Switzerland is a terrible country
Fri 8:19 am +00:00, 18 Oct 2024 8I have relatives there, and as a truck driver I go frequently to Switzerland. I am Hungarian, I got used to the need to bend some rules sometimes in order to keep things going. We had to in the last thousand years. Forget it there.
A couple of years ago I went to a company to load. I was told, it is too late, they can load me the next morning. I can park and sleep in the truck’s cabin on the premises and at 7 am I can load. No problem. It was around October, early November, I had to use the cabin heating at night. The next morning the battery level was low. Since it was already 6:30 I thought it did no harm to start the engine to charge the batteries. I was fully aware that the Swiss people are very sensitive to noises, but it was not night anymore. Buses run on the street, kids on the way to school, pedestrians on the sidewalk etc. The engine was running for 5 minutes when the chief of the loading company ran to me breathless, and told me to stop the engine at once. ‘But why? It is 7 o’clock already, and I need to charge my battery’ I said. ‘I don’t care, just kill the engine right now!’ – hissed the guy. He explained there were many complaints in the past. There are houses nearby, and the people call the police if they hear any disturbing noises, such as diesel engines. The guy was literally begging to me to stop the engine, otherwise within ten minutes the police was going to be there. Crazy.
But the same goes with toilet flushing at night, the neighbours call the police if they think your car’s tyre is too worn out and things.
As a driver if you make some small mistake, there is no mercy. Do not even think of speeding, phoning during driving, parking illegaly etc.
OK, I fully understand the rules are for us. We live in a society not in the jungle. But the Swiss way is simply too much for me. Recently I got a job offer to work there, as a trucker, but no way. It is enough to me to go there once or twice a month.
Jacob Gibbs on Quora
These things happen in the German-speaking cantons. The first time I came here to live in 1970 when I was very young, it was not allowed to run a shower or bath after 22.00 and a friend of mine who had a party had a visit from the police.
This was in Geneva and I’ve been back and forth ever since. Half the population of the canton is from another country and rules have changed. I had a Swiss neighbour who was a drug dealer and a perfect nuisance and he received many warnings and was within an ace of being thrown out. He calmed down but the dealing went on until he died.
I once when on a “business trip” to Germany, courtesy of a German supplier of ours. This was in the 1970’s and it was a lads piss up in reality, a thanks you for our business. Wonderful beer, and schnapps with breakfast too…
Two interesting things happened on our tour of the suppliers massive light engineering factory
First, we saw small fork lift type trucks towing trailers full of bottles of beer. When somebody asked why there was beer in a factory our guide said “it’s hot work and the lads need it to cool off”. Elf and safety, not
Second, the guide showed us the factory workers flats next to the factory, some very large apartment blocks. The guide proudly advised us that, during the winter then, tenants were obliged to put their central heating on because it was considered unfair to rely on all the neighbours for heat. One wag in our group immediately piped up “vee haf ways of making you warm”. The guide didn’t get the joke ;-))
You may consider me a sourpuss, but I think the final comment in your post, Pete, is extremely rude and I wouldn’t have found it funny at all. When you visit a foreign country, insulting the host is not a bright idea.
Why do Brits have to stereotype everyone?
Each to their own Belyi. But I only told you what I experienced
I never insulted my hosts either, I would never do that. They were very intelligent, courteous and helpful at all times. Good company too when on the ale
But the stereotype was funny at that time, only 25 years or so after WW2 and all
Even if the guide didn’t get the ‘joke’ he certainly understood he was being laughed at. We are all ambassadors for our countries when we go abroad and the UK had unfortunately a reputation (being taken over by the US) of exceptionalism.
Nothing wrong with taking the piss. It’s a great British humorous tradition, or used to be until the politically correct wokesters got stuck in. We all need the piss taking out of us occasionally, even me, it’s a public service. Particularly when directed at the up themselves, me, me me, modern thinkers
Finally, I wasn’t an ambassador for my country Belyi, I never saw it in those terms at all. I was an ambassador for my business, which is why I was there. Nothing to do with Britain or England at all, that was just my happenstance of birth
“Krauts” as my old man used to call Germans [with good justification, he drove a truck on to the beach on D day, and saw a lot more too] are no different to us as far as I could see, in fact very like us in many ways
I wasn’t carrying his chip and, as Germans are no different to us as far as I could see, then I treated them as I would anyone else. Including taking the piss when the opportunity arose, or was handed on a plate
We sourced machinery in Germany in the 1970s at the peak of the German post-war economic boom. Germans varied from those denigrating Britain as a basketcase economy lecturing me with thngs like ‘you British do not know how to export your goods’ to comics saying stuff like ‘I tried to go to England in 1940 but I couldn’t get further than Calais’. As the town we were in had been a munitions industry hotbed, and was bombed to pieces by the RAF killing 20,000 people in a single night, our reception was remarkably courteous and I liked the engineers we worked with very much. I asked one how on earth did Germany and Britain fight wars against each other (he had been in the war – I was about 20) and I never forget his reply. ‘Until you have experienced propaganda, you will never understand war’. Look at the media now, going on about Russia. Just the same. Only big money wants war, and big money controls the media.
Yes Tap, exactly the same now
‘Until you have experienced propaganda, you will never understand war’
He made a very good point. The Germans were the most heavily propagandised before WW2. Bernays Propaganda technique was used in real time on Germans. Every household was given a radio and all listened to the propaganda that spewed forth
I put up a post the other day about Churchill talking the truth about the Brits real war aims, ie Crush Germany. And that is what happened. Germany is still crushed now, it’s never been “Independent” ever since WW2 when it became a US[UK] vassal. Ever since WW1 in fact
Brits don’t get it, most of them think that all this was organic development via evil Hitler, rather than centrally directed by the hidden money powers playing their usual divide and rule game
All wars are bankers wars, no different now