, next person please!

In day-to-day work, I can also see it. New hires tend to be more into the work, and questions things, but the system does push everyone to just follow the process and not do anything more. I've seen my colleagues slowly shift into this mode, delivering what is outlined, nothing more, not questioning the intent behind the work (or at least, doing it much less than before, because the system does not incentivise that).

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#413

Post by messe »

f6v wrote: post #5

There're certain kinds of rewards to encourage traveling by rail in Europe. For example, a training course I attended refunded part of your travel expenses if you took a long-distance train. And there're people who believe in not flying for the sake of the planet. But at this point, I'm convinced you should avoid any train in and around Germany. This includes Denmark as well. Just take a plane, but don't have a layov…

> This includes Denmark as well

I regularly travel on DSB (2.5hr journeys, 4 times a month minimum), and only very rarely encounter issues. Staff have always been easy to deal with and on the rare occasion I've had to be refunded (the carriage with my reserved seat didn't show up) I've received it within days.

Avoid trains run by GoCollective though.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#414

Post by abigail95 »

Macha wrote: post #177
abigail95 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is my time less valuable than an ambulance or doctor? You have to make a lot of assumptions and normative judgements for that to be true, which I reject. Morally DB (through the driver) is the one lying and saying things like "cannot stop". They don't want to stop - that's different. They've already broken the social contract, I'm free to do the same.

The consequence of wasting a doctor or ambulance drivers time is depriving someone else of medical care, potentially leading to worse medical outcomes, up to death. I’m sure you’re going to pose a hypothetical that you would be in the way to save someone’s life, but we both know that’s not true and even in that situation, you could raise that with the train company rather than faking a new, different medical emergenc…

I won't give you a new hypothetical, just complete the comparison.

It's true an EMS call might reduce QALY (quality adjusted life years). It's also true that taking a train full of passengers somewhere they don't want to go also reduces QALY.

Iterate this enough and DB changes their policy. Now we have a new equilibrium. The full game theory of this isn't as simple as wasted doctor time = bad.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#415

Post by Atlas667 »

Watch the neoliberals feed off of rigid bureaucratic incompetence to pander for privatization and create for-profit bureaucratic incompetence. All with massive subsidies that citizens will pay through taxes or cutting of public services elsewhere.

Gotta love the "free" market and "democracy".

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#416

Post by CalRobert »

hylaride wrote: post #395
PurpleRamen wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general reason is, the rule exists for a reason, and the "low worker" does not understand the bigger picture, so you should follow it blindly before doing something harmful you can't foresee. It's not always working well, but to be fair, also not always bad. Knowing how much you can stretch the rules can be an art which takes a long time to acquire.

Some cultures are more sticklers for creating and following rules and bureaucracy than others, though. A good example: Here in North America I'll jaywalk without a thought if there's no traffic. In Germany, you'll get grandmothers calling you a child-killer for setting a bad example if you did the same. Another example: Both France and Germany spend roughly the same amount (in raw Euros) on their militaries. France (…

Of course, the very idea of jaywalking was created to remove the obligation to not kill people from drivers and shift it to the very people being killed, but this doesn’t seem to bother the meddling grandmothers.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#417

Post by Bewelge »

To all non-Germans who might get scared by this blogpost:

While there's valid issues to complain about, this blogpost is really hyperbole. And frankly, to someone who has lived in the area, it reads purposefully disingenuous.

Just enter the places he mentions on Google Maps. Everything in NRW is so close together that to travel between cities you can often choose between international trains, regional trains or even just public transport.

The connection he needed, is serviced several times per hour by several different train lines.

Why did he stay on that specific train when he heard his stop would be skipped? The only reason I can think of is to write this blogpost. Since he's local to the area he should have known better.

Also it's worth noting that driving that same route by car, at that time, just a couple of hours before everyone starts their Christmas dinner, might've taken even longer.

I'm not trying to deny common issues with the DB but the author tried to travel through the densest urban area in the whole of Europe during the busiest 2-hour window of the whole year. AND he made a bad judgement call. To leave the transportation hub, staying on a long distance train which was already being re-routed.

Funnily enough, the fact that every "Kuhdorf" needs to be connected by train is one of the difficulties the DB faces for which there is no easy solution. And if a long-distance train needs to decide between dropping some stops which can also be reached by short-distance trains or delaying the whole train, I think that dropping those short-distance stops is absolutely the correct choice.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#418

Post by fabian2k »

hylaride wrote: post #395
PurpleRamen wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general reason is, the rule exists for a reason, and the "low worker" does not understand the bigger picture, so you should follow it blindly before doing something harmful you can't foresee. It's not always working well, but to be fair, also not always bad. Knowing how much you can stretch the rules can be an art which takes a long time to acquire.

Some cultures are more sticklers for creating and following rules and bureaucracy than others, though. A good example: Here in North America I'll jaywalk without a thought if there's no traffic. In Germany, you'll get grandmothers calling you a child-killer for setting a bad example if you did the same. Another example: Both France and Germany spend roughly the same amount (in raw Euros) on their militaries. France (…

Nobody cares if you jaywalk as long as no children are around. If there are children around, most people will avoid crossing a red light even if they otherwise would cross. But that's not a rule-following thing, it's a "don't set a bad example to children" thing. It's easier to teach children the rules about how to behave in traffic if you have fewer adults obviously violating them.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#419

Post by linmob »

rjzzleep wrote: post #354
svara wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as DB goes, I'm pretty sure it's mostly an issue of systemic technical and consequently social collapse. The system runs beyond its limits and consequently the culture collapses because the people inside learn they have no agency. The German rail network is quite good on paper, with dense and high frequency connections even to relatively remote locations. But keeping that functional (particularly with constant…

The German rails network went downhill when they decided to socialize the losses and privatize the profit. Failure is blamed on the grunt workers, which are absolutely not interested in taking responsibility as a result of this. The fact that there are rotting railways everywhere and the DB waits until it gets so bad for cities to step in and take over part of the cost is a wonderful example of this. The new ICE's sp…

Just an aside, as a railway-nerd:

> The new ICE's speed is actually lower than previous generations.

While not the fastest ICE, the new ICE-L (assuming you refer to it) with a top speed of 230km/h, is not actually slower than what it is supposed to replace on most routes: InterCity trains, topping out at 200km/h.

ICE-L, btw, was planned to be a IC train, but just like before with IC-T/ICE-T (same top speed of 230km/h), and IC X (ICE 4), DB management has a tendency to decide next-to-last minute, that new vehicles must earn money and thus get rebranded ICE, which is both more prestigious and (at least in a fictional world without "Sparpreis") pricey.

TL;DR: This would be outrageous if ICE-L was to replace ICE 3 (neo; 320km/h +) services - but it is not.

Re: Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn

#420

Post by abigail95 »

saagarjha wrote: post #256
dominicq wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the downvotes to your comment absurd. The downvoters seem to me what Kaczynski called "oversocialized". They accept being taken against your will because the system says that's how it's supposed to work. And then rationalize their conformity with apparent consequences (medical emergency services not providing care elsewhere, you being penalized for a fake call, and so on). It shows a concerning lack of agency…

I agree that the decision made by the train here sucks, but I think it's pretty clear that the use of "kidnapped" is hyperbole. You are not "kidnapped" if the bus driver refuses to let you get down in the middle of the freeway. The situation is a little similar if the driver is taking you to somewhere you don't want to go, because that is also what a kidnapper does, but that's where the similarities end.

I'm not asking the bus driver to stop in the middle of a highway. I'm asking the bus driver not to go past 15 actual bus stops before letting me off. With the drivers rationale being - "This bus is not registered at any of those stops".
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