Keep in mind "bis dann" isn't really formal. If you are speaking to someone on the phone on a more formal level you can use "schönen Tag noch" or "Wiederhören" if you want to be really formal. Sometimes German companies can be more formal than Americans, so keep that in mind, especially with clients.
"Auf Wiederhören" always feels awkward to me if it's the end to a conversation with someone with whom one wouldn't have talked to if not for some problem, e.g. a support hotline. No, i'd rather not want to have to call again ;-)
@@jenswurm I have to agree and thinking about it I'm with 95% Tschüss, or ein schönen Tag, Abend or tatatata Wochenende ;) and I'll get this back as well to 95% of the time.
In the U.S. the GOP has actually convinced their idiot voters that if universal health care is enacted that the whole country will turn into a communist-run hell-scape. This doesn't make any sense until you understand that the U.S. is the country that brought you the Tide Pod Challenge.
Switching between different keyboard layouts becomes natural after a few years. Ground rule for being on time: up to 5 minutes early is polite, on time is effective, 2-3 minutes late is unorganized, anything later is an insult.
@@DanielRMueller Mein Großvater sagte immer "Pünktlichkeit ist die Höflichkeit der Könige" :-). Er war zwar kein König, aber legte trotzdem viel Wert auf Pünktlichkeit.
Also, if you are working in the gastronomy or as a nurse or something and it happens that you got your workshift on for example Pfingstmontag. You are getting a 100% bonus on your sallary for that day. Its called Feiertagszuschlag.
I work for a Greek company but we don't schedule too many meetings, but we are always on Teams and are calling each other constantly and collaborating constantly. One of my Bosses gets so busy that sometimes I have to schedule a quick meeting with him just to get a quick word with him.
My keyboard on the PC has the option to switch from "QWERTY" to "QWERTZ", by pressing the windows-key and space. It needs both German and English language packs installed.
Regarding the meeting culture, at least for me as a German that has changed a lot with the pandemic and having nearly all your colleagues working from home. We’ve established a daily meeting in the morning, to come together and start the day with a little conversation instead of being completely distanced from your colleagues. That was also recommended by „experts“ to be a good way of keeping the team spirit alive. Many companies haven’t allowed their employees to work from home before the pandemic. That has drastically changed now, and I guess that’s a good thing. Ich versuche auch gerade mein Englisch zu verbessern. Insbesondere die Business Vokabeln. Da hilft mir Dein Video auch sehr. Ich kann es einfach umdrehen. Das ist sehr interessant. Mach weiter so. Vielen Dank für Dein Video.
All "Sozialversicherungen" (social insurances) are half paid by both, so also retirement money, unemployment insurance and long term care insurance. Of course public holidays are paid as you will normally get paid on a fixed rate a month, no matter how many work days a month has. But as you are in Hamburg, I think you are happy to early about these, I regret your next might be christmas - as our national holiday is on a sunday this year. But: By law you have at least 25 days of holidays a year, many companies have 30 and growing (e.g. 31st if you are 10 years in , 32 for 20 years etc. as a loyality bonus), but this depends. Some also pay a bonus wage e.g. dependent on the results of the last year.
Unfortunately the part about the garanteed 25days of vacation is not right. By law the minimum vacation time an employee is entiteled to is 24 days. And that's only if your'e working 6 days a week. For usual employments with 5 work days and 2 days weekend the minimum is only 20 days. Nevertheless it's very uncommen in Germany to get less then the mentioned 25 days.
That's because of the old (Otto von) Bismark! He was the right hand of the Kaiser. He wanted to take the wind out of the socialists and introduced “social insurance.” For this he cut the right of parliament. The Kaiser and Bismark are history. Lost the is war. The insurance, legal holidays and employee rights have remained. Unfortunately, the church tax also survived.
@@cleancoder3838 When Jens said "Unfortunately" he was only referring to the church tax, I think. And in the past that made sense, because in the past the church did many good things (Kindergärten, Krankenhäuser, Friedhöfe, Waisenhäuser, ...). And it is one of the few taxes that you can quit paying, whenever you want.
I'm a German working in an international (mainly Europe, but incl. US and Asia) company in Germany and I'm so glad about it, I mean that it's not a native German company. We use best practices from both business worlds, that's really cool, office communication runs quite smoothly - on a nice pidgin level :-D But seriously, we've dropped almost all manners and conventions, main thing is the basic information gets through. Late for the meeting? Who cares, we're dealing with Italians. Unreadable signatures? Who cares, as long as ther IS a signature and the source is the right function. We're mainly dealing with functions, regardless of the persons incorporating it (they're anyhow changing all the time). Polite internal emails? Just a sign that the writer is underchallenged. The official company language is broken English. :-D French broken English is the best! Indians (a lot of IT is Indian) on the phone are just hilarious, but meetings with Polish people are unbeatable.
Just ask an IT guy in your company to install an additional keyboard layout. On Windows, macOS, and Linux, by simply pressing specific key strokes you can switch between different input methods. For example, I do use US English, German (Deutschland), Russian, and Hebrew ever since, depending on the the task I have to do. I use Russian and Hebrew for communication with some of my relatives, I use German for anything else, but I use US English for programming stuff -- since [ ] { } / \ - = < >, and so on (the things I use often) is way easier to type on an US layout. ,) All it needs to switch between those input languages is to press (left) Alt and (left) Shift. Well, in fact it's not *all* -- one should also be able to type using 10 fingers "blindly". ,)
my company made this configurable individually (yep, if you wanted you can change it to e.g. Japanese) me and my colleges sometimes used it to prank a co-worker when they forgot to lock their PC and went out of the room
The biggest problem, however, is the labeling of the keys on the keyboard. In this case I would use the Windows Bildschirmtastatur (onscreen keyboard) with an English keyboard layout to see which key is which symbol/letter. Another useful tip if you are a German and have to use a non-German keyboard layout: Windows Zeichentabelle (charmap) where you can search for the letter or symbol and copy it.
Another bonus about the public holidays is that they don't get moved to the nearest Monday, like they do in England, so you'll often have a public holiday on a Tuesday or a Thursday, meaning that the Monday beforehand or the Friday after the holiday is a "Brückentag", a "bridge day" that a lot of people take off as an extra holiday (although unpaid) to get a 4-day weekend.
If you get sick, you go to your doctor, get a sick note and then your employer is obliged to give you paid sick-leave. Up to 6 weeks - for the same illness. So if you have a broken leg and cannot walk, that is a few weeks, if later you get pneumonia, you get another time off, those do not count together towards the 6 weeks. But if your broken leg forces you to be out of work for more than 6 weeks (unlikely) than your health insurance pays you money. Not your whole income, but a significant portion of it. In Germany people do not go hungry just because they are forced by illness to stay at home (or in a hospital). Your vacation is obligatory, too. Each employer has to give at least 4 full weeks off. So if you are working in retail, six days a week - you get at least 24 days off, the normal office drone gets 20 days (five day working week). Part-time workers, who work on a reduced number of days (instead of hours per day reduced) get 4 times their work days - so if you come into work (incl. working from home!) for 3 days a week - you get at least 12 days off. That is the absolute minimum. Most employers give between 25 to 30 days for five days a week-workers. And also obligatory: You have a maximum of 12 working hours (there are exceptions, but not normal office workers!) - plus obligatory breaks. After 6 hours, half an hour, after 9 hours work (only work time, no break time counted) it is another quarter of an hour! Obligatory, so even if you worked through it, you could not get paid for this! Your employer can demand a little bit of unpaid extra time, to allow for preparations or for closing business. But there are limits to that. And the American "you work for me, I can call you whenever I want to!" - does not apply here!! In fact, the law says, after work you have to have at least 11 uninterrupted hours from work. That is the law. German working laws are pretty cool.
And I forgot - if the company is big enough, you have a "Betriebsrat" - kind of worker's board, which has to be involved in some of the decisions! Unions in Germany do not have the same bad rep as in the US - but then they also tend to be "less on the war path" … We have a pretty much "live and let live"-culture.
as a native german speaker I was very scared when I had my first job interview in english. Business english is pretty different from tech-english. Suddenly you need to learn new stuff to follow meetings outside of your tech-departement-bubble. I had to learn that I'll always be one of those swiss with the funny accents
Regarding keyboard problems, I lived in Belgium where I got a computer with a French layout keyboard. The software was English language and I was writing in German. I had to learn the ASCII code for many letters and signs.
On a vacation in Tunisia (french keyboard) I had to login to an account and I didn’t knew exactly the characters but the typing pattern. So I asked my girlfriend which character was located at which key and hd to find it at the french keyboard. 😁
Do you mean this MS Windows Feature, where you have to hold down the Alt key and type a four digit code. It’s impressive, that you learned that! But is it ASCII, or rather Unicode, or something different? Because ASCII only contains the most basic characters. (ASCII is contained in Unicodes UTF-8 and many other Encodings.) Grüße aus Deutschland!
I can relate to the keyboard changes :) I live in England and work with German speaking customers and English speaking customers, as well as having all internal communication in English, so it's a constant struggle lol
I haven't been to Germany in 25 years, and even then, I was only in Stuttgart for two weeks, but for some reason, I think I'd like the north more. Hamburg appeals to me, as does (believe it or not) Hanover, for some reason.
@@frigginjerk I can highly recommend smaller towns(not cities) in northern germany. ... the ones with a population of... lets say less than 25k. ... Nice, beautiful, friendly and still big enough to have a little bit of everything in regards of shops, supermarkets etc.
@@nfp911 "whatever the client plans for us to do in the future, eventually we have to finish the project next week" Next week: "So do you know now if we need to finish the project this week?"
@@HiFromHamburg When you shoot a new video anyway, you may as well shoot a German and an English version of it. There are many many people -- more than you think -- who would like to hear you speak German. And do not be afraid of mistakes! For it is exactly the mistakes, which would give it a very special charm...
"In diesem Sinne " and "Tschau (Ciao)" are the most common phrases i use for ending our weekly team meeting. Sometimes "schönes Wochende/Ostern/Pfingsten/Weihnachten" when its on a Friday or before any of those holidays.
