Do you happen to remember our post "Arrogant and Lazy", where we described the encounter of an enthusiastic, bright, hard working young German with a lard ass bureaucrat of the Arbeitsagentur (job center)?
We have a follow-up illustrating "insult to injury", although the correct order of the idiom in this case should read "injury to insult".
After the official had threatened to deny any support to the young man, the agency decided to do exactly as he had proposed in the first place. Accept the mini job given to him by the farmer for the time in between the "Meister" (vocational master) classes, deduct that pay from the unemployment benefit he was entitled to, and be done with it.
All is well that ends well.
Its just, that this was not the end yet.
The end showed up at the young man's home about eight weeks later in the form of a bailiff.
Fun fact: German bailiffs are sometimes nicknamed "cuckoo" after the sticker they will put on valuables to designate them as property of the state. The sticker has the German eagle seal, and someone without any money but with ample humor came up with "cuckoo" for the chicken.
The bailiff wanted health insurance arears, the unpaid premium for the period between classes.
Our young man was baffled.
One thing they tell you when you apply for unemployment benefits is that the agency will pay the health insurance premium to the insurer.
Which his job center branch had failed to do. The health insurer had skipped the required legal process, which includes at least three reminder mails with decreasing levels of friendliness.
Being a problem solver, the young man paid the bailiff right there, called up the job center and reported the issue.
They paid up this past week.
It is safe to say that the German job center organization has lost him.
And guess what? Just like our British job center friends fudged figures, there are reports out today that the German job centers massaged their statistics for bureaucratic beauty.
Looking good, man, looking good.
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