brianinmunich.com

For the past six years, I’ve fought and scraped my way to speaking good German. I’ve lowered the language barrier that most foreigners face, and I’m proud of myself for doing that, in spite of my lingering weakness.

If I hadn’t done a degree here, work would have been a very difficult transition. I got lucky, and the university got my German into shape pretty quickly. My first semester, I had a couple of nightmare experiences taking written exams that I absolutely did not understand, but those situations stopped once my German got better. I also learned not to put myself in Kafka story situations.

Work has been smooth, so far. I mostly work in English, but I can do basic customer service in German in a pinch. In meetings and other company functions, I speak German, and it’s sometimes frustrating. In meetings, I think of clever things to say about two minutes after we’ve moved onto the next topic. With email, I sometimes have to send two or three messages to make myself clear.

Taking everything into account, I would advise anyone coming to Germany to work to learn the language to the best of their abilities before coming here. Some firms offer English-speaking positions, but in most cases, not everybody at a company will speak English comfortably.

Even if a company enforces a strict English-only regime, being able to return an ill-fitting pair of trousers greatly enhances one’s quality of life. The language barrier is something that newcomers have to get over, and I’d recommend lowering it as much as possible.

German workplaces can vary a bit in the use of the personal and less personal second person pronouns, Du and Sie.  In general, people of the same position in a company and of the same age use the familiar Du along with first names.  When job positions, ages, and departments differ, Germans use the less familiar Sie with the last name.

In the German-speaking world, one has to have permission before using Du, and folks are usually very explicit when giving permission to use Du.  It’s not uncommon to see colleagues who’ve worked side by side for years say, “Hallo, ich bin Andrea.” Then, “Hallo, Ich bin Markus.”  Immediately after, they shake hands.

In some settings, like universities, people use Du, excepting department heads.  In others, like large Bavarian companies, colleagues use Sie exclusively.  Workplaces use Du and Sie to set a tone of distance or closeness depending on the company culture.

Du and Sie also governed by a complex set of unwritten rules.  Only superiors can offer Du to a colleague, and male colleagues are never supposed to offer Du first, as it can be seen as forward.  Women with male bosses often find themselves at an impasse.

Non-native speakers, especially English speakers, have some leeway.  Germans recognize that English speakers use first names, and most colleagues will immediately offer the Du form of address.  (Germans think that the English and the Americans are more collegial, and superficially, we are.  Germans don’t recognize that English speakers show social deference and create social difference through Byzantine sentence structures and indirect language.  That’s why Germans often come off as blunt or even impertinent in English.)

I don’t mind addressing someone as Du or Sie.  With Du, there is some extra verb conjugation that can lead to language mistakes.  Verbs conjugated with Sie are the same as the infinitives, which is dead easy.  The disadvantage is that German last names are hard to pronouce.

However, I hate being addressed as Sie because of my last name.  My last name is written Caudill, but it is correctly pronounced CAW-weird-throat-thing-that-isn’t-quite-a-D-LE in my native dialect.  The British pronunciation CAU-dill is also acceptable to me.  But, I loathe the stress on the second syllable.  And, most Germans and Americans say Cau-DILL.  (I have come to grudgingly accept Herr Cau-DILL, but I flat out refuse Mr. Cau-DILL, who was incidentally my high school algebra teacher.)

I want to work out a system to where I am addressed by my first name, but I address everyone else with Sie.  I have made inquiries to German friends, who thing I am a bit daft for even suggesting such a thing.  Still, I have hope.

From a recent comment:

We’re planning on moving to Munich in August/September timeframe, and I’ll be transferring within the company I currently work for. I’m very curious to hear more about the public/private spheres, especially the ways in which you found it to be very stressful…

When I first moved to Germany, this wasn’t the case; I spent most of my time with the same people at work and outside of it.  I worked in a language school full of Britons and Americans, and several of us didn’t speak German at all.  We mostly got on well as friends, but, we saw each other continually.  After a while, we wore on each other’s nerves pretty badly.

I got my first taste of the split in Germans’ public and private lives at the university.  Among students working in the labs, several spent time together away from work, but others never did.  But, most interestingly, there was no pressure to do so.  If the girl in the lab at the end of hall didn’t want to hang out at the Mexican restaurant, nobody piled any pressure on her to do so.  A person could fulfill the social contract by saying “Guten Morgen,” “Tchaio,” and “Guten Appetit,” and nobody piled on pressure to got out to the Mexican restaurant on Wednesdays.

I liked the arrangement.  I liked having friends and colleagues I could see in particular places, without feeling obligated to seeing them anywhere else.  Then, again, I’m an unapologetic pedant, who likes particular things in particular places.

The transition into working life in a German has been smooth for me.  German colleagues don’t expect to see each other outside of the office, and I’m comfortable with that.  It hasn’t stressed me out in the least.

Newcomers just have to keep in mind that they can’t expect work to provide a social life; they have to go out and find one.