Let me guess: you're from the Rhineland? Because "in diesem Sinne" is one of the only phrases people from e.g. Cologne or the Eifel use to *REALLY* end a conversation... (siehe Beikircher...) ;-)
Du hast es wirklich optimal erwischt. Dein Arbeitgeber hat als Unternehmenssprache "Deutsch", d.h. Deine Deutsch-Kenntnisse werden immer besser und Dein Unternehmen will "Dich", weil die Clientsprache Englisch ist. Und das Sozialsystem ist auch deutsch (das brauchst Du erst später). Keyboard: I had the same Problem (Äh, Herausforderung) when I worked in Switzerland. They have a German-Swiss Keyboard, and a French-Swiss-Keyboard. And I was used to the German Keyboard. That is even more confusing because the Swiss are speaking German as well. Benefits: I only learned that word a few years ago and was surprised what US-Companies consider benefits. With my prior (German or Swiss) employers benefits were Coffee or (non-alcoholic) drinks for free, apples, banana etc, sometimes a free weekend for everybody in the alps (paid by the company), big celebrations (including family) or trips to Straßburg or the Europapark. Deutsche Flüche: You have hardly any accent with the German swearwords, you must be practicing a lot :-)
The so called "benefits" in the US are laughable for every EU citizen or Swiss citizen. We do have those garanteed things since the late 1890s because of the workers movement and the try from the conservatives to stop the social democrats and the socialist from succseeding with their movements. So they made confessions to make them redundant. The US Millionairs convinced the people that socialism is bad. That mantra was implemented by their politicians. But not everything that's social and good for all is comunism! The US is the most developt third world country in the world and because they only have two neigbors they have no comparing like we Europeans do have. if there is intrest in that topic: www.infosperber.ch/gesellschaft/uebriges-gesellschaft/usa-zeigen-ueberraschende-merkmale-eines-drittweltlandes/
Signature: yes, can be a scribble, derived from your family name. Does not necessarily to be readable, but should be unique. Like a symbol. Important is that you can repeat it instantly and believably, e.g. at the supermarket checkout.
"Tschüss" or "Bis dann" is not really formal and often used when you speak to friends or well known person ( "mach's gut", "man sieht sich", "bis demnächst", "hau rein", "Tschö mit Ö", etc). The formal (and very polite) way to speak to customers and unknown people is: "Auf Wiederhören" (but it's also a little bit old school). Try: "Danke für das nette Gespräch - ich wünsche Ihnen einen schönen Tag" - or the short form: "einen schönen Tag noch!"
I have several signatures: One I use to sign a formal letter (surname), a shorthand symbol I use for side notes or to countersign something (initials), one I use to pay stuff (full name) and one for greeting/birthday cards (very artistic and fancy).
Rent derives from "Rente" - income (especially income you did not work for). So the rent of a house at first was the money the owner earned by leasing it. Rent- income + abilität - ability means "it is possible to gain money from it". But with us, "Rente" also changed the meaning during the last 150 years, and with us it means "pension". So "Rentabilität" to us also has to been learned as a special word. Which child would care about "Rentabilität"?
This video is amazing and to the point! I move to Germany in a week to start a new job and this is packed with good tips. Cheers to you. Keep vlogging!
The root of Holidays = "Holy Days". In Europe Holy Days were Saint's Days so the Church treated them very much like a Sunday and nobody worked on those days.
I worked for a German/British company in Mönchengladbach. Outside of the formal meetings, any informal discussions involved Germans disappearing into their office and closing their doors, while the British simply discussed the issue whereever they were at that given time: in the kitchen; in the corridors; in the car park. There is a great deal of separation in Germany and with Germans; it's in the structure of, and their use of, language, it's hard-wired into their civil laws, and it's reflected in their working culture.
The "benefits" you mention (the insurance one) is part of the so called "Lohnnebenkosten" (roughly: salary side costs), which your employer has to pay ON TOP of what you actually get as your nominal salary. In Germany this currently means that your employer has to pay about 27% more to employ you than what you're seeing as your salary (before taxes). So if you make say 40,000€/a, you're actually costing your employer 50,800€/a. This is something that is often forgotten when salaries are compared between countries, and also many German employees tend to like to forget this as well.
About those being punctual thing: Most germans know, that our livetime is very limited and therefore valuable. So most german's (that I Know, as a german) don't like to just waste time for no good reason. If we agree to meet on 9am for a meeting, then everyone will be there at 9am +- a minute. So, if you are 10 minutes late or so, everyone will have to wait for you. Or you just miss the most part of the meeting and maybe some others have another meeting just 15min after this one (like managing directors) and just have no time to wait for you. Or if you want to go shopping with a friend and you want to meet at 5pm at the mall. I will be there at 5pm as agreed, waiting for you. If you come 1h late, I would have to wait one our standing there. Let other people waiting is just very rude, even more in a business meeting than in private. If you know that you will come late to a meeting, you should at least tell the others that you will be late.
I'm a German and I do fully agree. Not being on time shows that the time of other people has no worth for you, it is utterly disrespectful to imply that your time is more valuable than your friends' or colleagues' time.
Standup meetings are an efficient way to get new things to spread immediately. Not very common in old-fashioned companies yet. My English meetings really start 5 minutes after it was scheduled, the German meetings really start 1 minute after it was scheduled. My best one is Planungssicherheit=having all details to safely plan. But holidays on the weekend will not shift to the next Monday....
Wait for the next years when a lot of the public holidays isn't on weekends. This year's a nightmare for employees! We "lost" 5 holidays this year (May 1, October 3 and 31 (or November 1, depending on the state) and both Christmas holidays.
In America, when that happens, we usually get the following Monday off. Our Independence Day is on a Sunday this year, so everyone I know who works in any non-public, office-type job will be off work on Monday, 5 July instead. ...Then again, we only have 7 holidays that are expected as days off in general (individual companies can give more if they want, but 7 seems to be the minimum, and a lot of companies don't give any more than that).
True! Ironically, it is even true in a sense. The modern welfare state stems from ideas that come from the revisionist tradition of marxist socialism, which became social democracy. But ofc in American media everything has to be Stalin or Hitler (which many there proclaim to be far-left for reasons...).
@@llothar68 while the Bismarckian social reforms were a precursor to the welfare state, the welfare state is a social invention of the post-war era which is a social democratic idea for the most part, and therefore comes from socialist ideology. Bismarck’s social programmes - while helpful and remarkablr - only covered a very small chunk of working people, and only with rudimentary benefits. Less than any even anglo-american system does deliver. Still, an achievement. And ofc Bismarck only introduces his reforms bc of the existence of the massive socialist and labour movement in Germany - to pre-empt their political success. Another role in Europe was played here by some Agrarian parties and Christian social movements (eg pol. Catholicism) - later that would become part of European Christian Democracy. The ideological basis for the welfare state benefits are to be found, however, in the traditions of the socialist, labour and radical democratic (left liberal) tradition - as well as the Christian social movements to be complete here.
It's a slippery slope, it starts with benefits for workers, then benefits for people who don't want to work, then benefits for the 3rd world who are welcome to come to your country to mooch off the people who still work. Ultimately, you end up with a crazy East German communist who openly works to destroy your country. Hint: Before the government gives you something, they have to take it from you first.
Hi Lamb, I'm following you for years, and that's what I have to say: You have become pretty europeanised since then, I see it at your language, at your mimic, at your attitude - and the most, I see that you are happy in our Old World. Best wishes forever!
Also, in a business context a very common use of "im Voraus" is, that someone wants some information "im Voraus", e.g. before the meeting starts. "Kannst du mir die Präsentation im Voraus schicken" - "Can you send me the presentation beforehand"?
4:51 You too (are here)! = Du auch (bist hier)! >>> subject case You too (a nice holiday)! = Dir auch (schönen Feiertag)! >>> indirect object case Ýou too (I saw) = Dich auch (hab ich gesehen) >>> direct object case
If you want to keep your English keyboard but be able to type umlauts, check out EURkey layout, which is a thing you can install to map keys to special symbols.
I live in Hamburg as well, everyone I know uses the full name for his/her signature. Especially important when you have a common name like Müller, Meyer or Schmidt. Grob is not only rough but also like about or round about for estimated measurements. I rarely see someone use the word Botschaft but I guess a long time about the Botschaft (Embassy) was also used to send messages for people to get who were in another country, a bit like the ancient version of a P.O. box.
Yes, it may be translated as "just for once" or "just for this time" ( 'mal=einmal). Grammatically it is a fillword that is not advisible in written, formal conversation, but in eye-to-eye conversation it sereves the purpose you mentioned.
You can sign with your full name, I do that too, most people just shorten their first name out of convenience. The important part is that it can be uniquely identified as your name. The last name has to be at least somewhat decipherable, but not fully readable.
If THAT was a rusty B2, then I don't want to see what you think is better German. That was bloody amazing! Benefits like paying for your health insurance and pension are regulated by law in Germany. You pay roughly 7% of your gross income to your Krankenversicherung / health insurance which is automatically deducted from your salary each month by your employer. Your employer pays roughly another 8% of your gross income as well, for roughly 15% of your gross income. Those 8% are NOT deducted from your salary but are paid by the employer. You do NOT loose your health insurance if you loose your job if your are in a Gesetzliche Krankenkasse. The government covers your health insurance from your unemployment benefit costs if you become unemployed. You can switch insurance companies once per year, usually around the end of November, and you can pick from roughly 70 Gesetzliche Krankenkassen. But mostly only the incentive programms for staying fit and healthy vary to any degree; the coverage is usually 100% of all medical costs in any Krankenkasse. Co-pay for medical drugs is always 5€ per generic drug (per package), and 10€ (per package) for an elective choice name brand drug. Every other cost for medical drugs is covered by your insurance. Ambulance rides and even emergency helicopter is covered. Hospital medical costs are covered; except for a 10€ per day fee, up to a maximum of 240€ of such fees per YEAR! That is basically your food cost. Post-surgery care is also covered. EVERYONE in Germany has mandatory health insurance. The only way to NOT have health insurance is if you are self-employed or a free-lancer who opted out of the Gesetzliche Krankenkasse and switched into the Private Krankenkasse / private health insurance, and THEN you loose your job AND you can't continue to pay your insurance fees. That's the ONLY way to not be health insured in Germany. Even then, any kind of employment by someone else for at least six months will allow you to re-enter the Gesetzliche Krankenkasse, and wha-bam, you are completely covered again. You also pay a certain percentage of your gross income into the German Rentenkasse /pension fund as part of the Generationvertrag / generational contract. This 'generational contract' was the idea that the current working population pays the pensions for all people who currently are eligible for a pension; trusting that future generations will do the same when you are eligible for your pension. So once you have worked for any German company and paid taxes in Germany you are automatically eligible for a German pension, no matter how small it is. Your pension depends on your gross average income, the total amount of time you worked. Or if you want to and can afford it, you can also pay your contributions privately, so you can increase your future pension as well.
