#bureaucracy

A very German bureaucracy moment happened today. 🇩🇪📋 My client, a person who has been granted asylum and is still learning German, had an appointment at the vehicle registry office in Essen to exchange her foreign driving licence for a German one. I was standing by on the phone to help with translation if needed. A perfectly normal, practical solution: faster, cheaper, and honestly more sensible than sending an interpreter across town and country just to translate one or two questions. I have done this countless times before. Except this time the first thing the office did was demand that my client switch off the phone. When she explained that she might need language assistance, and I explained that all I would do was offer that assistance when needed, I was immediately told: “That is only possible in person, after legitimising yourself as a translator.” I politely pointed out that this was highly unusual and asked them to simply continue with the procedure. After all, I was not replacing the official process, I was just there as a language bridge if something became unclear. Nope. Their argument? They didn’t know whether I was “really” a translator, and they didn’t know who else might be listening. A fascinating level of suspicion. Apparently the greatest threat to German administrative order is not missing paperwork, endless waiting times, or three different forms requiring three different stamps. No. It is… a translator on speakerphone. Of course, protecting privacy is important. But there is a difference between legitimate data protection and treating every person with limited German skills as if they are trying to sneak past the system with a mysterious telephone accomplice. That said, after hearing some of the things I have heard from officials over the years, I can understand why someone might prefer not having a witness present... Integration is supposed to mean removing barriers, not creating new ones with a “please bring a human interpreter, preferably certified by the bureaucracy gods, before we allow you to understand what we are saying” policy. Sometimes German bureaucracy feels less like a service and more like an escape room where the final puzzle is finding the correct stamp. #Integration #Bureaucracy #Migration #LanguageAccess #Germany #HumanRights #KafkaIsNotAManual