I had to go to the post office today, which is always more fun the closer you get to Christmas.
However, they tried to make things a little less awful by having a lady ask people in the queue whether they had stuff to pick up so she could go and find their packages ahead of time to speed up the procedure once it was our turn. Worked flawlessly.

For a few moments, this made me wonder whether that elusive German efficiency might actually be a thing.

And then, I remembered that

• in this country, tons of administrative things still have to be done in written form, especially in the medical sector (a recent gripe of mine: sick notes* and, being someone who needs medication regularly, prescriptions – all of these have to be issued on pieces of paper… what the fuck?!)
• many people (even younger generations) are irrationally, almost aggressively, attached to paper money
• the prevalence and quality of both high-speed cable and mobile internet is still beyond awful, not to mention the prices (especially for mobile internet) are ridiculous, especially when compared to many other – supposedly – less developed/advanced countries

and couldn’t help but feel a little bit silly ^_^;;;

* for the masochists out there: The proper German word for a sick note is Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung (AU). Cute, huh? XDD