I do not think anybody should change his or her signature for whatever reason! The whole point of a signature is that it does not change. It looks somewhat different each time, but the way the hand moves stays the same, and it can be seen from the signature. If the name needs to be readable, it can just be added to the signature in normal written words.
So many short meetings: I think it had to do with covid and mobile working. In a normal setting you would meet your colleagues shortly at the coffee machine or just in the office corridor.
Hey you improve very fast! congratulations! We have a lot of benefits for workers. Thats is one of the main differences from the us. Healthcare and this. Imprtant: you HAVE to take your holidays. When you have 26 days, your company normaly will say at the end of the year you have left 10 days, please take it. Some companies pay you out when you have days left but its normal you are forced to take them. P.S.: You can show that you come from Hamburg when you say "moin" or "moin moin" (more people) instead of hello. :-)) But I bet you already know that.
Moin Lila, schön, daß du einen Job gefunden hast! Seh! interessant, was du alles über deine Erfahrungen mit dem Bürodeutsch zu erzählen hast! Vliel Spaß und vier Erfolg im Beruf weiterhin! LG Ben
Also the social insurances you have to pay at the end of the month will cover any accidents that might injure you during work, or unemployment after the end of your contract/release. Ofc that requires that you have worked a certain time for the company (9 months iirc) in order to claim unemployment checks that are ~70% of your previous income and after about a year, depending on how long you paid unemployment-insurance its reduced to ~400€/month so that you have at the least amount of money to survive, also most other costs (rent/heat) are covered by the government. Thats why you barely see any homeless ppl around here.
Northwest european countries have the Rhineland model for economics, Britain and US have the anglosaxon model in which money is king. In the Rhineland model there is besides profit also attention for environment, work pleasure, solidarity, and a more longterm thinking in terms of policies and profit. This results in employees that are happier, healthier and more in balance with their private life.
Legally for identification your first Name is in most cases not mandatory except when specified in a certain law. Which are "Geldwäsche" and "Telekommunikation" But that is only for identification, but not needed in your signature. Your signature has not to be readable or even your real name, as by law it just needs to be by you. My Signiture is a readable but slightly crippled first name with a last name just of two letters. It doesn't matter how it looks like because it evolves over the time anyway. Just think of this regardless what you use at signature, as long as it is handwritten by you, it means it is legally signed. Different is, if you write an email. It might not be officially but there you sign with a full name or a shortened first name plus last name. Except you are "per Du" with that person. By the way, how to explain "Du" and "Sie" / Duzen und Siezen / formal and informal to an English speaker' Du = you Sie = you, sir
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Congratulations on the job and learning so much. Happy to see you pick up more German. :) There are many sayings for ending a phone call (and for leaving a face-to-face meeting): Bis dann / Bis bald (if you expect to talk sooner or later, the latter rather soon) Auf Wiederhören (on the phone) / Auf Wiedersehen (in person) (both more formal) Wir sehen uns / Wir hören uns Ciao/Tschau (Italian for Hello and Good bye) Tschüß (deviated from Ciao) Einen schönen Tag noch Nobody should bother you if sign with first and last name :) Meetings depend on the company, including meeting protocols. We do have plenty of meetings since communications is highly important. We write meeting protocols mostly only for the prepared meetings, not for the short, more instant ones. We even have small talk meetings since we are working mostly in home office.
The keyboard in Germany ist "QWERTZ" in Englisch the keyboard ist "QWERTY" I have dificulty with the English keyboard, because in my family name are two "Z" and I have learned on a "QWERTZ" keyboard.
@@JimFortune Once you are proficient enough to type blindly, though, it doesn't matter anymore what's printed on the keys. At that point, you can just change the keyboard setting of your computer to the layout you are used to.
You know, you could simply change the settings on the keyboard, provided that you are the only one using it, naturally. It's not about what is written on it, it is all about how the computer interpretes it. But I guess it might be easier for you to change the setting at home to German, so that you can get used to it. The meetings are just a thing in large companies. Smaller companies don't bother, there the "meeting" happens during the coffee break. But larger companies like to have them to further communications between the different levels. The vocabulary you mentioned is also very "big company". And your friend is right, those benefits aren't benefits, from a German perspective they are rights, hard fought for by our unions and worker movements. And they are btw pretty common in Europe. As a thumb rule, though, bigger companies are forced to offer more to their workers because smaller companies are except from some rules.
Moin Nice to hear u got a job. Good to hear ur happy with it. I thaught about what kind of job it might be while listening and after the last sentence i m quit shure ur at the service hotline from the telecom.... 😂
One thing to remember when it comes to being there on time: This includes the boss, too. There is a German proverb (which is actually derived from a quote of a French king... ;-) ), which states: "Pünktlichkeit ist die Höflichkeit der Könige" which translates to "Punctuality is the courtesy of kings". And there is another - very important - thing about working in Germany (when you are working in retail or any other job where you come into direct contact with customers"), and which differs quite a bit from the US, which is the relationship between customers and sellers/workers. In the US, you have the "golden rule" that "the customer is always right" (which means that you as a salesperson should never do anything which might anger the customer or contradict them, but have to try your best to do whatever they desire). We don't have that in Germany, simply because the customer is NOT always right (quite often, they are bloody stupid and have no clue what they are talking about, and your job is to help them to make the right decision what to buy, so that they are actually happy AFTERWARDS and come back to do more business with you later on - instead of being angry that you gave them exactly what they WANTED or thought that they wanted, but which is not what they actually NEEDED or even COULD USE AT ALL, in which case you won't see that customer again in your shop). The corresponding golden rule in business in Germany is "The customer is King" (which means that you need to talk and treat them like you would treat and talk to royalty, which means with respect and correcting them if needed in a nice - maybe even indirect - way without insulting them, but even contradicting them is fine as long as it's done respectfully) - but that phrase actually has a second part which states "...as long as they behave like a King", which means that the customer has to have good manners, too - and that if the customer loses their composure, is abusive or even insulting in their behaviour (or what they say), that rule is not valid anymore. So don't be surprised that if you are a customer in a German shop (or at a Germany company) and start to get loud or trying to insist on your "customer privilege", the clerk might simply ask you to leave, because you are not welcome in the shop/at the company anymore. The fun thing is: When you then insist on talking to the supervisor (or the boss or even the owner of the business), you'll normally hear the same thing again from them, too: That they have no interest in doing any business with you anymore, and that you have to leave (this time immediately, after all you are talking with somebody with real power this time!) the premises, and if you refuse, the supervisor/boss/owner will actually threaten to call the police on you for trespassing (and yes, I've seen that happen myself a few times over the years, in one case with them actually calling the police - it's not an empty threat in Germany, even when you think you didn't do anything wrong - hint: you did ;-) ). Courtesy goes in both ways in Germany, and normally employees can count on their boss having their back if the customer gets rude, unreasonable, or even threatening.
This stupid euphemism of not saying "problems", instead talking of "challanges" is just business-bullshit-talk. Talking about problems is totally ok and normal"
Kazuya720: Traurig aber wahr. Das ist "Managersprech" und inzwischen leider auch in die KMU "heruntergesickert". Gehört für mich mit zum "Pep-Talk", den man ignorieren kann. Der Hintergedanke, dass positive Formulierungen mehr motivieren als negative ist aber durchaus berechtigt und Lila hat ja - wenn ich mich richtig erinnere - Psychologie studiert.
@@Kazuya720 Ich sehe hier kein Denkverbot, eher eine Empfehlung, wie man gegenüber anderen auftreten sollte, die nicht so intensiv über die einzelnen Themen nachdenken. Und die Lösung eines Problems its meist tatsächlich eine Herausforderung - wenn es einfach wäre, könnte es ja jeder gleich "problemlos" machen :-)
I was exactly thinking this. Stupid business bullshit to replace "problems" with "challenges". I totally agree with you. However, in talking with our customers whe don't address errors just as "problems" because this way the word "problem" would be a euphemism for an actually more serious matter. So we name the error instead of hiding it behind bullshitty euphemisms.
Wir machen bei der Arbeit oft viele kürzere Besprechungen/Meetings, um zB Zeit zu sparen und Missverstänsnisse zu minimieren, wenn alle da sind. So lässt sich schnell alles klären und dann kanns weiter gehen :>
I missed one word in your video, and that was "prägnant" (impressive) vs. "pregnant" (schwanger). That's a real false friend. Once I worked for a German company where the company language was English. Having a team of six or seven different nationalities, you must find a language everyone understands.
Eisi Kater: Agreed, BUT: Once I read a document from a company where everybody understands English, but writing in English was a different matter. I first had to translate the document literally back into German to understand it. The words were English, grammar and idioms were still were German though. With some of my colleagues I actually communicate bilingual, everybody uses his mother tongue to write. my French is rather bad (A2 only) but I can understand most written stuff (in my area of expertise), my colleagues usually speak German (B1?) and understand just about everything I write. In my opinion the optimum therefore is bilingual or even multilingual (since everybody understands English as well in my job).
