<the typical German philosophy of strictly following the process -- as absurd as it might be -- and refusing to take initiative for anything that is not explicitly defined as one's responsibility>

you summarized my 5+ year experience living in Germany with one sentence in a way that I have never found the words for - thank you, really, thank you

I feel that in Germany, the original intent of the many rules, processes, and procedures has been lost. Employees are trained to operate such that every situation is governed by a rule/process/procedure, and their job is to look up the situation in a massive leather-bound book of branching rules, see which rule applies in the given situation, and then… apply the rule. But, they will do this only if they assess that helping you falls under their job’s responsibilities. Sometimes your situation is neat and clean, and was what the rule-writers thought about when they wrote the rules. Sometimes, not.

TLDR: if you have an edge case in the German bureaucratic system (forms at the doctor’s office, Deutsche Bahn travel troubles, closing a bank account), you are f***

It is certainly my biggest dislike factor with my stay in Germany, and I'm still struggling to come to terms with it: do I dislike it enough to compel me to move away? is this something I can accept? How much can I influence and improve things that I directly interact with?

It seeps in everywhere too, with almost all aspects.

Day-to-day with restaurants, cafe, shops. Almost all interaction feels like it's actively checked if it's in their process or job description. Shop staffs are typically disengaged and can't really help you with anything outside the normal process.

Healthcare, both receptionist and doctors. You can see the rushed service because they are only compensated for limited amount of time by the state insurance. This took me a while to figure out; the process really defines what treatment you get, with what equipments, as well as the duration, and they have to do their best with the constraints put by the process.

An example: with Wurzelkanalbehandlung, the process says (at least back then) only 1 hour of Laborkosten can be compensated by the state insurance. This means if the dentist took more than 1 hour to work on you, that would be done at their personal loss, and thus the incentive to rush the procedure.

Going private helps (they tend to be more relaxed after the mention of of Privatzahler, and gives you access to newer equipments not yet acknowledged by the state insurance processes), but you still have to research, find, and pick the right practice.

Bureaucracy, administrative. You often have to deal with clerks that just go "I just work here", the rules says this and there's nothing I can do, throws hand in the air. Goodbye, next person please!

In day-to-day work, I can also see it. New hires tend to be more into the work, and questions things, but the system does push everyone to just follow the process and not do anything more. I've seen my colleagues slowly shift into this mode, delivering what is outlined, nothing more, not questioning the intent behind the work (or at least, doing it much less than before, because the system does not incentivise that).