Germans plan their illnesses

November 26th, 2008

The Germans love planning and punctuality, and they tend to scoff at our play-it-by-ear methods as juvenile, a side effect of our cowboy mentality. Germans don’t value spotaneity, they value everything running as planned. If you are ever waiting for a train in Germany and notice that it is over one minute late, you will hear at least one German denouncing the Deutsche Bahn as unreliable, despite the fact that it manages a 20,000 mile network of rail road carrying five million passengers each day with stunning efficiency. The Germans love planning so much that they even plan out their illnesses.

If you work with Germans and try to contact one who is missing from work due to an illness, his boss will tell you that he is sick until next Thursday. That’s because Germans go back to work when their doctor schedules them to be well again.

deutsche Übersetzung für Astrid ein/ausblenden

Germans work 86% as much as Americans

November 23rd, 2008

Life in Germany is hard, so Germans don’t have the energy to work as much as Americans. Even German professionals punch the clock to track their time spent at work down to the minute. The concept of flex time is nearly universal in Germany as is the constant complaining by every German employee that they have so many overtime hours that they don’t know how to get rid of. It is such a burden to them knowing that they are needed by their employers yet owed more time off, because their 30 days of vacation and multitude of holidays a year just aren’t enough, when they work a little longer on the few days a year that they actually go to the office.

When the stress of trying to take care of their own leisure time needs and work place demands simultaneously gets to be too much, Germans go to a doctor to get prescribed a six week Kur, a sort of health spa retreat, where they can enjoy the benefit of having their health insurance pay for the all-inclusive resort, and their employer paying them their full salary for learning horseback riding and cooking. The best part for Germans is that these count as sick days and don’t take away any of their thirty days of vacation.

Germans are delicate and need lots of time to erholen, to sort of rejuvenate, and they need at least one vacation a year with 3 consecutive weeks to properly recoup.  This is best done in a sunny place like Greece, Turkey, Spain, or Portugal.  In America we tell each other to have fun on vacation, Germans command each other to erholen themselves well.

Germans don’t make very many babies, but the ones who do are well rewarded for leaving their employers in a precarious position. Whether they are male or female, Germans can take maternity or paternity leave for up to three years and their employers must hold a place for them, so they can waltz back into corporate life right where they left off. These poor workers can still complain though that they unfairly have to start back where they left off, having missed out on 3 years of raises and promotion opportunities.

deutsche Übersetzung für Astrid ein/ausblenden

Open letter to McDonald’s Germany GmbH & Co. KG

November 18th, 2008

McGriddle-FertigungLook. McDonald’s, we need to talk. It’s about your breakfast. You do quite a few despicable things, but none so bad as your handling of breakfast in Germany. Even the few months each year where you make a mockery of foreign culinary traditions aren’t so bad. But your performance before 10:30 am each day is just simply unacceptable.

German McDonald’s, you need to serve biscuits. Whether or not you accept this position, you serve as our American ambassadors of goodwill in the Fatherland, and you misrepresent us each and every morning that you don’t serve biscuits. Not biscuits with butter, not biscuits with jam or jelly. You have no sausage biscuit, no bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. There are parts of America where biscuits are served with every single meal of the day, and you don’t even bother to offer them at their most needed time.

Your mother company has scientifically engineered the perfect biscuit sandwich, the McGriddle.  Process after process ensures that this masterpiece won’t disappoint. They even photolithographically etch the arches into each half and dope the substrate with maple syrup. A syrup-infused biscuit McDonald’s Germany. That’s what Germans should be having for breakfast. Not “Sweet Breakfast”, which is actually in no way sweet at all.

McDonald’s, your motto was once “One World, One Taste,” and now the Germans can’t even buy hash-browns.

deutsche Übersetzung für Astrid ein/ausblenden

Quick Tipp - Germans use their bicycles to go places

November 9th, 2008

RadlwegWhen it comes to bicycles, Germans have a fundamentally different attitude than Americans. Germans use their bicycles to go places, whereas Americans go places to use their bicycles.

