Die Kammer. German professions organise into chambers — of crafts, of industry and commerce, of engineers, of architects, of physicians. The chamber examines, certifies, registers and disciplines. Membership is often compulsory. Your standing in a field is held by an institution, not by your employer.
The cross-entrant
Cross-entrant. The German word for somebody who has moved into a field from outside it. It is not hostile, but it is never neutral either. The word marks the person as having arrived by a side door, and it stays attached to them.
The work reference
Das Arbeitszeugnis. Every German employee is legally entitled to a written reference on leaving, and it must describe the work performed and assess performance and conduct. It is a document about the substance of the job — the tasks, the responsibilities, the specialism — not a character reference.
The engineering title
The German engineering degree title, abolished in most states by the Bologna reforms in favour of Bachelor and Master. The change was argued about for years and mourned publicly by engineers and their associations, on the grounds that the old title meant something specific and the new ones do not.
A country that holds a public argument about a degree abbreviation has a strong relationship with formal qualification.
Protected titles
Die Berufsbezeichnung. Certain German occupational titles are legally protected. Calling yourself an engineer, an architect, a tax adviser or a master craftsman without the qualification is an offence. The title is not a claim about what you do. It is a statement about what you have been certified to be.
Formation
Formation. The German word for vocational training is built from bilden — to form or shape — the same root as Bildung, education in its broadest sense. You do not take training in German. You are formed by it.
The skilled worker
Skilled worker — a formal status, not a description. It follows completion of the dual training and the chamber examination, and it appears on pay scales and job adverts as a qualification. German has a word that distinguishes a worker who has been certified in a trade from one who has not, and the distinction has consequences.
The dual system
Das duale System. German vocational training runs two to three and a half years, with the trainee employed by a company and attending a Berufsschule alongside. It is not an internship and not a course. It is a contract, a curriculum, an examination before the chamber, and a recognised occupation at the end with a name of its own.
Roughly a third of German school leavers enter it, and around 325 occupations are formally recognised under it.
The vocabulary of the boundary
Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps — duty is duty and schnapps is schnapps. Two things, not to be mixed.
Nach Feierabend — after the working day, used as a time of day in its own right.
Urlaubsanspruch — holiday claim. Not an allowance or an entitlement in the soft sense. A claim, in the legal meaning, enforceable.
Abschalten — to switch off. What a German is expected to do at the end of the day, and the metaphor is electrical.
The prescribed cure
A German physician can prescribe a Kur — a multi-week stay at a spa or rehabilitation clinic, substantially funded by the health or pension insurance. Exhaustion is treated as a medical condition with an institutional remedy, and the time away does not come out of holiday entitlement.