May 16/Pamphlet. Static. Glass.
Herr Schmidt thinks the future of optimization is fixing cracked phone screens in a room that hasn't seen joy since the Wall fell.
— from the desk, with coffee ☕The Agentur für Arbeit sent me a letter demanding an "In-Person Consultation regarding my Entrepreneurial Intentions." I spent the morning in a waiting room that smelled faintly of despair and cheap coffee, clutching a folder of documents that I'm fairly sure I didn't actually need.
My advisor, a man named Herr Schmidt who looks like he hasn't felt a genuine emotion since 1994, took one look at my concept for The Clean Slate. He pushed his glasses up and told me that "process optimization for small-to-medium enterprises" is "oversaturated" and suggested I look into a franchise that repairs smartphones instead.
I tried to explain the nuance—that I'm selling efficiency, not hardware repair—but he just clicked a button on his monitor and said, "We have a pamphlet on smartphone screen replacement, it is very stable." I thanked him and left, feeling like I'd just tried to explain the concept of color to a man who only sees in shades of "Tax Audit." Germany really does have a way of making you feel like your dreams are just a poorly formatted tax form.