451–460 of 1001 posts
And of course there is some huge fine or even potentially jail time if you moo in protest and pull that nice red lever to avoid the Christmas present of this bureaucratic idiocy (after all, you have legs that are capable of crossing train tracks and eyes to do that safely)?
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Look, as an EU country citizen, English is more or less the defacto language of the EU, regardless of what politicians declare. Everyone in the EU speaks english in some form as even traveling to a next door country like you state requires communication. There are cases where in Belgium you will see signs in 4 languages (Dutch, French, Flemish and English) Also if you ever travel in Japan, they have signs, especially…
Don't you think same could be said about German and French? I still remember the time when passports from my (now EU) country used French instead of English, and when signs for tourists were in German. An English announcement wouldn't hurt but we don't have them on our trains here either.
That they’re the de facto languages of the EU? No, this is just factually not true. The vast majority of EU citizens speak no German at all.
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So much in German work culture - and also culture in general - is about covering your own arse. If you follow the procedure, even if the outcome is disaster, you are not at fault; you were just implementing the rules, and you cannot be held accountable. It's the fault of whoever came up with the rules, except that is usually not a single person, but some amorphous entity that ran through some decision making process…
My favorite part of German work culture is watching an excel sheet together and going over the numbers. My actual favorite part of German work culture is that meetings always have an agenda, that part is a delight when doing business with German customers.
I feel like we lost humanity somewhere in modern world. I grew up in 3rd world country and if this were to happen, train would literally stop somewhere, anywhere. (With the assumption it’s safe from crewing into another train). But the idea that you go 55 minutes just because of policy; and skip 15 stations is crazy to me. Again with the assumptions that it can safely stop somewhere for 5m and I’m pretty sure the ans…
When you get on the bus there's a big sign stating the rules of riding the bus which include strictly stopping at designated bus stops ONLY and threatening fines. For the rest of the day I watched every bus driver stop anywhere they like if a person hailed the bus, allowing people to get in while waiting in red traffic lights, and if you talked to the driver he'd drop you off anywhere you wanted as long it's possible. Those drivers make nothing from this so they are doing it because this is life and also because there's no real enforcement against it. Also you can get in through the exit doors and leave through the entry doors, whatever you like.
I decided I feel ok about this and don't want it to change
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A typical season ticket into London is under 20p a mile. Outside of London it’s far more expensive (35p a mile is common), because the railway has not had the investment London has over decades. Platform lengthening (of possible) is not cheap, requires buying new land in crowded towns and cities. Modern train stock isn’t cheap either 25km each way is 680 miles a month.
Most people will commute ~19 days a month, given vacations and sickness. From my example, that's ~794 miles (corrected) a month, £255, £0.32/mile. Not as expensive as some other routes but still can be as as high as 12% of your take-home wage given the low salaries in that city. Moving onto London... /under/ 20p a mile? Which route is that?? Just some random examples I picked: Alton to Waterloo: £529, 1786 miles, £0.…
Alton to Waterloo is £5520 a year, 50 miles each way or 23,000 miles a year, 24p per mile.
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Because even in countries less developed(by western standards), there are more English announcements, so visiting tourists can also use the public transport. This isn't lack of speaking the language as well, it is more about not wanting to speak another language because "In Deutschland muss man Deutsch sprechen." It is reaching French level of racism at this point. Funny for a country that wants to attract so many in…
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Because English has become the lingua franca for Europe. I suspect that now UK has left EU it will be much easier to accept this.
Wasn't that meant to be Esperanto? /s
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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…
Could be. It used to be that to get phone service in Germany could take up to a month after putting in the order, that’s when it was state controlled. After the reforms installations were quicker. So to me, there doesn’t seem to be a panacea except to hold the services accountable in some way.
The government is the most efficient and effective at big capital spending and with what I would call static operations. Competitive private entities are the best at delivering value on the front-end.
Monopolist/cartel private entites combine the rapacious nature of rent seeking with the lazy inefficiency of bureaucracy to great a giant ball of failure. Effective privatization requires either creating a framework for a robust competitive landscape OR tight, effective regulatory control. There's no universal correct answer.
If competition is in place and companies can win or lose, they will move mountains to yield marginal gain. If you let them get fat & lazy, you will need to move a mountain to do anthing -- even make more money!
I feel like we lost humanity somewhere in modern world. I grew up in 3rd world country and if this were to happen, train would literally stop somewhere, anywhere. (With the assumption it’s safe from crewing into another train). But the idea that you go 55 minutes just because of policy; and skip 15 stations is crazy to me. Again with the assumptions that it can safely stop somewhere for 5m and I’m pretty sure the ans…