When we want to go for a bike ride, we have two options. We may either hop in the car and head to the gym, where the bicycles are lined up in front of an array of television sets, or we can mount the bicycle onto the car and drive to a remote location to enjoy a ride while comparing gear with fellow bicycle riders. We of course need to make sure we are dressed up in a colorful racing outfit, special bike shoes, and a super aerodynamic helmet.

Germans on the other hand walk out of the door, hop on their bike and ride it somewhere.

The point is, when you are walking in Germany and you notice part of the sidewalk is paved smooth, stay off, or else someone is going to scream at you “Radlweg!”  This translates to “Please refrain from walking on the bicycle path.” They are especially angry because they aren’t on their bicycle to enjoy a ride. It’s a cold, drizzly day and your impedance is going to make them late to work.

deutsche Übersetzung für Astrid ein/ausblenden

A modest proposal

November 2nd, 2008

My fellow citizens of the greatest and third-greatest nations on Earth, I come to you with a modest proposal to stop. These last 8 years have been detrimental to our transatlantic relations, and it is time, in this historic period, that we stop the bickering and arguing and come together to once and for all to reconcile our grievances. Under my plan we can learn from the best aspects of each others’ countries and cultures to form a more perfect union of western society. With the following 12 steps, we can transform each of our nations into the best places in the world to live.

  1. German hotels need to adopt electronic key cards. In 2008, no one should be forced to walk around with a key having a giant lead weight attached to it to remind you not to walk off with it.

  2. America needs to learn to build walls like Germans. As Americans we live in a country with catastrophic environmental conditions, but we build our buildings like the first two little piggies. We could get some street credibility with those Kyoto people, too.

  3. The TAN concept must be eliminated. Germany, give your customers a password, some anti-phishing measures and move on. Our citizens should no longer be forced to put our debit cards into little plastic devices with tiny buttons for 8 digit codes that have to be entered into a website within 20 seconds or else lock out our bank accounts.

  4. America needs to build security restricted walls around New York, Miami, and Las Vegas, because we depend on tourist dollars to fuel our economy, but we can’t let down our guard against terrorism and disappoint Cervantes. Instead we will make the top three tourist destinations for Germans in America special zones with no Homeland Security measures, so that Germans can experience the feeling of endless possibilities without being treated like a criminal. If they want to continue on to visit the Grand Canyon and other parts of real America, normal security measures will apply of course. A further improvement could be an underground railroad between the three cities.

  5. Americans need to learn that the left lane is for passing only. When German traffic flows, it flows like clockwork, because Germans use the passing lane for passing, not for relaxing.

  6. Germany needs to build more lanes. Just like with disposal razors, more is better, and three isn’t the maximum. Roads in Atlanta have 9 lanes, Germany. Nine lanes.

  7. The makers of the Nutella breakfast spread must stop selling the American style in America and give us the better tasting German recipe.

  8. Germany must start building walk-in closets.

  9. America needs to introduce a federal driver’s license. The burden of visiting the DMV every time we move to a new state is unnecessary. We can also learn from the Germans that our licenses need not expire.

  10. Germany needs to introduce more wild animals. The word Wandern brings to mind long boring walks through forest with maybe some birds and a few bunnies. Throw in some cougars and your hike is suddenly more interesting.

  11. America needs a drastic reduction in billboards and signs. Perhaps we need a tiny bit more regulation to start caring about the aesthetics of our cities and highways.

  12. German companies need to give their employees coffee for free. As you love to say, one hand washes the other, so the nonsense of having each employee mark down how many tiny Tassen of coffee they have drunk, so that they can be charged 30 cents per cup is ridiculous. Your employees are voluntarily entering a caffeine induced state of increased productivity at risk to their own health for your benefit, and you have the nerve to charge them 30 cents.

My plan contains just a sample of the ideas we could steal from each other for improving our own countries. Surely if we stop fighting over who uses twice as much energy per capita, who is a dirty socialist, or who is barbaric enough to still use the death penalty, we could finally start working towards positive change. We need to stop focusing on the things we don’t like about each other’s cultures and start working to make the best out of both.

deutsche Übersetzung für Astrid ein/ausblenden

 Stop