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Wunderwerk

“Buy yourself a flatscreen tv!” was the advice given by one German graduate student to the other, after the latter struggled to carry his old television – Röhrenfernseher or cathode ray tube television – up several flights of stairs to his new, smallish, apartment. The old tv is, indeed, just that. Twenty years. It belonged to his grandmother, then to his parents.

This Wunderwerk deutscher Ingenieurskunst – wonder work of German engineering – a term once used ironically by a tv repairman – was built by a renowned German electronics company. Siemens. It continues to work flawlessly.

When the Röhrenfernseher – literally tube far see-er – some day gives up the ghost, it will be replaced by a flatscreen tv. But because the age-old German belief in not throwing anything out which still works applies to this truly durable German household appliance, it could see a few more schweißtreibende Umzüge – sweat-inducing apartment moves.

Crazy Germans!

When German engineers are bored

Engineering in Germany is prestigious. As a field of study it ranks among the most respected. Germany‘s economy, its sophisticated technical products, rely on an abundance of first-class engineers. More than 20% of all first-year university students major in a technical field.

No other European country has a higher percentage of engineers among the workforce than Germany. Nonetheless, industry and the media constantly warn of decreasing numbers of Germans willing to enter the engineering profession.

In order to attract more women to the engineering sciences, German schools and universities organize so-called Girls Day, hoping to fascinate young women with the prospects of a technical career. Engineers begin their careers with a yearly salary of roughly 45,000 Euros. Graduates in the humanities, in contrast, earn about 31,000 Euros per year.

Listen to the Nightingales

Here’s a lighthearted, lovely, friendly example of German unsolicited advice.

https://twitter.com/doberah/status/1388123619746852864

Mr. German Man is deflationary

An American woman. About how her German husband is deflationary with scores. And how she is inflationary. Can’t separate the two.

Now this woman is a youtuber. And an American on top. So, she is more than a bit animated. And frankly, she could have made her points in about two minutes instead of seven and a half. But wait, it’s YouTube. And not a webinar.

Begin watching at minute 4:00.

“Well, that was complete shit.”

Berliners respond to the question “Are we Germans direct?”:

And one of the comments from a German: “When I was in high school, I can remember, another student gave a poorly-prepared presentation. Directly thereafter the teacher simply looked at him and said in English: “Well, that was complete shit.”

Still too direct

“Germans, in general, can often be more direct and straightforward than Americans, and to be honest even after living here for eight years, that directness is still sometimes a little shocking for me, a little bit too much, or even sometimes has made me cry!”

A German comment: “Just your example about some shop assistent telling you that the piece of clothing does not fit you at all: I’m always more suspicious about a shop assistent telling me how good it fits keeping in mind he or she just wants their merchandise sold. So I tend more to appreciate an honest, though maybe direct answer.”

Another German comment: “I’m always irritated how well the Americans can hide the truth of what they are thinking behind compliments and smiles. In Germany If you are getting an honest critique, then the person likes you, thinks said critique can improve you and is interested that you do better. So its a good thing 😉 “

Oh, here’s a good one: “As a German, i feel like lying when i am asked about my opinion and i would try to let it sound “nicer”. Everyone is honest and tells what they think about everything. I tried for a while the way that is used in the staates and i gat really that awfull feeling of lying and i konstantly had to think about how i say things and not what i like to say.

In my opinion germans are just used to that honesty and fee unconfortable to alter the opinion just to sound nicer. The other way around, when i meet people from the staates, i have allways that feeling they are sneaky and false, they try to hide their thoughts behind words. I was never sure how they really are and think.”

Embarrassing clichés

This video is full of rather embarrassing clichés. And those clichés say more about the people repeating them than they do about the people they purport to describe.

Germany has the third-largest economy on the planet with only ca. eighty-five million people. Many of their companies dominate their markets. As if the German people did not know how to solve problems.

As one German commenter wrote: “I really don’t get how we are one of the most productive and powerful economies in the world while having to agree with this 100% at the same time.”

Oh wait, maybe because the maker of the video, Daniel-Ryan Spaulding, is an American comedian based in Berlin, and not, for example, an engineer working in any of the many world-class German companies.

Why Germans don’t give compliments

The absence of criticism can be taken as praise in Germany, Courtney Tenz learned the hard way. On Compliment Day she explains why she misses superficial American compliments, but appreciates the German approach.

“Though it has taken me more than a decade, I have finally come to terms with the fact that in Germany, I won’t be complimented on everything I do and when — if — I garner attention for praise, it will likely be more sincere than anything I’d have heard in the US. Like the one a young girl recently gave me after I visited the beauty salon: ‘You look much better now that your gray hair is gone.'”

Swabian Hausfrau

“One should have just asked a Swabian housewife,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel when asked about the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008.

In Germany, the traditional image of a housewife in the region of Swabia has typically been a positive one: a woman who is wise with her family’s money. Yet is there anything behind that stereotype?

A funny comment in YouTube: “I’d like to see a Swabian and a Scotsman plan a holiday together. I can only imagine the depths of destitution they would stoop to.”

Do it right the first time

The (American) Black Forest Family. “Between Jonathan and me, we have 12 years of collective work experience in Germany. And during that time, German work culture has taught us a lot about work values and the atmosphere of employment in Germany, and how different it is from working in the United States.

Some of these are monumental (like parental leave in Germany, work/life balance, and sick leave) and some of them are small nuances (like work habits and break time). But collectively, our experience of working in Germany has made us better employees and strengthened our relationships with our colleagues. Let’s explore them together.”

Jump to 9:40 about: German “do it right the first time” vs. American “just go.”