It's not a hectic work life. Your colleagues are often very helpful, even with the language. At 4 p.m. is usually closing time. There is little overtime. Saturday and Sunday are free time. Maybe you don't need a car to get to work. You can use bus, streetcar or regional train (monthly pass is cheaper).
6:45. I had to laugh. Working in Berlin, I have found if you make a mistake, or make a wrong suggestion, people will look at you weirdly and go hä?? 😒😒After a while it gets better though. That was my experience in both jobs. Glad it is going well for you.
There happen to be a lot of holidays in the first half of the year, but less in the second half. Or at least that's how it feels to me. You have New Year, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Laber Day and Whitsun, and some (mostly Southern) states also have Happy Cadaver, err Feast of Corpus Christi (and some more I don't even remember). In the latter half, you only have the Day of German Unity and the 1st and 2nd Day of Christmas (though many companies also have some special rules for Christmas Eve and Silvester, but it's not technically a holiday). New Year, Christmas, Labor Day and Day of German Unity have fixed dates, and if they all on a weekend, tough luck, you don't get an extra free day for that. The others are based on some Church Calender that basically means that all of them fall on a specific week day each year and so you always get them. The last leap year propelled us a year ahead into a dark time where always some of these fixed-date holidays will fall on a weekend. Such is the harsh reality of German Work Culture. For your work-life balance and ability to regenerate, make sure to take some free days in the summer as there won't be any nice holidays giving you an extra day of relaxation. But you probably already know that lots of people in Germany will be doing the same, since there are of course also summer school holidays (6 weeks, but not the same weeks in every state. But depending on what the Corona situation will be, that can mean a lot more travel, traffic, tourists and more to pay for your flights and hotels probably).
also to mention 6th jan Heilige Drei Könige, but holiday only in 3 german states All Saints (1st nov.) OR Reformation (31st oct). Hamburg celebrates Reformation, but she is out of luck: in 2021 last day of october is a sunday anyway. :( Bavaria is top with 14 holidays, but one is in Augsburg only and another is Maria Himmelfahrt/Assumption of Mary (15th aug) in catholic locations only.
Hi from México. Very helful Information for German executives learners. I hope you can make more videos like this with vocabulary and phrases related about daily life at office an/or factory such as Projects, Finance, Customer Service, Sales, Logistic. Regards
Thanks for the video and italki recommendation. I live in Germany and am starting to look for a job - I'd be interested to hear more about your CV writing/translating and how the interview process went!
health insurance and social insurance and paid holidays are RIGHTS by law of every working person in germany. You just can discuss about the length of the paid holidays. E.g. by law there are four weeks, usually there are six weeks.
To f... the knee topic. In the 80s in Germany there was the kind of a Muppet series called The Fraggles where in the outro was sung: "und hats Dir nicht gefallen, dann bohr Dir doch ein Loch ins Knie. Denn manchen kann man's recht oft tun, doch allen eben nie" I always think there might be a correlation 😉
huh, even in the stingy US, if you are a salaried employee, holidays will not cut into your paycheck. They might impact your bonus, if you accumulate less hours, assuming that this is how your bonus is calculated, but your salary should not be impacted by holidays. And at least these scheduled holidays will get pushed to the nearest Monday or Friday if they happen to fall on the weekend, so that you don't lose out, like you do in Germany. Now for hourly employees, this is a very different situation, and typicallythis situation is much worse than it would be for a comparable German worker. You get payed for the hours you worked (hopefully), and if you are off, due to holidays, then that might be a financial hit for you. But most hourly workers are in service jobs that require varied schedules, so it just depends on what hours you have to work, independent of holidays or weekends. Generally, hourly work in the US has lousy to non-existing benefits, and most such workers will be insured via ACA alone. The vacation situation is rather tenuous too, as there are none or very limited legal requirements, certainly nothing that can compare with Germany. For salaried employees, especially in the corporate world, the situation is actually significantly more comfortable than most Germans realize. How good or bad the situation is depends on the specific contract, but in such jobs it is quite common to have health insurance coverage, vacation that starts at 15 days plus 10 personal days and increases to 25 days + 10 personal days. Also there are financial incentives that include things like life insurance, stock options, 401K contributions, and so forth. Bonuses in the US are huge, by German standards, and can at times be like a second salary. Many salaried employees are not taking their whole vacation, partially because the company pressures the employee with deadlines, partially because the workers themselves willingly don't take what is officially allotted. I thought that was because they receive pressure not to take them, like in Japan, but nope, many just don't take them, even when they could. Different culture. Not everyone is doing badly in the US, the issue is not that good working conditions don't exist, the problem is that they don't extend to everyone. They are reserved for the few that have managed to find a career ladder to climb. The higher the better the conditions become. Security in the job market and its conditions is not achieved by laws and regulations, it is achieved by competitive market conditions, and the more marketable your job is, the more you can negotiate. At the bottom of the pile remain those that have no negotiation power, and there the American system is utterly broken and imo socially unsustainable and does need to change - urgently.
America still has more opportunity to make huge money. Germany offers one the chance for a normal and comfortable life. Not to mention, life in the United States has always been precarious and is increasingly punctuated with a sense of dread, and that last part isn't just a cultural thing like in Germany.
@@uranus348 Amerika ist ein schlechtes Land. Ein gutes Leben wird dort nicht versprochen. Ein Mann kann Geld verdienen. Doch unabhängig von dieser Realität kann ein Mann in Amerika den Gestank der Toten nicht ignorieren.
In my opinion one of the most versatile words ist "eigentlich". Its meaning and the use of of it is actually not easy to convey to someone not german. It can be used to diminish a statement, or to convey disagreement, or being intentionally vague. An example would be "Das war eigentlich nicht meine Absicht". Depending on the tone in which it is said that could mean: "It might look like that, but that was not my intention" or "That was absolutely not what I wanted, but it came out wrong". "Eigentlich" adds a lot of ambiguity.
The next terms you'd learn as a working woman might be "Mutterschutz" and "Elternzeit". It is a law ("Mutterschutzgesetz", also on euopean level) about how to deal with working women during and after pregnancy. Is there sth. similar in the US?
"is there sth. similar in the US?" I dont think so because women from the US are always shocked when they hear they can take up to 3 years off, paid, after a baby and even more shocking: you can chose if you take it or your man takes it, or you can mix. Also that you get Kindergeld for every child.
"Kranplätze müssen verdichtet sein!" is a really important sentence xD
Ich auch !
Einmal mit Profis arbeiten!
The most important word for your job: "Feierabend"
"Feierabend" , "Feiertag" and "Urlaub" !
Pause.
@@SillyhAsH "Verlängertes Wochenende"
Brückentag
Mahlzeit
The "benefits" which are actually law dont go away when you lose your job. Big difference!
Keep in mind "bis dann" isn't really formal. If you are speaking to someone on the phone on a more formal level you can use "schönen Tag noch" or "Wiederhören" if you want to be really formal.
Sometimes German companies can be more formal than Americans, so keep that in mind, especially with clients.
If even it's : *Auf* Wiederhören / - Widersehen
if you mention formal speak, you should do it formally correct 😉
Like our old Bundeskanuler Kohl said: "Can I say you to you?"
"Auf Wiederhören" always feels awkward to me if it's the end to a conversation with someone with whom one wouldn't have talked to if not for some problem, e.g. a support hotline. No, i'd rather not want to have to call again ;-)
@@jenswurm yes! So if you are on the line with a customer you will work with long time and have a work relationship it’s the best you can say.
@@jenswurm I have to agree and thinking about it I'm with 95% Tschüss, or ein schönen Tag, Abend or tatatata Wochenende ;) and I'll get this back as well to 95% of the time.
"Das geht so nicht."
"Das haben wir noch nie so gemacht."
"Sie können hier nicht parken."
Du Hellseher!
"Ich habe keine Zeit."
"Das geht dich nicht an."
"Sie dürfen nicht hier parken."
"Wieviele Airbus Wochen sind das?!"
"That's not a benefit. That's a law."
And thats how it f'ing should be everywhere.
Ha ha ha ha ha
isso...
And thats how it f'ing should be everywhere. And that's why it f*ing gets destroyed everywhere it is that way.
In the U.S. the GOP has actually convinced their idiot voters that if universal health care is enacted that the whole country will turn into a communist-run hell-scape. This doesn't make any sense until you understand that the U.S. is the country that brought you the Tide Pod Challenge.
@@tempest411 😆😅🤣. You made me laugh!
Switching between different keyboard layouts becomes natural after a few years. Ground rule for being on time: up to 5 minutes early is polite, on time is effective, 2-3 minutes late is unorganized, anything later is an insult.
"5 Minuten vor der Zeit, ist des Schutzmann's Pünktlichkeit." As my father liked to say, who is a police officer.
sharp on time is 5 min to late. :-)
@@DanielRMueller Mein Großvater sagte immer "Pünktlichkeit ist die Höflichkeit der Könige" :-). Er war zwar kein König, aber legte trotzdem viel Wert auf Pünktlichkeit.
@@multa7053 It's fine. You'll grow up too and learn how to respect others.
@@multa7053 Oh shit, so you're Benjamin Button?
Also, if you are working in the gastronomy or as a nurse or something and it happens that you got your workshift on for example Pfingstmontag.
You are getting a 100% bonus on your sallary for that day. Its called Feiertagszuschlag.
In most jobs you definitely won´t get a 100% bonus. That depends on your contract, it is not a law.
I work for a Greek company but we don't schedule too many meetings, but we are always on Teams and are calling each other constantly and collaborating constantly. One of my Bosses gets so busy that sometimes I have to schedule a quick meeting with him just to get a quick word with him.
Just a few hours ago I thought: "It's been a while...since the last video"
Glückwunsch zum Job!
My keyboard on the PC has the option to switch from "QWERTY" to "QWERTZ",
by pressing the windows-key and space.
It needs both German and English language packs installed.
Regarding the meeting culture, at least for me as a German that has changed a lot with the pandemic and having nearly all your colleagues working from home. We’ve established a daily meeting in the morning, to come together and start the day with a little conversation instead of being completely distanced from your colleagues. That was also recommended by „experts“ to be a good way of keeping the team spirit alive. Many companies haven’t allowed their employees to work from home before the pandemic. That has drastically changed now, and I guess that’s a good thing.
