In German labor law, a benefit an employer repeats regularly can become an entitlement. This is called betriebliche Übung, company practice. The classic case is a Christmas bonus. If an employer pays it three years in a row without stating in writing that it is voluntary, the employee can claim it in the fourth year. The employer cannot simply withdraw a right created this way. He must give formal notice of changed terms of employment, an Änderungskündigung.
The Judge Assigned in Advance
Article 101 of the Basic Law says: Niemand darf seinem gesetzlichen Richter entzogen werden. No one may be removed from his lawful judge. In practice, the presiding committee of each court distributes the cases in a plan, the Geschäftsverteilungsplan. It makes this plan before the business year begins, for the whole year. The plan may be changed during the year only for narrow reasons, such as a judge who is overloaded. The judge for a case is therefore fixed in advance by a general rule.
The Best Man Affair
In 2023, Patrick Graichen was state secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs. He and two other members of a selection committee voted for Michael Schäfer to lead the German Energy Agency. Schäfer was Graichen’s friend from school and the best man at his wedding. Germans called it the Trauzeugenaffäre, the best man affair. Minister Robert Habeck first defended his state secretary. After a further breach came to light, Habeck called it der eine Fehler zu viel, the one mistake too many. Graichen was sent into temporary retirement.
Vitamin B
Vitamin B is the joking German term for connections. The B stands for Beziehungen, relationships. The DWDS dictionary of the German language marks it as colloquial and humorous. It means personal contacts through which someone gets preferential treatment in a career. The contacts are common too. A survey by the Institute for Employment Research found that 32 percent of all new hires in Germany in 2016 came about through personal contacts. In small companies, the share was 47 percent.
Able to take criticism
The German word kritikfähig has two meanings in Duden. It means able to criticize, and it means able to accept and bear criticism. One word covers both sides of the exchange.
Trust Is Good, Control Is Better
Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist besser, trust is good, control is better. It is a common German saying. It is usually attributed to Lenin. The saying does not appear in his works, and the attribution cannot be documented.
Six minutes late
In 2013, Denver Broncos football player Elvis Dumervil signed a three-year contract with a pay-cut and then had trouble sending in the paperwork. It arrived at the team headquarters six minutes late.
In those six minutes, his team managers, thinking that Dumervil would not accept the pay-cut, decided to remove him from the team rather than keep him at the higher salary rate. If he had just followed up with his managers, and let them know that he had signed the documents and was in the process of sending them, he would probably still have his job.
Follow up (verb): to follow with something similar, related, or supplementary; to maintain contact with (a person) so as to monitor the effects of earlier activities or treatments; to pursue in an effort to take further action. First known use was in 1767.