Guilds were abolished in Germany. The ranks of Lehrling, apprentice, Geselle, journeyman, and Meister, master craftsman, were retained.
The institution went. The ladder stayed.
The full cost calculation
German business education teaches Vollkostenrechnung — costing that carries every overhead through to the product, rather than looking only at the additional cost of one more unit. A decision taken on marginal cost looks better than it is. The German training insists on seeing what the thing actually consumes.
Who may sign
German building applications, structural calculations, gas and electrical installations, and safety inspections must be signed by a person holding a specific qualification, entered in a specific register. The signature is not an approval of somebody else’s work. It transfers the liability to the person qualified to carry it.
The ombudsman
German banks, insurers, energy suppliers and public bodies maintain ombudsman schemes: free, binding on the company up to a threshold, and available before any court is approached. A complaint has somewhere to go that is not a lawsuit.
Provisions
Rückstellungen. German firms are required to make provisions for uncertain future obligations — pensions, warranties, litigation, maintenance not yet carried out. The money is set aside against a thing that has not happened yet and may not. The obligation to reserve arises from the possibility.
The works council
Der Betriebsrat. A German works council must be heard before any dismissal, and the employer must give it the reasons. A dismissal issued without that consultation is void. Not contestable — void.
The ordinance
German regulation is issued as a Verordnung derived from an enabling statute, which is itself derived from constitutional competence. Every rule can be traced upward to the provision that authorised it. The chain of derivation is formal and checkable.
Playing poker
Pokern. To poker. Used in German of a negotiator who bluffs, holds back, or plays a position rather than stating one. It is never neutral. Calling someone’s behaviour Pokerei says they are treating a serious matter as a game.
Reserving your rights at acceptance
A German client who accepts work despite knowing of a defect must expressly reserve his rights over it, or he loses them — § 640 Abs. 3 BGB. Signing the acceptance while unhappy is not a position available to him. He either states the objection at that moment or it is gone.
Quality asserts itself
Qualität setzt sich durch — quality asserts itself, prevails, gets through. Said in German about a product competing on something other than price.
Auf Dauer setzt sich Qualität durch — in the long run quality prevails. The addition of auf Dauer is the concession: it may take a while, and it will happen anyway.
The claim inside the phrase is that quality is a force rather than a feature.