Stromberg (2004–2012). Context: A satirical workplace comedy (German adaptation of “The Office”). Illustration: While the show is comedic and its main character is often inappropriate, much of the humor comes from the contrast between German directness in feedback and the awkwardness of mixing personal and professional spheres. The series lampoons, but also highlights, the expectation that feedback should be about work, not personality.
television
aligned on goals
The Intern (2015). This comedy-drama features a modern workplace where constant communication, feedback, and follow-up are central to the company culture. The characters regularly check in with one another, hold status meetings, and use follow-up to ensure everyone is aligned on goals and responsibilities.
George Carlin
New York Times. May 11, 2022. One of America’s greatest stand-up comics. A satirist in the deepest sense. George Carlin. Always critical of his homeland. Its short-comings. Its deceits. For many a true patriotic American.
“Super common with this breed”
The vet should have stopped after she got the dog-owner to accept the first three. Here are some funny comments:
“for anyone who thinks that eye removal joke is an exaggeration my mom’s yorkie almost had her eyes removed by the vet after years of treatment when another vet cured them easily with some drops and a cream”
“Sounds surprising similar to the last time I took my car in to the mechanic for a “general check-up.”
“When my dog started to have trouble walking the vet touched his belly for like one minute and told me he only has 3 months to live. Charged me $80 for it. He did die 3 months later tho so thanks for the heads up”
Longer! Longer! Longer!
Christoph Waltz, an Austrian who often makes jokes about Germans in a rather gratuitous way, puts Jimmy Fallon to the test with a quiz on the definitions of long German words, like Bezirksschornsteinfegermeister.
YouTube comments:
“For non German speakers: The reason our words are so long is that you can basically string as many words as you want together and it would still count as long as it makes sense.”
“Can we just appreciate Waltz’s unwillingness to go along with Jimmy’s horrid fake laugh? He just stares at jimmy until he stops lol. An absolute icon.”
“You know you’re German when you don’t think the words are long at all.”
The Office
The Office is an American comedy television series adapted from a British series of the same name. The series depicts the everyday lives of office employees in a branch of a fictional paper company.
The office’s manager, Michael Scott, constantly interrupts his workers in an attempt to inspire them and win their approval. His efforts usually fail in a humorous way. Although this is a comedy, the manager’s frequent attempts to keep updated on his employees’ work and interact with them personally is similar to actual office environments.
Soup Nazi
The U.S. tv series Seinfeld. Jerry, George and Elaine visit a new soup stand. Jerry explains that the owner is known as the Soup Nazi due to his insistence on a strict manner of behavior while placing an order, but his soups are so outstandingly delicious that the stand is constantly busy.
At the soup stand, George complains about not receiving bread with his meal. When he presses the issue, George’s order is taken away and his money returned. On a subsequent visit, George buys soup (with a warning that he is pushing his luck), but Elaine, having scoffed at Jerry’s advice on how to order, draws the Soup Nazi’s ire and is banned for a year.
Wait, stop ! We’ll let the video tell the rest of the story.
Why this now famous American TV series episode? In the context of German-American collaboration? And as it relates to the topic customer? Well, show it to any Americans working in the Germany-USA space and then ask them what it is like for them as the customer interacting with Germans as the supplier.
Roommate Agreement
On The Big Bang Theory, an American television show about a group of physicists and the girl next door, two of the main characters share an apartment together. In order to ensure that things run smoothly from the beginning one of the roommates drafts a roommate agreement that outlines all of the rules by which the two characters will abide.
Additionally, anytime there is a change in the characters’ status (for example, if one of them starts dating), this roommate will write a modified version of the agreement to accommodate the new arrangement.
However, the second roommate hates having a fixed list of rules, and rather than being a way to solve disputes, the roommate agreement actually becomes the source of many arguments.
“Have it your way!”
“The customer is always right” is a very common phrase in American business. It was first made popular in the early 20th century when it was used as the slogan for Marshall Field’s Department Store in Chicago and London’s Selfridges Store (founded by American Harry Gordon Selfridge).
Both of these stores became extremely profitable, primarily because they had a reputation for good customer service. As a result, many American businesses have attempted to model their processes on the principle that “the customer is always right.”
In 1911, in an attempt to promote a local business, the Kansas City Star newspaper included an article about the business owner George E. Scott, saying “Scott has done in the country what Marshall Field did in Chicago, Wannamaker did in New York and Selfridge in London. In his store he follows the Field rule and assumes that the customer is always right.”
Many American companies have slogans that show that they care more about customer service than anything else. Examples:
Burger King – “Have it Your Way”
UPS – “What Can Brown Do For You?”
United States Postal Service – “We Deliver for You”
Mounds and Almond Joy – “Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut, Sometimes You Don’t”
Optimum pairings
In one episode of the American television show Community, when eight people have to divide into partners, they first divide without considering any variables or long-term consequences. Shortly afterwards, however, they are so annoyed with their imperfectly chosen lab partners, that they decide to find a way to be in their optimum pairings.
This leads to them spending all night, and most of the following day, trying to decide what those optimum pairings are. They try several different systems to find new partners, including dividing by hair-color/gender/race, old/young, highest/lowest GPAs, and finally by rating each other then pairing the most popular with the least popular, etc.
After a failed attempt to implement the rating system, the 8 people succumb to fighting, angry at each other for the rankings they received. Finally, more than 12 hours after beginning the optimization process, the characters realize that their class is about to start, but none of them have done their work.
They go to class, and the teacher is so angry with them for not doing their work, and not even knowing who their partners are, that he forces 7 out of the 8 “partners” to all share one set of lab equipment, while the rest of the class no longer has to share.