Ich versuche auch gerade mein Englisch zu verbessern. Insbesondere die Business Vokabeln. Da hilft mir Dein Video auch sehr. Ich kann es einfach umdrehen. Das ist sehr interessant. Mach weiter so. Vielen Dank für Dein Video.
All "Sozialversicherungen" (social insurances) are half paid by both, so also retirement money, unemployment insurance and long term care insurance. Of course public holidays are paid as you will normally get paid on a fixed rate a month, no matter how many work days a month has. But as you are in Hamburg, I think you are happy to early about these, I regret your next might be christmas - as our national holiday is on a sunday this year. But: By law you have at least 25 days of holidays a year, many companies have 30 and growing (e.g. 31st if you are 10 years in , 32 for 20 years etc. as a loyality bonus), but this depends. Some also pay a bonus wage e.g. dependent on the results of the last year.
Unfortunately the part about the garanteed 25days of vacation is not right.
By law the minimum vacation time an employee is entiteled to is 24 days. And that's only if your'e working 6 days a week. For usual employments with 5 work days and 2 days weekend the minimum is only 20 days.
Nevertheless it's very uncommen in Germany to get less then the mentioned 25 days.
Unwahr. Die Unfallversicherung zählt auch zu den Sozialversicherungen und wird ausschließlich vom AG bezahlt.
That's because of the old (Otto von) Bismark!
He was the right hand of the Kaiser.
He wanted to take the wind out of the socialists and introduced “social insurance.” For this he cut the right of parliament.
The Kaiser and Bismark are history. Lost the is war.
The insurance, legal holidays and employee rights have remained.
Unfortunately, the church tax also survived.
@@jensschroder8214 Without taxes, there will be no more country which provides you the benefits you mentioned.
@@cleancoder3838 When Jens said "Unfortunately" he was only referring to the church tax, I think. And in the past that made sense, because in the past the church did many good things (Kindergärten, Krankenhäuser, Friedhöfe, Waisenhäuser, ...). And it is one of the few taxes that you can quit paying, whenever you want.
I'm a German working in an international (mainly Europe, but incl. US and Asia) company in Germany and I'm so glad about it, I mean that it's not a native German company. We use best practices from both business worlds, that's really cool, office communication runs quite smoothly - on a nice pidgin level :-D But seriously, we've dropped almost all manners and conventions, main thing is the basic information gets through. Late for the meeting? Who cares, we're dealing with Italians. Unreadable signatures? Who cares, as long as ther IS a signature and the source is the right function. We're mainly dealing with functions, regardless of the persons incorporating it (they're anyhow changing all the time). Polite internal emails? Just a sign that the writer is underchallenged. The official company language is broken English. :-D French broken English is the best! Indians (a lot of IT is Indian) on the phone are just hilarious, but meetings with Polish people are unbeatable.
Just ask an IT guy in your company to install an additional keyboard layout. On Windows, macOS, and Linux, by simply pressing specific key strokes you can switch between different input methods.
For example, I do use US English, German (Deutschland), Russian, and Hebrew ever since, depending on the the task I have to do. I use Russian and Hebrew for communication with some of my relatives, I use German for anything else, but I use US English for programming stuff -- since [ ] { } / \ - = < >, and so on (the things I use often) is way easier to type on an US layout. ,) All it needs to switch between those input languages is to press (left) Alt and (left) Shift.
Well, in fact it's not *all* -- one should also be able to type using 10 fingers "blindly". ,)
my company made this configurable individually (yep, if you wanted you can change it to e.g. Japanese)
me and my colleges sometimes used it to prank a co-worker when they forgot to lock their PC and went out of the room
The biggest problem, however, is the labeling of the keys on the keyboard. In this case I would use the Windows Bildschirmtastatur (onscreen keyboard) with an English keyboard layout to see which key is which symbol/letter.
Another useful tip if you are a German and have to use a non-German keyboard layout: Windows Zeichentabelle (charmap) where you can search for the letter or symbol and copy it.
Another bonus about the public holidays is that they don't get moved to the nearest Monday, like they do in England, so you'll often have a public holiday on a Tuesday or a Thursday, meaning that the Monday beforehand or the Friday after the holiday is a "Brückentag", a "bridge day" that a lot of people take off as an extra holiday (although unpaid) to get a 4-day weekend.
If you get sick, you go to your doctor, get a sick note and then your employer is obliged to give you paid sick-leave. Up to 6 weeks - for the same illness. So if you have a broken leg and cannot walk, that is a few weeks, if later you get pneumonia, you get another time off, those do not count together towards the 6 weeks. But if your broken leg forces you to be out of work for more than 6 weeks (unlikely) than your health insurance pays you money. Not your whole income, but a significant portion of it. In Germany people do not go hungry just because they are forced by illness to stay at home (or in a hospital).
Your vacation is obligatory, too. Each employer has to give at least 4 full weeks off. So if you are working in retail, six days a week - you get at least 24 days off, the normal office drone gets 20 days (five day working week). Part-time workers, who work on a reduced number of days (instead of hours per day reduced) get 4 times their work days - so if you come into work (incl. working from home!) for 3 days a week - you get at least 12 days off. That is the absolute minimum. Most employers give between 25 to 30 days for five days a week-workers.
And also obligatory: You have a maximum of 12 working hours (there are exceptions, but not normal office workers!) - plus obligatory breaks. After 6 hours, half an hour, after 9 hours work (only work time, no break time counted) it is another quarter of an hour! Obligatory, so even if you worked through it, you could not get paid for this!
Your employer can demand a little bit of unpaid extra time, to allow for preparations or for closing business. But there are limits to that. And the American "you work for me, I can call you whenever I want to!" - does not apply here!! In fact, the law says, after work you have to have at least 11 uninterrupted hours from work. That is the law.
German working laws are pretty cool.
And I forgot - if the company is big enough, you have a "Betriebsrat" - kind of worker's board, which has to be involved in some of the decisions! Unions in Germany do not have the same bad rep as in the US - but then they also tend to be "less on the war path" … We have a pretty much "live and let live"-culture.
Yay! Glad you're back :) I'm moving to Hamburg this fall and your videos are super helpful. x Happy to see things are going well for you in Hamburg!
Try the „ simple germany“ chanal
Hamburg is a beautiful city! I'm often in Hamburg to visit a friend and work there.
as a native german speaker I was very scared when I had my first job interview in english. Business english is pretty different from tech-english. Suddenly you need to learn new stuff to follow meetings outside of your tech-departement-bubble. I had to learn that I'll always be one of those swiss with the funny accents
Regarding keyboard problems, I lived in Belgium where I got a computer with a French layout keyboard. The software was English language and I was writing in German. I had to learn the ASCII code for many letters and signs.
AZERTY - just has got to be the worst!
On a vacation in Tunisia (french keyboard) I had to login to an account and I didn’t knew exactly the characters but the typing pattern. So I asked my girlfriend which character was located at which key and hd to find it at the french keyboard. 😁
Do you mean this MS Windows Feature, where you have to hold down the Alt key and type a four digit code. It’s impressive, that you learned that!
But is it ASCII, or rather Unicode, or something different? Because ASCII only contains the most basic characters. (ASCII is contained in Unicodes UTF-8 and many other Encodings.)
Grüße aus Deutschland!
@@oleh6738 Nur die wichtigsten ASCII Zeichen für Umlaute in Groß- und Kleinschreibung alle Satzzeichen und diverse Sonderzeichen wie Backslash usw.
Einfach die passende Bildschirmtastatur installieren.Das machts einfacher.
I can relate to the keyboard changes :) I live in England and work with German speaking customers and English speaking customers, as well as having all internal communication in English, so it's a constant struggle lol
oh Hamburg, nice to see someone ended up in my Hometown, usual they end up in Bavaria etc. I hope you like it here and that you enjoy your time here.
I haven't been to Germany in 25 years, and even then, I was only in Stuttgart for two weeks, but for some reason, I think I'd like the north more. Hamburg appeals to me, as does (believe it or not) Hanover, for some reason.
@@frigginjerk I can highly recommend smaller towns(not cities) in northern germany. ... the ones with a population of... lets say less than 25k. ... Nice, beautiful, friendly and still big enough to have a little bit of everything in regards of shops, supermarkets etc.
Another one to remember is: eventual means letztendlich and not eventuell.
this got me confused so much back in the days when my English wasnt the yellow from the egg. "false friend" detected :)
@@nfp911 especially in a work place that can be a fatal misunderstanding.
@@st0ox indeed
@@nfp911 "whatever the client plans for us to do in the future, eventually we have to finish the project next week"
Next week:
"So do you know now if we need to finish the project this week?"
@@st0ox i know :) with back in the days i meant 20 yrs. ago :P
Du machst gute Videos vielen Dank dafür😊
Vielen Dank 😊
@@HiFromHamburg When you shoot a new video anyway, you may as well shoot a German and an English version of it. There are many many people -- more than you think -- who would like to hear you speak German.
And do not be afraid of mistakes! For it is exactly the mistakes, which would give it a very special charm...
Well done. I would love to get a job working fully in German.
"In diesem Sinne " and "Tschau (Ciao)" are the most common phrases i use for ending our weekly team meeting. Sometimes "schönes Wochende/Ostern/Pfingsten/Weihnachten" when its on a Friday or before any of those holidays.
Let me guess: you're from the Rhineland? Because "in diesem Sinne" is one of the only phrases people from e.g. Cologne or the Eifel use to *REALLY* end a conversation... (siehe Beikircher...) ;-)
@@IgorRockt No i am from Franconia :)
Du hast es wirklich optimal erwischt. Dein Arbeitgeber hat als Unternehmenssprache "Deutsch", d.h. Deine Deutsch-Kenntnisse werden immer besser und Dein Unternehmen will "Dich", weil die Clientsprache Englisch ist.
Und das Sozialsystem ist auch deutsch (das brauchst Du erst später).
