In a YouGov survey of 1,035 employed people in Germany in September 2019, 69 percent said they address their colleagues with du. Only a quarter said du to their superior. Among those aged 55 and over, 17 percent said du to their superior, and 12 percent said du to no one at work.
business
Work That Stands Up to Every Test
The company book Fünfzig Jahre Bosch 1886–1936, Fifty Years of Bosch, opens with sayings of its founder, Robert Bosch. One reads: “Es war mir immer ein unerträglicher Gedanke, es könne jemand bei Prüfung eines meiner Erzeugnisse nachweisen, daß ich irgendwie Minderwertiges leiste.” It was always an unbearable thought to me that someone testing one of my products could prove that I deliver anything inferior. “Deshalb habe ich stets versucht, nur Arbeit hinauszugeben, die jeder sachlichen Prüfung standhielt, also sozusagen vom Guten das Beste war.” I have therefore always tried to send out only work that would stand up to every objective examination, that is, so to speak, the best of the good.
The Leitz Binder
Louis Leitz, a mechanic in Stuttgart, developed the mechanism of the lever-arch binder in the 1890s. The sources differ on the year. The Deutsche Biographie gives 1893, and the Württemberg State Museum gives 1896. In 1911 the binder got the finger hole in its spine. The brand name became the general German word for a lever-arch file, the Leitz-Ordner. The Deutsche Biographie says that Leitz revolutionized the management of written records.
A Penalty for Each Day of Delay
A German construction contract can tie the builder to the completion date with a Vertragsstrafe, a contractual penalty. Under Section 339 of the Civil Code, the penalty is incurred as soon as the debtor is in default. In a case decided by the Federal Court of Justice in February 2024, the clause set 0.2 percent of the contract sum for every working day of delay, up to 5 percent in total. The court had held in 2003 that a penalty of 5 percent of the contract sum is just about permissible. In 2024 it struck down the clause for another reason. The sum on which the penalty was calculated was only provisional.
Rather Lose Money Than Trust
“Ich möchte lieber Geld verlieren als Vertrauen.” I would rather lose money than trust. The sentence is Robert Bosch’s, the founder of the Bosch company. A biography records that he repeated it emphatically in 1919. The magazine of the Hans Böckler Foundation called it perhaps his most famous sentence.
As Punctual as the Railway
Pünktlich wie die Eisenbahn, as punctual as the railway, is an old German phrase of praise. Today it is mostly said with irony. In 2025 only 60.1 percent of Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance trains arrived on time, according to figures first reported by Bild am Sonntag. In 2015 the share had been 74.4 percent. By the railway’s own definition, a train is late from six minutes of delay. For 2026, the head of Deutsche Bahn, Evelyn Palla, hoped to reach at least 60 percent.
The irony only works because the old standard is still expected.
Unreliable in the Eyes of the Law
German law tests the reliability of a person. Under Section 35 of the Trade Regulation Act, the authorities must ban a trader from running a business when facts show that the trader is unreliable and the ban is needed to protect the public or employees. The Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Frankfurt explains the meaning. A person is unreliable who, judged by the overall picture of his conduct, offers no assurance that he will run the business properly in the future. Typical reasons are unpaid taxes and unpaid social insurance contributions. The ban can be lifted only when facts justify the assumption that the unreliability no longer exists. The Weapons Act uses the same word. A person convicted of certain crimes lacks the necessary reliability until ten years after the last conviction became final.
Fewer Doctors on the Board
In 2015, 38 percent of the board members of Germany’s largest listed companies, the DAX companies, held a doctorate. In 2026 the share had fallen to 28 percent, according to the executive search firm Odgers. The share with an MBA had risen to 24 percent. For lawyers on these boards, the doctorate still counts. Fifty-two percent of them hold one.
A Title in the Company Name
Ferdinand Porsche never enrolled at a university. He trained with his father, took evening courses at a state trade school, and attended lectures in Vienna without enrolling. In 1924 the Technical University of Stuttgart made him an honorary doctor of engineering. In 1931 he registered his design office as Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH. The carmaker’s legal name today is still Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG.
His doctorate was honorary, earned by what he had built rather than by study. It still stands at the front of the company’s name.
Self-Praise Does Not Stink
Eigenlob stinkt, self-praise stinks, is a common German proverb. In November 2012 the IT magazine Computerwoche ran a career article under the opposite title, Eigenlob stinkt nicht. Its subtitle said that only those who draw attention to their performance get ahead at work. “Fachwissen ist wichtig, aber wer heute beruflich weiterkommen will, muss auf sich aufmerksam machen.” Specialist knowledge is important, but anyone who wants to get ahead today must draw attention to himself.
The title only works because every reader knows the proverb.