Heinrich Böll wrote Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral, Anecdote on Lowering the Work Ethic, for a radio broadcast on Labor Day, 1 May 1963. A tourist wakes a fisherman dozing in his boat. He cannot understand why the fisherman does not go out again and build up his business. The fisherman answers that he can already rest in the harbor. In the 1970s and 1980s, the story was compulsory reading at many West German schools.
Please Contact My Deputy
Ich bin bis einschließlich Freitag nicht im Büro. In dringenden Fällen wenden Sie sich bitte an meine Vertretung, Frau Weber. I am out of the office until Friday inclusive. In urgent cases, please contact my deputy, Ms. Weber. A German out-of-office reply usually names the Vertretung, the person who is responsible for the area while one is away. Before the holidays, teams agree on a Vertretungsregelung, an arrangement for who covers for whom.
Volkswagen Switches Off the E-Mail
At the end of 2011 Volkswagen began to switch off e-mail on company phones after work. From 18:15 until 7:00 the next morning, the BlackBerrys of the employees covered receive no mail. The rule covered more than 1,100 employees. It did not apply to managers.
Mail on Holiday
In August 2014 Daimler announced Mail on Holiday for its roughly 100,000 employees in Germany. Employees can have incoming e-mail deleted automatically while they are on holiday. The sender receives an automatic reply that names a contact person, and then the system deletes the mail. According to a Daimler spokeswoman, every employee, up to the level of manager, could use it.
Eleven Hours of Rest
The Working Hours Act says that after the end of the working day, employees must have eine ununterbrochene Ruhezeit von mindestens elf Stunden, an uninterrupted rest period of at least eleven hours. In 2023 the Federal Labor Court decided the case of a paramedic who was expected to read a text message about his next shift during his free time. The court held that an employee can have a duty to take note of instructions even in free time. Briefly reading such a message is not working time under the Working Hours Act. A general right to be unreachable is not written into German law.
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 company shutdown
Betriebsferien. Many German companies close entirely for a fixed period, commonly in summer or between Christmas and New Year, with the works council agreeing the dates. Nobody is covering. Nobody is on call. The building is shut.
Celebration evening
Celebration-evening. The German word for the end of the working day, and there is no English equivalent because English has no word for the thing.
Ich mache Feierabend — I am making Feierabend — is a complete sentence and a complete explanation. The day’s work is over, and what follows is not called leisure or free time. It is called a celebration.
The Working Hours Act
Das Arbeitszeitgesetz. German law caps the working day at eight hours, extendable to ten only if the average returns to eight within six months. The ten-hour limit is absolute. Eleven uninterrupted hours of rest are required between working days. Breaks are mandatory: thirty minutes after six hours of work, forty-five after nine.
Since a Federal Labour Court ruling in 2022, all working time must be recorded.
“Dienst ist Dienst”
Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps – literally: Work is work. Schnaps is schnaps (alcoholic beverage) – is a very well-known German figure of speech underlining the strict separation between work and play. A similar figures of speech conveys German thinking: Erst die Arbeit, dann das Vergnügen – first work, then enjoyment.