Dienstalter. Seniority as a quantity with a name, and it governs progression through pay steps in the public sector and much of the private sector automatically. Time in the role advances you whether or not anybody decides to advance you.
words
Clean work
Clean work. The German praise for something done well.
Not strong work, not smart work, not impressive work. Clean — as in leaving nothing behind that someone else has to deal with.
Sighted over the thumb
Sighted over the thumb. The German for a rough estimate, from the surveyor’s trick of gauging distance by holding up a thumb. It is always flagged, and flagging it is the point — the speaker is marking the number as not properly derived before anyone else can.
The milkmaid’s arithmetic
Milkmaid’s arithmetic. The German term for a calculation that looks right and has left something out — from the fable of the milkmaid who counts the profits from her pail before dropping it.
It is a serious accusation in a German commercial discussion. The charge is not that the conclusion is wrong but that the working was.
Jack of all trades
The full American saying is jack of all trades, master of none — but the longer version, though oftentimes better than master of one, circulates widely in the United States as a defence of breadth.
Well-rounded, versatile, adaptable, utility player — four American compliments, all about range. The utility player is a baseball term for someone who can cover several positions, and it is praise.
The vocabulary of rising
Karriere machen — to make a career. Faintly suspect in German, used of someone whose advancement is the point rather than the consequence.
Ellenbogenmensch — elbow-person. Someone who advances by pushing others aside, and the word is a judgment.
Der Aufsteiger — the climber. Used of social as well as professional ascent, and rarely without a slight reserve.
Seilschaft — a rope team, from mountaineering. Used of a group who pull each other up through an organisation, and always as an accusation.
Collective bargaining
The American term for union-employer negotiation names the process rather than the relationship. Not social partnership, not co-determination. Bargaining — and the word carries no embarrassment.
Ascent and conveyance
Aufstieg, ascent — the same word used for climbing a mountain. Beförderung, promotion, from befördern, to convey or transport. Neither word contains any suggestion of arriving somewhere better. One is effort, the other is being moved. What makes the move worth having has to come from elsewhere.
Recommendations
An American report ends with them, and a report that ends without them is regarded as unfinished. The analysis is the middle of the document. What the reader should now do is the point of it.
The calculation
Die Kalkulation. The German word for working out what something must cost — materials, labour, overhead, margin — and the noun is used as though it produces a result rather than an estimate. Das ist so kalkuliert ends a conversation about price. The figure was derived, and the derivation is available.