Keyboard: I had the same Problem (Äh, Herausforderung) when I worked in Switzerland. They have a German-Swiss Keyboard, and a French-Swiss-Keyboard. And I was used to the German Keyboard. That is even more confusing because the Swiss are speaking German as well.
Benefits: I only learned that word a few years ago and was surprised what US-Companies consider benefits. With my prior (German or Swiss) employers benefits were Coffee or (non-alcoholic) drinks for free, apples, banana etc, sometimes a free weekend for everybody in the alps (paid by the company), big celebrations (including family) or trips to Straßburg or the Europapark.
Deutsche Flüche: You have hardly any accent with the German swearwords, you must be practicing a lot :-)
The so called "benefits" in the US are laughable for every EU citizen or Swiss citizen.
We do have those garanteed things since the late 1890s because of the workers movement and the try from the conservatives to stop the social democrats and the socialist from succseeding with their movements. So they made confessions to make them redundant.
The US Millionairs convinced the people that socialism is bad. That mantra was implemented by their politicians. But not everything that's social and good for all is comunism!
The US is the most developt third world country in the world and because they only have two neigbors they have no comparing like we Europeans do have.
if there is intrest in that topic:
www.infosperber.ch/gesellschaft/uebriges-gesellschaft/usa-zeigen-ueberraschende-merkmale-eines-drittweltlandes/
Signature: yes, can be a scribble, derived from your family name. Does not necessarily to be readable, but should be unique. Like a symbol. Important is that you can repeat it instantly and believably, e.g. at the supermarket checkout.
A more formal way to say good by on phone is "Auf Wiederhören" so Ou imply to talk again in the future. Same like " Auf Wiedersehen"
"Tschüss" or "Bis dann" is not really formal and often used when you speak to friends or well known person ( "mach's gut", "man sieht sich", "bis demnächst", "hau rein", "Tschö mit Ö", etc).
The formal (and very polite) way to speak to customers and unknown people is: "Auf Wiederhören" (but it's also a little bit old school). Try: "Danke für das nette Gespräch - ich wünsche Ihnen einen schönen Tag" - or the short form: "einen schönen Tag noch!"
And don't forget to reply correctly to "tschö mit ö" by saying "ciao mit vau" ;-)
@@tychobra1 Are you serious about the answer?
@@ЕвгенийАндреевич-л1с it's fun. Not serious. 😃😉
@@tychobra1 also, nur "tschö" ist die richtige Aussage. Danke
@@ЕвгенийАндреевич-л1с na wie du meinst 😉 ciao mit vau
I have several signatures: One I use to sign a formal letter (surname), a shorthand symbol I use for side notes or to countersign something (initials), one I use to pay stuff (full name) and one for greeting/birthday cards (very artistic and fancy).
Rent derives from "Rente" - income (especially income you did not work for). So the rent of a house at first was the money the owner earned by leasing it. Rent- income + abilität - ability means "it is possible to gain money from it". But with us, "Rente" also changed the meaning during the last 150 years, and with us it means "pension". So "Rentabilität" to us also has to been learned as a special word. Which child would care about "Rentabilität"?
This video is amazing and to the point! I move to Germany in a week to start a new job and this is packed with good tips. Cheers to you. Keep vlogging!
The root of Holidays = "Holy Days". In Europe Holy Days were Saint's Days so the Church treated them very much like a Sunday and nobody worked on those days.
it was specifically a SIN to work on a holy day
I worked for a German/British company in Mönchengladbach. Outside of the formal meetings, any informal discussions involved Germans disappearing into their office and closing their doors, while the British simply discussed the issue whereever they were at that given time: in the kitchen; in the corridors; in the car park. There is a great deal of separation in Germany and with Germans; it's in the structure of, and their use of, language, it's hard-wired into their civil laws, and it's reflected in their working culture.
The "benefits" you mention (the insurance one) is part of the so called "Lohnnebenkosten" (roughly: salary side costs), which your employer has to pay ON TOP of what you actually get as your nominal salary. In Germany this currently means that your employer has to pay about 27% more to employ you than what you're seeing as your salary (before taxes). So if you make say 40,000€/a, you're actually costing your employer 50,800€/a. This is something that is often forgotten when salaries are compared between countries, and also many German employees tend to like to forget this as well.
About those being punctual thing: Most germans know, that our livetime is very limited and therefore valuable. So most german's (that I Know, as a german) don't like to just waste time for no good reason.
If we agree to meet on 9am for a meeting, then everyone will be there at 9am +- a minute. So, if you are 10 minutes late or so, everyone will have to wait for you. Or you just miss the most part of the meeting and maybe some others have another meeting just 15min after this one (like managing directors) and just have no time to wait for you.
Or if you want to go shopping with a friend and you want to meet at 5pm at the mall. I will be there at 5pm as agreed, waiting for you. If you come 1h late, I would have to wait one our standing there. Let other people waiting is just very rude, even more in a business meeting than in private.
If you know that you will come late to a meeting, you should at least tell the others that you will be late.
I'm a German and I do fully agree. Not being on time shows that the time of other people has no worth for you, it is utterly disrespectful to imply that your time is more valuable than your friends' or colleagues' time.
Standup meetings are an efficient way to get new things to spread immediately. Not very common in old-fashioned companies yet. My English meetings really start 5 minutes after it was scheduled, the German meetings really start 1 minute after it was scheduled. My best one is Planungssicherheit=having all details to safely plan. But holidays on the weekend will not shift to the next Monday....
Wait for the next years when a lot of the public holidays isn't on weekends. This year's a nightmare for employees! We "lost" 5 holidays this year (May 1, October 3 and 31 (or November 1, depending on the state) and both Christmas holidays.
In America, when that happens, we usually get the following Monday off. Our Independence Day is on a Sunday this year, so everyone I know who works in any non-public, office-type job will be off work on Monday, 5 July instead. ...Then again, we only have 7 holidays that are expected as days off in general (individual companies can give more if they want, but 7 seems to be the minimum, and a lot of companies don't give any more than that).
Our "Benefits" here in Germany are called "socialism" or "communism" in the USA.
True! Ironically, it is even true in a sense. The modern welfare state stems from ideas that come from the revisionist tradition of marxist socialism, which became social democracy. But ofc in American media everything has to be Stalin or Hitler (which many there proclaim to be far-left for reasons...).
@@mnessenche No they come from Bismarck who was everything else than a marxist, even if he hated capitalists and rich business person a lot.
@@llothar68 while the Bismarckian social reforms were a precursor to the welfare state, the welfare state is a social invention of the post-war era which is a social democratic idea for the most part, and therefore comes from socialist ideology. Bismarck’s social programmes - while helpful and remarkablr - only covered a very small chunk of working people, and only with rudimentary benefits. Less than any even anglo-american system does deliver. Still, an achievement. And ofc Bismarck only introduces his reforms bc of the existence of the massive socialist and labour movement in Germany - to pre-empt their political success. Another role in Europe was played here by some Agrarian parties and Christian social movements (eg pol. Catholicism) - later that would become part of European Christian Democracy. The ideological basis for the welfare state benefits are to be found, however, in the traditions of the socialist, labour and radical democratic (left liberal) tradition - as well as the Christian social movements to be complete here.
It's a slippery slope, it starts with benefits for workers, then benefits for people who don't want to work, then benefits for the 3rd world who are welcome to come to your country to mooch off the people who still work. Ultimately, you end up with a crazy East German communist who openly works to destroy your country. Hint: Before the government gives you something, they have to take it from you first.
As an Eastern European, this is ridiculous.
The real word language explanations are really helpful.. Thanks so much. Subbed here! Hi from Australia.
Hi Lamb, I'm following you for years, and that's what I have to say: You have become pretty europeanised since then, I see it at your language, at your mimic, at your attitude - and the most, I see that you are happy in our Old World. Best wishes forever!
Glad to see you are doing so well ! Just one point of order: The meaning of "Anteil" rather translates to "proportion" than "amount".
12:02 "Im Voraus" is a very polite way to ask for a favour and say at the end "Vielen Dank im Voraus".
Also, in a business context a very common use of "im Voraus" is, that someone wants some information "im Voraus", e.g. before the meeting starts. "Kannst du mir die Präsentation im Voraus schicken" - "Can you send me the presentation beforehand"?
4:51
You too (are here)! = Du auch (bist hier)! >>> subject case
You too (a nice holiday)! = Dir auch (schönen Feiertag)! >>> indirect object case
Ýou too (I saw) = Dich auch (hab ich gesehen) >>> direct object case
"Auf Wiederhören!" is always fine on the phone.
If you want to keep your English keyboard but be able to type umlauts, check out EURkey layout, which is a thing you can install to map keys to special symbols.
I live in Hamburg as well, everyone I know uses the full name for his/her signature. Especially important when you have a common name like Müller, Meyer or Schmidt. Grob is not only rough but also like about or round about for estimated measurements. I rarely see someone use the word Botschaft but I guess a long time about the Botschaft (Embassy) was also used to send messages for people to get who were in another country, a bit like the ancient version of a P.O. box.
"Mal" makes it a little more polite in questions, and more harsh in orders :"Jetzt mach mal!"
Yes, it may be translated as "just for once" or "just for this time" ( 'mal=einmal). Grammatically it is a fillword that is not advisible in written, formal conversation, but in eye-to-eye conversation it sereves the purpose you mentioned.
My company tells me I am the "least best" employee
You can sign with your full name, I do that too, most people just shorten their first name out of convenience. The important part is that it can be uniquely identified as your name. The last name has to be at least somewhat decipherable, but not fully readable.
Klassischer Abschied am Telefon: Auf WiederHÖREN!
Danke für deine Videos! Ich freue mich immer, wenn ich etwas von deinen Erfahrungen in Hamburg mitbekommen kann. Und Glückwunsch zu deinem Job!
If THAT was a rusty B2, then I don't want to see what you think is better German.
That was bloody amazing!
