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).

I would summarize Americans (and perhaps most English speaking countries) as perceiving this mindset to be callous, ineffective, and a dereliction of autonomy.

But I'm interested in how Germans perceive Americans in reverse? If shop staff went out of their way to help them find a product, shoot the breeze, or recommend a lunch spot, would Germans tend to see this as being overzealous? Would it cause embarrassment, or be a pleasant surprise? Just curious.

The difference in healthcare between private and public insurance is, as far as i know, because if a doctor sends you for some test or something that your insurance feels was unnecessary then the doctor has to pay for it with the public flavour. At least, that’s what I heard but could be wrong.

Every country is different and you need to learn slightly different ways of dealing with them in each. On a bad day it can be pretty exhausting.

It turns out, people everywhere want the same things, in the end. They just go about them differently.

In Germany, it often helps frame it as both of you trying to work with the rules together; as a framework to build within and on, rather than a cage to hold you in.

Doesn't always work. Nothing works all the time, (especially if the other person is having a bad day themselves and just wants it to be over). But if it helps even once eh?