We got the almost empty suitcase back! Furthers updates at the end of the post.
Do I know anyone who knows anyone close to Simandres? It’s in France, close to Lyon. I am asking because our suitcase or to be precise the AirTag in our suitcase can currently be seen in X* Simandres.
As we are over 600 km away we can’t personally do anything about it and apparently neither would anyone who could have. I am not implying that the people who live there stole it! Please keep reading.
No one helped. The blame is not on people individually, but on the systems.
Systems intentionally designed to not help.
The obvious damage
Valuables like phones, computer, wallet we had with us so what is now gone is less important stuff that can be replaced, but buying all of these things new adds up to a hefty sum. We do not have an insurance. It also most likely would not have paid as we were never in Lyon and hence never filed a police report in person. I doubt the online form would have been sufficient.
Financially, this is unfortunate, but we are in the lucky position to be able to replace the stuff that is gone. But Flixbus travellers are usually not the rich, so for some this might have also had much graver financial consequences.
There’s also personal stuff with sentimental value that is gone. Lots of personal notes and paper I needed to file and work on. My biggest fear is that with the papers some sort of identity theft could be possible if someone puts in the effort in to decipher the German paperwork, so I hope it simply got trashed.
And then there’s the sentimental valuable like the Ray Ban sunglasses my aunt who died many years ago gave my dad who gave them to my partner. We can buy similar ones, and someone might be wearing them now, but even then to them, they will just be some old sunglasses found in the street.
The hidden, emotional damage
There is emotional damage created by loss. Loss of stuff can be fixed with money. Loss of sentimental stuff needs o be griefed. And then there’s the loss of trust into the systems.
I am not listing loss of trust in individual humans, because I am not blaming any of this on any individual. Maybe the suitcase was stolen, but I doubt it, and this would feel differently. My assumption is that it was taken out by someone who thought it’s theirs but when they realised it wasn’t they just put it down but not back into the bus.
I am feeling helplessness, irrelevant, invisible, alone—because no one helped. No one really was in the position to help. We were at the mercy of systems (online forms) build to document, optimize, safe cost, automize and not to actually help.
I blame the emotional damage on these systems. Systems intentionally designed to not help.
System failure
If someone had answered the phone in Lyon and quickly checked, we might also have been left with an empty suitcase or less, but at least there would have been the attempt to help.
As the police allows 240 characters to describe the incident. I doubt they want to know about it.
Lost & Found at Lyon train station can not be called, so if you do not live in Lyon, good luck finding out if what you lost is there. Depending on where you are, it might be cheaper to replace what was gone than to travel to Lyon on the chance that something might be at the Lost & Found.
Flixbus doesn’t have employees in any of the stops, there are only the drivers of the buses going in and out, so they won’t help either.
All the systems are designed so we can’t share the story and the details and get immediate help. They are designed to fail.
How can a Lost & Found at a train station not be reached by phone? That is a conscious decision because there would be many desperate calls and the people working there would pretty often run to platforms to see if the suitcase is still there. But I assume there’s no one really working there any more to cut costs.
The same is true for Flixbus, it’s cheap and that’s reflected in the passengers and the infrastructure, so caring for lost luggage and desperate poor passenger isn’t part of the business strategy. In 2023, they saw 2 Billion in revenue and their founder and CEO is now among the 500 richest people in Germany.
And then there’s the police, they wanted to get back to us within two days, which isn’t particularly helpful in our situation. Which didn’t happen. I am not going deeper into that topic. Let’s just say that I truly believe that there are people who truly want to do something good, but I also believe that the system is rigged against them and against us.
Isn’t the same true for the other passengers and drivers? There they are at 2:30 in the morning rushing to go somewhere. Would I expect any of them to wonder about a suitcase standing there next to the bus?
Maybe if they weren’t rushed, were well rested, safe and not worried about their own luggage, next connection and whatever situation makes them take that bus.
Perhaps then someone would have had the attention and time to wonder about this bag and might have brought it to the Lost & Found. An equally happy, relaxed and well rested person would have taken it and spent some time to contact the owner whose name and number was on a tiny piece of paper and happened to call at the same time. Possibly then it would have been put into the next Flixbus to Barcelona for us to pick up.
But unfortunately, we are tired, stressed, and anxious. As we are all maximizing some else’s profit. Someone who won’t ride a Flixbus or hang out at a bus station at 2:30 at night, worked at a Lost & Found before they got fired during restructuring or is a police officer.
As humans, we are a deeply caring creatures. Yet the systems and how they are currently set up deprive us of it, they actually prevent us to live it.
It’s true in my own life. There isn’t enough time to go the extra mile. There isn’t enough time for that call, chat, checking in, looking after, attention, smile, consideration, appreciation.
There isn’t enough time to care!
And I am not yet involved in a lot of care work in a classical sense, as in child care or caring for the elderly.
As humans, we are a deeply caring creatures. Yet the systems and how they are currently set up deprive us of it, they actually prevent us to live it.