Benefits like paying for your health insurance and pension are regulated by law in Germany. You pay roughly 7% of your gross income to your Krankenversicherung / health insurance which is automatically deducted from your salary each month by your employer. Your employer pays roughly another 8% of your gross income as well, for roughly 15% of your gross income. Those 8% are NOT deducted from your salary but are paid by the employer.
You do NOT loose your health insurance if you loose your job if your are in a Gesetzliche Krankenkasse. The government covers your health insurance from your unemployment benefit costs if you become unemployed. You can switch insurance companies once per year, usually around the end of November, and you can pick from roughly 70 Gesetzliche Krankenkassen. But mostly only the incentive programms for staying fit and healthy vary to any degree; the coverage is usually 100% of all medical costs in any Krankenkasse.
Co-pay for medical drugs is always 5€ per generic drug (per package), and 10€ (per package) for an elective choice name brand drug. Every other cost for medical drugs is covered by your insurance. Ambulance rides and even emergency helicopter is covered. Hospital medical costs are covered; except for a 10€ per day fee, up to a maximum of 240€ of such fees per YEAR! That is basically your food cost. Post-surgery care is also covered.
EVERYONE in Germany has mandatory health insurance. The only way to NOT have health insurance is if you are self-employed or a free-lancer who opted out of the Gesetzliche Krankenkasse and switched into the Private Krankenkasse / private health insurance, and THEN you loose your job AND you can't continue to pay your insurance fees. That's the ONLY way to not be health insured in Germany.
Even then, any kind of employment by someone else for at least six months will allow you to re-enter the Gesetzliche Krankenkasse, and wha-bam, you are completely covered again.
You also pay a certain percentage of your gross income into the German Rentenkasse /pension fund as part of the Generationvertrag / generational contract. This 'generational contract' was the idea that the current working population pays the pensions for all people who currently are eligible for a pension; trusting that future generations will do the same when you are eligible for your pension.
So once you have worked for any German company and paid taxes in Germany you are automatically eligible for a German pension, no matter how small it is. Your pension depends on your gross average income, the total amount of time you worked. Or if you want to and can afford it, you can also pay your contributions privately, so you can increase your future pension as well.
I do not think anybody should change his or her signature for whatever reason! The whole point of a signature is that it does not change. It looks somewhat different each time, but the way the hand moves stays the same, and it can be seen from the signature. If the name needs to be readable, it can just be added to the signature in normal written words.
So many short meetings: I think it had to do with covid and mobile working. In a normal setting you would meet your colleagues shortly at the coffee machine or just in the office corridor.
Hey you improve very fast! congratulations!
We have a lot of benefits for workers. Thats is one of the main differences from the us. Healthcare and this. Imprtant: you HAVE to take your holidays. When you have 26 days, your company normaly will say at the end of the year you have left 10 days, please take it. Some companies pay you out when you have days left but its normal you are forced to take them.
P.S.: You can show that you come from Hamburg when you say "moin" or "moin moin" (more people) instead of hello. :-)) But I bet you already know that.
Moin Lila, schön, daß du einen Job gefunden hast!
Seh! interessant, was du alles über deine Erfahrungen mit dem Bürodeutsch zu erzählen hast!
Vliel Spaß und vier Erfolg im Beruf weiterhin!
LG Ben
Also the social insurances you have to pay at the end of the month will cover any accidents that might injure you during work, or unemployment after the end of your contract/release. Ofc that requires that you have worked a certain time for the company (9 months iirc) in order to claim unemployment checks that are ~70% of your previous income and after about a year, depending on how long you paid unemployment-insurance its reduced to ~400€/month so that you have at the least amount of money to survive, also most other costs (rent/heat) are covered by the government. Thats why you barely see any homeless ppl around here.
Awesome video! Great job!
Congratulations on your job! I’m so happy for you!
Hey Lila. Dein Deutsch ist eigentlich schon ziemlich gut vor allem die Aussprache wird immer besser, weiter so! Und viel Spaß mit deinem neuen Job. 👍
Northwest european countries have the Rhineland model for economics, Britain and US have the anglosaxon model in which money is king. In the Rhineland model there is besides profit also attention for environment, work pleasure, solidarity, and a more longterm thinking in terms of policies and profit. This results in employees that are happier, healthier and more in balance with their private life.
Love your channel! Keep up the awesome work 💖
you're back!
Legally for identification your first Name is in most cases not mandatory except when specified in a certain law.
Which are "Geldwäsche" and "Telekommunikation"
But that is only for identification, but not needed in your signature.
Your signature has not to be readable or even your real name, as by law it just needs to be by you.
My Signiture is a readable but slightly crippled first name with a last name just of two letters.
It doesn't matter how it looks like because it evolves over the time anyway.
Just think of this regardless what you use at signature, as long as it is handwritten by you, it means it is legally signed.
Different is, if you write an email. It might not be officially but there you sign with a full name or a shortened first name plus last name.
Except you are "per Du" with that person.
By the way, how to explain "Du" and "Sie" / Duzen und Siezen / formal and informal to an English speaker'
Du = you
Sie = you, sir
Congratulations on the job and learning so much. Happy to see you pick up more German. :)
There are many sayings for ending a phone call (and for leaving a face-to-face meeting):
Bis dann / Bis bald (if you expect to talk sooner or later, the latter rather soon)
Auf Wiederhören (on the phone) / Auf Wiedersehen (in person) (both more formal)
Wir sehen uns / Wir hören uns
Ciao/Tschau (Italian for Hello and Good bye)
Tschüß (deviated from Ciao)
Einen schönen Tag noch
Nobody should bother you if sign with first and last name :)
Meetings depend on the company, including meeting protocols. We do have plenty of meetings since communications is highly important. We write meeting protocols mostly only for the prepared meetings, not for the short, more instant ones. We even have small talk meetings since we are working mostly in home office.
The keyboard in Germany ist
"QWERTZ"
in Englisch the keyboard ist
"QWERTY"
I have dificulty with the English keyboard, because in my family name are two "Z" and I have learned on a "QWERTZ" keyboard.
The better you learn to type on one style of keyboard, the harder it is to use a different keyboard.
@@JimFortune Once you are proficient enough to type blindly, though, it doesn't matter anymore what's printed on the keys. At that point, you can just change the keyboard setting of your computer to the layout you are used to.
Even though I don't need to speak German in Germany at all but good to know more knowledge about this language. Thumbs up and congrats!
You know, you could simply change the settings on the keyboard, provided that you are the only one using it, naturally. It's not about what is written on it, it is all about how the computer interpretes it. But I guess it might be easier for you to change the setting at home to German, so that you can get used to it.
The meetings are just a thing in large companies. Smaller companies don't bother, there the "meeting" happens during the coffee break. But larger companies like to have them to further communications between the different levels. The vocabulary you mentioned is also very "big company".
And your friend is right, those benefits aren't benefits, from a German perspective they are rights, hard fought for by our unions and worker movements. And they are btw pretty common in Europe. As a thumb rule, though, bigger companies are forced to offer more to their workers because smaller companies are except from some rules.
Moin
Nice to hear u got a job. Good to hear ur happy with it. I thaught about what kind of job it might be while listening and after the last sentence i m quit shure ur at the service hotline from the telecom.... 😂
Even as a English teacher in a business context I would teach
"there is an issue with..." rather than '" there is a problem with..."
"Bis bald!", wird auch oft gebraucht.
That's interesting that punktlich means to be on time. It reminds me a lot of the word we have in English: punctual. Makes it easy to remember.
One thing to remember when it comes to being there on time: This includes the boss, too.
There is a German proverb (which is actually derived from a quote of a French king... ;-) ), which states: "Pünktlichkeit ist die Höflichkeit der Könige" which translates to "Punctuality is the courtesy of kings".
And there is another - very important - thing about working in Germany (when you are working in retail or any other job where you come into direct contact with customers"), and which differs quite a bit from the US, which is the relationship between customers and sellers/workers. In the US, you have the "golden rule" that "the customer is always right" (which means that you as a salesperson should never do anything which might anger the customer or contradict them, but have to try your best to do whatever they desire). We don't have that in Germany, simply because the customer is NOT always right (quite often, they are bloody stupid and have no clue what they are talking about, and your job is to help them to make the right decision what to buy, so that they are actually happy AFTERWARDS and come back to do more business with you later on - instead of being angry that you gave them exactly what they WANTED or thought that they wanted, but which is not what they actually NEEDED or even COULD USE AT ALL, in which case you won't see that customer again in your shop).
The corresponding golden rule in business in Germany is "The customer is King" (which means that you need to talk and treat them like you would treat and talk to royalty, which means with respect and correcting them if needed in a nice - maybe even indirect - way without insulting them, but even contradicting them is fine as long as it's done respectfully) - but that phrase actually has a second part which states "...as long as they behave like a King", which means that the customer has to have good manners, too - and that if the customer loses their composure, is abusive or even insulting in their behaviour (or what they say), that rule is not valid anymore.
So don't be surprised that if you are a customer in a German shop (or at a Germany company) and start to get loud or trying to insist on your "customer privilege", the clerk might simply ask you to leave, because you are not welcome in the shop/at the company anymore. The fun thing is: When you then insist on talking to the supervisor (or the boss or even the owner of the business), you'll normally hear the same thing again from them, too: That they have no interest in doing any business with you anymore, and that you have to leave (this time immediately, after all you are talking with somebody with real power this time!) the premises, and if you refuse, the supervisor/boss/owner will actually threaten to call the police on you for trespassing (and yes, I've seen that happen myself a few times over the years, in one case with them actually calling the police - it's not an empty threat in Germany, even when you think you didn't do anything wrong - hint: you did ;-) ). Courtesy goes in both ways in Germany, and normally employees can count on their boss having their back if the customer gets rude, unreasonable, or even threatening.
This stupid euphemism of not saying "problems", instead talking of "challanges" is just business-bullshit-talk. Talking about problems is totally ok and normal"
Kazuya720: Traurig aber wahr. Das ist "Managersprech" und inzwischen leider auch in die KMU "heruntergesickert". Gehört für mich mit zum "Pep-Talk", den man ignorieren kann.
