The Germans

Tancred

movilogo wrote: »

May be an urban legend, but I heard in Switzerland, after certain time in night and till before morning, you can't even flush toilet as its sound may wake your neighbors up.

I'd still prefer Britain any day over Germany. All countries have pros and cons.

Very true. British culture is closer to English speaking world like USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and even India to a great extent.

The only thing that I don't like about Germany is that they mostly tend to live in rented apartments. Not sure about the wisdom of renting all your life, even if it's only £500 a month. Many UK pensioners get barely above that in income, so how would you cope in old age? Ah, but Germans still get final salary pensions and the state pension is also higher, so they can afford it. The other thing I'm not so keen on is the apparent inflexibility at work - could you be in by 7.45am every day when you have to negotiate the M25 to get to work?

On the other hand I actually prefer the German social model - it's more genuinely social (without the Marxist rubbish that we get from the Left in the UK) and also allows successful free enterprise.

wotsthat

Tancred wrote: »

I believe that the system in Germany relies on tax breaks rather than handouts to support lower income families with a single wage earner. And the company is Faber-Castell, one of the world's biggest pencil manufacturers, who also make some very upmarket pens that sell for many £££. They are not short of money.

Much the same as here. Tesco, one of the world's biggest retailers, aren't short of money but they have employees that are subsidised by tax breaks and direct handouts.

Maybe the difference is that net tax payers in Germany are less begrudging. If so, and I don't know, it's possibly because that's because they think the system is helping out the hard working poorer person (the deserving poor).

Radiantsoul

movilogo wrote: »

May be an urban legend, but I heard in Switzerland, after certain time in night and till before morning, you can't even flush toilet as its sound may wake your neighbors up.

That is true if you live in flats in urban areas.

Loughton_Monkey

I worked for a large German company in Asia, and (amongst others) had quite a few Germans reporting to me - seconded from their homeland. The thing that I found the most intriguing was thier absolutely fanatical determination to maximise their (already very generous) holidays.

Quite junior staff had at least 6 weeks holiday. But the thing was, they had 2 'free' flights back to Germany a year, and each 'flight day' would be considered an extra day's holiday in itself. Plus their contracts said they got German public holidays only while physically in Germany, and Korean public holidays while physically in South Korea.

Well Einstein would have been proud of the mathematical analysis that went on - sitting in front of a list of national public holidays - to determine exactly the right time to travel so that they could get 8 extra days holiday - all in a row - by simply using one of their 42 days' holiday!

The other abiding memory was that they would get put into a hotel for the first week or so of secondment, and thereafter moved to a flat. Laundry was paid for in the hotel, but not in an apartment.

Once 3 or 4 of them are in apartments, and a new German gets seconded over and stays in a hotel, I learned that the new German must work hard since his weekly laundry bill would include about 120 shirts etc.

Funny that.....

Tancred

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I worked for a large German company in Asia, and (amongst others) had quite a few Germans reporting to me - seconded from their homeland. The thing that I found the most intriguing was thier absolutely fanatical determination to maximise their (already very generous) holidays.

Quite junior staff had at least 6 weeks holiday. But the thing was, they had 2 'free' flights back to Germany a year, and each 'flight day' would be considered an extra day's holiday in itself. Plus their contracts said they got German public holidays only while physically in Germany, and Korean public holidays while physically in South Korea.

Well Einstein would have been proud of the mathematical analysis that went on - sitting in front of a list of national public holidays - to determine exactly the right time to travel so that they could get 8 extra days holiday - all in a row - by simply using one of their 42 days' holiday!

The other abiding memory was that they would get put into a hotel for the first week or so of secondment, and thereafter moved to a flat. Laundry was paid for in the hotel, but not in an apartment.

Once 3 or 4 of them are in apartments, and a new German gets seconded over and stays in a hotel, I learned that the new German must work hard since his weekly laundry bill would include about 120 shirts etc.

Funny that.....

And what's wrong with that? I bet the Germans take a lot fewer 'sickies' than British workers. The bottom line is that they are more productive than us, despite having more holidays.

Loughton_Monkey

Tancred wrote: »

And what's wrong with that? I bet the Germans take a lot fewer 'sickies' than British workers. The bottom line is that they are more productive than us, despite having more holidays.

Well I'm not overly criticising them for it. I can accept that overall they are very productive, but their analysis of the 'rules', the stretching of them was (I thought) rather obsessional....

My boss, at one stage, was French! I couldn't abide the "J'Accuse" system by which the French work. If the Sales Director said to him (say) "Our sales are low because IT messed everything up...." then he would always assume that was God's honest truth, until the theory was disproved beyond all reasonable doubt. It's a very difficult management system for us British to work under.

ibizafan_2

I have a very close German friend who I am visiting for the second time at the end of the month. Last time I stayed, I came away feeling that Germany is the only European country I could live in apart from the U.K. She lives in a small town near Stuttgart and I loved every minute of my stay. The people were very friendly and there seemed quite a lot of similarities between our countries. They even have a lot of the same T.V programmes! Things that impressed me were:
1, They seem much more interested in leading a healthy lifestyle and cooking from scratch. Not many ready meals to be seen there, and lots more shopping for fresh food. They also seem a lot more active than us.
2, They are far less obsessed with "stuff" than us. Didn't see anyone glued to i-phones and I got the impression that they just aren't so interested in them and various other gadgets.
3, I never saw any threatening, drunk groups of youths hanging around at night. People seem to have more respect generally for each other.
4, The towns just seemed cleaner and better kept than a lot of places here. Perhaps people have more pride in their country, I wonder.
Of course, I've only seen a snapshot of life in a middle class area, so can't comment on life in an inner city. I like their idea of not channelling everyone to university, but giving them other skills. No wonder their manufacturing industry thrives.
Their main bugbear in that area were the Russian immigrants who they seemed to think mainly lived off benefits. There was even some joke that went along the lines of that if a Russian said that he had had a German cat at some time, he was entitled to live in Germany! Sounds similar to some of the myths that go around here. Expect I will be questioned a lot about Prince George when I get there as they seem to be very interested in the Royal family!

John1993_2

movilogo wrote: »

May be an urban legend, but I heard in Switzerland, after certain time in night and till before morning, you can't even flush toilet as its sound may wake your neighbors up.

This was the case when I lived in Geneva in the 90s. It was illegal to cut your lawn on a Sunday, it was illegal to put your rubbish out on the wrong day (and people would go through it to ID you, and the police would take you in to the station to interview / fine you), and so on.

Yes, it made for a very law-abiding society, but it was also one that required one partner not to work (we had haf a day per week to use the communal washing machine, my time was 9-12 on a Thursday. It was illegal to have your own washing machine in my block. Not "disallowed by your lease", illegal), and a society that had no problem shunning people who did not fit in (single parent? be prepared for your benefits to be stopped as you were a bad moral example).

Overall I didn't like it.

Brian8888

Not everything that shines is gold. What is clear is that within Europe it is an underrated tourist destination and place to live in terms of quality of life. Having an own business brings a lot of red tape with it and the tax system is punishing you a lot.

purch

I remember visiting the trading floor at Bayerische Landesbank during Oktoberfest.

At 10:30 precisely all the traders got up from their desks and went to the cafeteria and had a glass of wheat beer and a Weisswurst, which apparantly is a good hangover cure.

I was also in Munich during "Fastnacht", when they all dress up in fancy dress, and again have a beer and a sausage during the working day.

Very sensible people the Germs :T