To fix the systems, we need to build truly caring systems. Systems which reinforce the human impulse to care, leave space to care, allow us to care and be cared for. And that can be fixed!
It can be fixed with money, legislation, political will, anything but the individual alone.
Yet here we are not even acknowledging care work in the classical sense, but at least the discussions are getting louder. And in the end isn’t it all about care? Real people at Lost & Found, the police and a Flixbus counter in the bus station, at the end of a phone line, they could all care for people in need, in desperate situations. Child care, (mental) health care, …, caring for each other and the environment.
My personal catastrophe** was a suitcase taken out of a bus and not being put back. If there’s a gravity of the incident scale from 1 (lost my glasses) to 10 (my house being bombed) this is probably a 1,01 or less and it still has an undeniable negative effect.
* Took the concrete adress out as the suitcase was picked up from there and that’s enough
** I changed the wording to personal catastrophe after reading this German text “Besser Leben oder Das Private is strukturell” which is a pretty good match to what I am describing here.
Updates
Update 26.10.2024
I managed to get a local policeman on the phone. And as there was the option to talk and explain, and human interaction. No idea if it’ll bring back the suitcase, but it was so nice to have someone who listened, noted down things, asked questions, understood the situation and said: “I’ll send someone to that house to ask.”
Maybe we should have directly called the police before, but I am very hesitant to do so in situations without immediate danger, and it doesn’t excuse the other systems from not functioning.
Update 29.10.2024
No news of our stuff. I guess regularly checking my bank account, being a bid more scared of identity theft, a bit less trusting the process and more cautious is my life now. But there’s still hope that some kind soul did something.
At he bus station at night we would have most likely only focused on ourselves, but usually we are looking out for lost and left behind items. This is a good reminder of how important and impactful these little gestures and deeds can be.
If I’d believe in Karma I’d expect the suitcase to come back as we found headphones in the bus and handed them back to the mother and her kid who had lost them.
Overall, I am dealing with the situation well and I attribute this also to working through the emotions consciously for example by writing this article.
Update 09.11.2024
I got a phone call from gendarme Laurent. The suitcase is almost empty but in his car, I can pick it up. The only problem is that I can’t because I am about 700km away. Anyway I am thrilled because someone cared and did something. Yes, it’s his job, but it’s also probably not the most importnat thing a policemen has to do and I am grateful, to the person and to the remaining institution which occasionally cares. Yes, there’s justified harsh criticism regarding the police, they also do a lot of things I am very grateful for.
02.12.2024 Final Update
The suitcase arrived back in Hamburg! It was almost empty but a few of our things were still in there as were a few things which weren’t ours like a Acer laptop charger and deodorant.
The whole story makes me happy and sad.
It makes me happy: Despite nobody being actively evil, my expectation was that we won’t see any of the items ever again. Yet we got some things back. It makes me happy and grateful because several people were involved, like my cousins and the hero of the story Gendarme Laurent who actively took some time to help. Gendarme Laurent picked up the phone, spoke English (as my french won‘t get us far and slip into Spanish every time I try) listened to my story, and drove by the house several times where we could locate the air tag. About a week after the suitcase was taken out of the bus in Lyon I got a phone-call that he had the suitcase. As the police isn‘t the post office it took my cousin‘s friendly and convincing call, a prepaid package sticker and some patience until Gendarme Laurent found the time to post the suitcase.
The story also makes me sad as mentioned before. I had made it clear to Gendarme Laurent upfront that I didn’t expect the person where the suitcase had been to have actively taken it in the first place. And while I wanted the suitcase back I didn’t want to cause any trouble for that person. However, it still saddens me that during the whole time no one had the time and mental capacity to actually think of the owners of that suitcase. But people had the time, need and nerve to scavenge. Looking at the things that are gone and added it had been raided several times and with some thoroughness. What bugs me the most, someone went through my pouch of “random official papers where I have to do something” and decided to either throw it all away (the happier ending, no I just have to worry about possible fines coming it) or to keep it and use my official bureaucracy numbers evident in the papers it for whatever at some point (the scary beginning plus potential fines). Of cause I don’t know, but I suspect it as stickers which were inside a notebook which was inside the pouch were in the suitcase while everything else was gone.
So, the whole story is as much a mixed bag as human existence in general it has gratitude, some good aspects, some bad, suspense and surprise and much unknown.
Learnings
- Call everyone, everywhere immediately. Call until someone does something immediately or your phone runs out of battery even if calling people is the worst for you.
- Do not trust in “fill this form and we’ll get back to you”. This is a lie. It either consciously says “we won’t do anything ever” or there aren’t enough people to actually do something or once someone looks at it it’ll be too late.
- Let the feeling of shock and being desperate fuel your phone odysee.
- Keep an eye out: Others might need help, something was left behind and so on. If you have some spare energy or attention use it to make the world a better place.
- Work through the feelings consciously, do not let it nag and drag you down. Frame it, contextualize it, learn form it and make it one story of your life not a factor affecting every aspect of your life negatively.