Der Hintergedanke, dass positive Formulierungen mehr motivieren als negative ist aber durchaus berechtigt und Lila hat ja - wenn ich mich richtig erinnere - Psychologie studiert.
@@wora1111 Ja, aber kollektiv verdummen wir dann alle, weil es Denkverbote von innen heraus gibt. :/
@@Kazuya720 Ich sehe hier kein Denkverbot, eher eine Empfehlung, wie man gegenüber anderen auftreten sollte, die nicht so intensiv über die einzelnen Themen nachdenken. Und die Lösung eines Problems its meist tatsächlich eine Herausforderung - wenn es einfach wäre, könnte es ja jeder gleich "problemlos" machen :-)
in my company you talk about problems. There is enough stupid manager-bullshit going on, but at least everybody is very clear about problems.
I was exactly thinking this. Stupid business bullshit to replace "problems" with "challenges". I totally agree with you.
However, in talking with our customers whe don't address errors just as "problems" because this way the word "problem" would be a euphemism for an actually more serious matter. So we name the error instead of hiding it behind bullshitty euphemisms.
Wir machen bei der Arbeit oft viele kürzere Besprechungen/Meetings, um zB Zeit zu sparen und Missverstänsnisse zu minimieren, wenn alle da sind. So lässt sich schnell alles klären und dann kanns weiter gehen :>
I missed one word in your video, and that was "prägnant" (impressive) vs. "pregnant" (schwanger). That's a real false friend.
Once I worked for a German company where the company language was English. Having a team of six or seven different nationalities, you must find a language everyone understands.
Eisi Kater: Agreed, BUT: Once I read a document from a company where everybody understands English, but writing in English was a different matter. I first had to translate the document literally back into German to understand it. The words were English, grammar and idioms were still were German though.
With some of my colleagues I actually communicate bilingual, everybody uses his mother tongue to write. my French is rather bad (A2 only) but I can understand most written stuff (in my area of expertise), my colleagues usually speak German (B1?) and understand just about everything I write. In my opinion the optimum therefore is bilingual or even multilingual (since everybody understands English as well in my job).
Gratulation zum ersten Job!
Very interesting- thanks for posting. Your German is good!
My signature is full written first name and S and a bow for Schuh :) and I am German and work on quality management...
A video about the differences of the work-life-balances in the USA and in Germany would be very appreciated.
It's not a hectic work life. Your colleagues are often very helpful, even with the language. At 4 p.m. is usually closing time. There is little overtime. Saturday and Sunday are free time.
Maybe you don't need a car to get to work. You can use bus, streetcar or regional train (monthly pass is cheaper).
6:45. I had to laugh. Working in Berlin, I have found if you make a mistake, or make a wrong suggestion, people will look at you weirdly and go hä?? 😒😒After a while it gets better though. That was my experience in both jobs. Glad it is going well for you.
Great video and congrats for the job! :)
First time i heard Jour fixe, i know it as der Regeltermin, if you have, as an example, a reoccurring meeting every week at the same time and day.
There happen to be a lot of holidays in the first half of the year, but less in the second half. Or at least that's how it feels to me. You have New Year, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Laber Day and Whitsun, and some (mostly Southern) states also have Happy Cadaver, err Feast of Corpus Christi (and some more I don't even remember). In the latter half, you only have the Day of German Unity and the 1st and 2nd Day of Christmas (though many companies also have some special rules for Christmas Eve and Silvester, but it's not technically a holiday). New Year, Christmas, Labor Day and Day of German Unity have fixed dates, and if they all on a weekend, tough luck, you don't get an extra free day for that. The others are based on some Church Calender that basically means that all of them fall on a specific week day each year and so you always get them. The last leap year propelled us a year ahead into a dark time where always some of these fixed-date holidays will fall on a weekend. Such is the harsh reality of German Work Culture.
For your work-life balance and ability to regenerate, make sure to take some free days in the summer as there won't be any nice holidays giving you an extra day of relaxation. But you probably already know that lots of people in Germany will be doing the same, since there are of course also summer school holidays (6 weeks, but not the same weeks in every state. But depending on what the Corona situation will be, that can mean a lot more travel, traffic, tourists and more to pay for your flights and hotels probably).
also to mention 6th jan Heilige Drei Könige, but holiday only in 3 german states
All Saints (1st nov.) OR Reformation (31st oct). Hamburg celebrates Reformation, but she is out of luck: in 2021 last day of october is a sunday anyway. :(
Bavaria is top with 14 holidays, but one is in Augsburg only and another is Maria Himmelfahrt/Assumption of Mary (15th aug) in catholic locations only.
Hi from México. Very helful Information for German executives learners. I hope you can make more videos like this with vocabulary and phrases related about daily life at office an/or factory such as Projects, Finance, Customer Service, Sales, Logistic.
Regards
Herzlichen Glückwunsch zu deinem neuen Job 😊👍🏼
Ich freue mich sehr für dich und wünsche dir viel Erfolg!
Vielen Dank 🥰
Thanks for the video and italki recommendation. I live in Germany and am starting to look for a job - I'd be interested to hear more about your CV writing/translating and how the interview process went!
health insurance and social insurance and paid holidays are RIGHTS by law of every working person in germany. You just can discuss about the length of the paid holidays. E.g. by law there are four weeks, usually there are six weeks.
To f... the knee topic.
In the 80s in Germany there was the kind of a Muppet series called The Fraggles where in the outro was sung:
"und hats Dir nicht gefallen, dann bohr Dir doch ein Loch ins Knie. Denn manchen kann man's recht oft tun, doch allen eben nie"
I always think there might be a correlation 😉
Congratulation on finding a job in Germany! Herzlichen Glückwunsch!
If you have to work on a holiday, your overtime bonus is higher than what you get on a mere Sunday.
Take it Easy because „Das Dudenkorpus hat nach heutigem Stand (Frühjahr 2017) einen Umfang von knapp 23 Millionen Wörtern (Grundformen).“ :)
Alt+Shift switches keyboard bindings between german/english
huh, even in the stingy US, if you are a salaried employee, holidays will not cut into your paycheck. They might impact your bonus, if you accumulate less hours, assuming that this is how your bonus is calculated, but your salary should not be impacted by holidays. And at least these scheduled holidays will get pushed to the nearest Monday or Friday if they happen to fall on the weekend, so that you don't lose out, like you do in Germany.
Now for hourly employees, this is a very different situation, and typicallythis situation is much worse than it would be for a comparable German worker. You get payed for the hours you worked (hopefully), and if you are off, due to holidays, then that might be a financial hit for you. But most hourly workers are in service jobs that require varied schedules, so it just depends on what hours you have to work, independent of holidays or weekends. Generally, hourly work in the US has lousy to non-existing benefits, and most such workers will be insured via ACA alone. The vacation situation is rather tenuous too, as there are none or very limited legal requirements, certainly nothing that can compare with Germany.
For salaried employees, especially in the corporate world, the situation is actually significantly more comfortable than most Germans realize. How good or bad the situation is depends on the specific contract, but in such jobs it is quite common to have health insurance coverage, vacation that starts at 15 days plus 10 personal days and increases to 25 days + 10 personal days. Also there are financial incentives that include things like life insurance, stock options, 401K contributions, and so forth. Bonuses in the US are huge, by German standards, and can at times be like a second salary. Many salaried employees are not taking their whole vacation, partially because the company pressures the employee with deadlines, partially because the workers themselves willingly don't take what is officially allotted. I thought that was because they receive pressure not to take them, like in Japan, but nope, many just don't take them, even when they could. Different culture.
Not everyone is doing badly in the US, the issue is not that good working conditions don't exist, the problem is that they don't extend to everyone. They are reserved for the few that have managed to find a career ladder to climb. The higher the better the conditions become.
Security in the job market and its conditions is not achieved by laws and regulations, it is achieved by competitive market conditions, and the more marketable your job is, the more you can negotiate. At the bottom of the pile remain those that have no negotiation power, and there the American system is utterly broken and imo socially unsustainable and does need to change - urgently.
curious, does Germany have more opportunities
to thrive in life than the US ?
if so, is that why you moved out ?
America still has more opportunity to make huge money. Germany offers one the chance for a normal and comfortable life. Not to mention, life in the United States has always been precarious and is increasingly punctuated with a sense of dread, and that last part isn't just a cultural thing like in Germany.
@@DazzleQuality I believe you need a new head. I think you have never been abroad. There are other nations where you can live better than in the US.
@@uranus348 Amerika ist ein schlechtes Land. Ein gutes Leben wird dort nicht versprochen. Ein Mann kann Geld verdienen. Doch unabhängig von dieser Realität kann ein Mann in Amerika den Gestank der Toten nicht ignorieren.
In my opinion one of the most versatile words ist "eigentlich". Its meaning and the use of of it is actually not easy to convey to someone not german. It can be used to diminish a statement, or to convey disagreement, or being intentionally vague. An example would be "Das war eigentlich nicht meine Absicht". Depending on the tone in which it is said that could mean: "It might look like that, but that was not my intention" or "That was absolutely not what I wanted, but it came out wrong". "Eigentlich" adds a lot of ambiguity.
Pfingsten = Pentecost Holiday. The holiday is also called "Whit Sunday", "Whitsunday" or "Whitsun", especially in the United Kingdom.
Congratulations. All the best from Colin in Edinburgh.
That was quite a bonus! I think I will start using that one in my English!
The next terms you'd learn as a working woman might be "Mutterschutz" and "Elternzeit". It is a law ("Mutterschutzgesetz", also on euopean level) about how to deal with working women during and after pregnancy. Is there sth. similar in the US?
"is there sth. similar in the US?" I dont think so because women from the US are always shocked when they hear they can take up to 3 years off, paid, after a baby and even more shocking: you can chose if you take it or your man takes it, or you can mix. Also that you get Kindergeld for every child.
Amerika ist das einzige Industrielle Land der Welt das keinen Mutterschutz hat
Da fällt mir ein netter deutscher Spruch ein: „Wovon träumst du nachts?“ 🤣