One of the most frequent cuases of frustration in Germany is the unavailability of basic and critical information. Street names are a closely guarded secret. They are occasionally indicated at quiet junctions between residential streets, provided neither street is wide enough for any vehicle wider than a bicycle. At roundabouts and crossroads they are strictly prohibited, presumably to avoid the risk that a confused driver would inconvenience other road users by slowing down to try to read one. This is always necessary in the rare cases where a sign does exist, because the writing on them is far too small to be read by anyone moving faster than a pedestrian with time on his hands. They are also cleverly angled away from the road so as to minimise the area from which the sign can be read.
Similar trials await anyone hoping to unlock the secrets of the U-Bahn (subway). The generous amounts of public money collected from our salaries will run to one sign per platform, which is not lit at night on outdoor platforms and is carefully positioned so that with the right training your driver can stop the train with the sign exactly at the join between carriages, avoiding any excessive risk that passengers will get close enough to the sign to use it up. This is an important German concept that is sometimes difficult for foreigners to grasp. A landlady of mine once tried to add a clause to our contract saying I would compensate her for using up her chairs. 'But I won't be doing anything to them,' I said, convinced I had misunderstood, 'just sitting on them from time to time.' 'That's how they get used up!' she retorted. It is a given that all objects get 'ausgebraucht' and I am sure it is the fear of this that makes the authorities so fearful of allowing their signs to be read too often.
I could go on and explain the electronic signs on the trains that are supposed to get round the problem described above by displaying the name of the next stop for precisely four seconds after you pull out of the previous station before they revert to showing the terminus station, or the motorway junctions that studiously avoid all mention of direction for fear of confusing anyone without a compass and instead help you orientate yourself by offering two alternative directions based on towns at least 150km away which you have never heard of and are not going anywhere near. But I think you begin to get the idea.
The interesting thing about all of this is that nobody complains. Apart from a few expats who huddle together in dark corners to reminisce wistfully about well-signed public transit, the theme is entirely undiscussed. Why is this?
I think it has to do with the fundamentally different attitude towards customer service. My point of comparison is the UK, where it is more or less routine to treat everything a customer says as not only correct but kind of inspired. Walk into a stationer's shop and ask if they sell organic radicchio and the answer will probably be 'I'm afraid not, there's a greengrocer's three doors up, maybe try there?', said with a sort of awkward mea culpa smile. In Germany, on the other hand, you walk into a stationer's shop and ask for the wrong kind of ink cartridges and the assisant looks at you as if you've said something off-key about her mother. This kind of contempt is rarely expressed vocally; it's not worth using up the air. Any question that can be truthfully answered with a monosyllabic 'Nein' will be; elaborations concerning the likelihood of fresh stock next week, the presence of alternative vendors in the area or general regret at not having been able to help you solve your problem are not to be expected. It is important to note that no German would regard any of this as rude. I did once express my frustration at this unwillingness to go beyond the call of duty and volunteer information to a German friend; she looked at me with incomprehension and asked if I'd asked for more information than I'd got. Well, no, I replied lamely, they didn't seem to really want to help, I didn't want to bother them any further, so I thought I'd better just keep trying... Still less can German friends comprehend the train platform problem. 'Just ask someone!', they exclaim. Well, yes, of course one can do that, one does if one has to, but it's hard for people to understand the gulf of desirability for an Englishman in being able to find information without having to initiate contact with a stranger and having to bother someone to get it.
What it makes me realise, though, is that there is a certain sense of entitlement in British culture. I think this is a phenomenon in other parts of the Anglophone world as well. We largely believe that if there is information we need, it must be someone's job to provide it. Go near the Tate Britain in London and the signs to whatever exhibition is currently on begin two miles away. Once you get within 400 metres you'll see a row of 20 enormous flags advertising it so you know you've arrived, and on every side of the building there will be signs directing you to the entrance. Nobody thinks any of this is strange. Trying to find an exhibition at a similar establishment in Germany is a quite different experience. There will be a transparent board in the window, like the menu outside a restaurant, and inside that will be an A4 sheet advertising the exhibition. You won't see this unless you've already found it, of course, but if you ask anyone directions they'll cheerfully wave in the general direction and assure you that there's a sign outside, you can't miss it.
Despite the way all this sounds, I don't really mean this in the tradition of the diplomat sent to the colonies to observe the behaviour of the natives and send back reports of their primitive ways. No doubt Germans in the UK find the onslaught of unrequested information patronising and bothersome - and Germans observing the reticence of British expats when it comes to asking for information they need must find us hilarious. A sense of entitlement is actually not a very good thing at all and it's a cultural difference that runs much deeper than the daily frustrations of the subway system. Believing it's someone else's responsibility to solve your problems makes you a lot less likely to solve them. I just wish I didn't keep getting off the train at the wrong stop.
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