A number of American companies have replaced fixed vacation allowances with unlimited policies. Research and reporting repeatedly find that employees under them take less leave rather than more, because nobody can say what is normal.
words
The vocabulary of knowing better
Der Besserwisser — the better-knower. Someone who always knows better, and the word is a complaint.
Der Klugscheißer — the clever-shitter, cruder and more common.
Der Oberlehrer — the head teacher, applied to anyone lecturing an adult as though in a classroom.
Belehren — to instruct or lecture at someone, and sich belehren lassen, to allow oneself to be instructed, which is what you are asked to do gracefully.
Four German words for the person who gives advice nobody asked for. A culture does not develop that much vocabulary for a behaviour it rarely encounters.
Deemed acceptance
If the contractor sets a reasonable deadline and the client neither accepts nor refuses with at least one named defect, the work counts as accepted anyway — § 640 Abs. 2 BGB. The client cannot simply go quiet. Silence is a decision the statute makes for him.
Apprentice, journeyman, master
Guilds were abolished in Germany. The ranks of Lehrling, apprentice, Geselle, journeyman, and Meister, master craftsman, were retained.
The institution went. The ladder stayed.
No reminder needed when the date was agreed
German law normally requires the creditor to send a reminder before the debtor is formally in default. But where the parties have fixed a performance date by the calendar, no reminder is required at all — § 286 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 BGB. Default begins the moment the date passes.
The Latin maxim is quoted in German textbooks: dies interpellat pro homine — the day admonishes in place of the man.
A German who agreed a date does not expect to be chased, and the law agrees with him.
The principle of unequal treatment
Das Imparitätsprinzip. The principle of unequal treatment. Risks and losses are booked when they become likely. Gains are booked only when realised. The asymmetry is deliberate and named. The German accounting system treats bad news and good news differently on purpose.
Quality asserts itself
Qualität setzt sich durch — quality asserts itself, prevails, gets through. Said in German about a product competing on something other than price.
Auf Dauer setzt sich Qualität durch — in the long run quality prevails. The addition of auf Dauer is the concession: it may take a while, and it will happen anyway.
The claim inside the phrase is that quality is a force rather than a feature.
The target agreement
Die Zielvereinbarung. German employment practice fixes objectives for the year in a documented conversation, often with a bonus attached, and reviews them at the year’s end.
Agreed once, assessed once. Between those two points the manager is not scheduled to ask how it is going.
The word is an agreement rather than an assignment — the objectives are negotiated and signed by both, which is part of why they are not revisited every fortnight.
Saying it to the face
Ins Gesicht sagen — to say to the face. Offen aussprechen — to speak out openly. Kein Blatt vor den Mund nehmen — to take no leaf before the mouth, meaning to speak without covering.
And the opposite: hintenherum, behind-around, and hinter dem Rücken, behind the back. Both are accusations.
The German objection is not to being criticised in front of others. It is to being criticised where you cannot answer.
The improvement plan
The Performance Improvement Plan is a formal American HR instrument, and its stated purpose is development. Everyone in an American workplace understands it differently. Being placed on one is widely read as the beginning of an exit, and employees respond by looking for another job.
The instrument exists to separate the work from the person. Nobody reads it that way.