From the Consumerist:

Gourmet Boutique, of Queens, NY is recalling 286,000 lbs of possibly contaminated meat used in sandwich wraps and other ready-to-eat products, says the USDA. This is the second recall of this type for the company.

As previously mentioned, I wrote my master thesis on Listeria monocytogenes.  It’s not hard to test for contamination; there’s a nifty system involving a plasmid and an ultra-violet light that doesn’t take very long to run.  The French and the Germans fanatically test for Listeria because of the raw milk products available in both countries.

Even though raw milk can be a major source of listeriosis, pasteurization and cooking does not guarantee safety.  If a few of the bacteria survive the process, they can grow unchecked.  I feel it’s criminal not to test for Listeria, and as this is the second Listeria-related recall for Gourmet Boutique, I would trust their products.  (I wonder if Gourmet Boutique has an issue with the cleanliness of their food preparation surfaces.  Listeria is a pretty hearty bug, and half-assed cleaning would explain the issue.)

The US has a serious quality of life issue with food safety.  I managed to escape any serious gastrointestinal distress in San Diego, although I visited the seat of ease - I love that euphemism - a little too often after I got back.  Most Americans don’t recognize the problem with the food in the supermarkets, and having been seriously poisoned by soups and rice, I keep it as a check mark on my list of “Why I like living in Europe.”

I finally found the time to make everything here a little spiffier, and in that spirit, I’ve finally had the time to add some links to other expat sites in Munich.  The problem is that I haven’t had the time to read many.  If you drop me a comment, I’ll drop a link over in the sidebar.

I’ve already added the most excellent Munich Daily Photo.  I quite like today’s post with the surfer dude in the Isar.

From the comments:

Hi Brian,
Found your blog via MunichDailyPhoto We’re planning on moving to Munich in August/September timeframe, and I’ll be transferring within the company I currently work for. I’m very curious to hear more about the public/private spheres, especially the ways in which you found it to be very stressful… would you be willing to share a little more about that?

Mit freundlichen Gruessen
-Lyn

I don’t write very much about work.  Not too many Brians live in Southern Germany, and several acquaintances have found my blog without me telling them anything about it. I have to assume that my boss will stumble across this one day, and I don’t want to answer any difficult questions.

Most of the stress that I go through at work doesn’t have anything to do with cultural differences; it’s general stuff like project deadlines, time flying by too fast, or solving unforeseen problems. That stuff crops up in any job, and it doesn’t bear discussion here.

I can think of a couple of general issues that do take some adjustment, and I can write a little bit about them.  The list so far:

• German/American differences in planning things
• The language barrier
• Du, Sie, and my annoying last name
• Personal and work spheres

I’d also be happy to take any suggestions. Just leave a comment.

From Spiegel:

Yunus Altinsoy, head of the European Döner Chamber of Commerce (EUDK), said prices would rise by about 30 percent because of the rising price of beef from Argentina and Brazil, according to the European edition of the Turkish daily Hürriyet.

Fuck me.

The existence of the European Döner Chamber of Commerce confirms one of my secret hopes. Behind the scenes, a host of NGOs protect each of my interests. I just have to find them.

From Spiegel:

Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, was never a member of a sect. She also never ran away. Instead, she was forced to live in a dungeon-like cellar for 24 years, held captive — so police believe — by her own father, a former electrician.

Something about Austria doesn’t sit right with me. Two women trapped in homemade dungeons may have something to do with it.

My favorite bit from Spiegel:

The Lidl transcripts showed an alarming level of detail. One report, prepared by a detective for Lidl and obtained by Stern, reads: “Although Ms. N has not accomplished much in the food and reduced wares department, she takes her break right on time. She sits together with Ms. L.; they talk about their wages, bonuses and paid overtime. Ms. N. hopes that her pay has been transferred already because she desperately needs money for this evening (reason = ?).”

The totalitarian retail scandal continues!

From “Businesses Across Germany Spy on Their Workers” from Speigel Online:

“Surveillance, monitoring and spying on workers are apparently the rule and not the exception” in Germany, writes Stern.

Germans willingly submit to a level of state monitoring that I used to find shocking. A person is obliged to be able to prove one’s identity to the police, and the first thing that comes out of a German policeman’s mouth is “Ausweiß, bitte!” And, the bitte is perfunctory.

I’ve never understood how Germans tolerate the level of monitoring the state does. New addresses have to be registered with the authorities, and one’s identity has to be verifiable.

In the working world, this sort of monitoring reaches new levels. Germans strictly separate their private lives from their work lives. I’ve known people, who’ve worked next to each other for years, refer to one another in the formal Sie, and it is uncommon for coworkers to spend any time together outside of work. Germans devote their time at work almost exclusively to work.

Because of this, the level of perceived outrage over Aldie and Schlecker surprises me a little bit. The trampling of employee’s privacy is a logical outgrowth of Germans’ acceptance of public monitoring and strict public/work vs. the private spheres of life.

As a foreigner, one really had to adjust to the strict dualism, and getting it can cause a lot of stress. It’s something to consider when taking a job here.