Rant No. 28: Telling off.

Germans love to tell people off.

There seems to be an inherent feeling of moral superiority and also the need to impress these beliefs on others.

It might originate from a sense of community and social awareness, and perhaps they mean well with their advice, but it really doesn’t come across like this.

Wow, I’ve really never seen anything like it. You can be told off for being loud at a concert, for standing on the grass, or even going through a door the wrong way.

I grew up in Manchester, and there if you dared to look at someone the wrong way, let alone tell anyone off, you were likely to get punched!

Here, there seems to be no end of people ready to scold you or tell you how you should be behaving.

Once I had a really horrible experience with this. I was on the train to the airport. I was tired and I put my feet up on the seat in front of me. Don’t get me wrong; I know I was at fault. People aren’t supposed to put their feet up. But, I’m an adult, I chose to break the rules, and I didn’t think this was anyone’s business but my own.

Wrong. I was wondering for about 15 minutes why a guy further down the train was staring at me in an aggressive manner. He was a big guy with a skinhead, and I felt really uncomfortable. To the point that I almost got up to ask him to stop staring at me.

Anyway, when he got up to get off the train, he came up to me and screamed, “Fuße runter!” (Feet down!) really loudly and aggressively, as if we were in the military or something.

I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to ask him what he cared, but I was too gobsmacked to speak. I put my feet down. I was scared!  

But I couldn’t stop wondering how someone could care that much about someone else having their feet up on a seat? He didn’t work for the train company. It wasn’t his train. He was never going to sit there. How could he really be that angry?

I guess I will never understand Germans!

Rant No. 27: Hierarchy.

In the workplace in Germany there’s a distinct sense of hierarchy. Of course, there is a hierarchy wherever you work, but in Germany it seems much more prevalent.

Titles matter. Sometimes it seems that the title matters more than the person’s experience or ability. Opinions, when they come from someone with a better title, carry much more weight. Even if no one else agrees.

It seems that you should never contradict a superior here. I was used to working in companies where everyone’s opinion mattered, and people of all kinds of experience interacted as if they were on the same level.

I also felt that as an intern in London I had more responsibility than I did as a junior in Berlin. There it seemed that I was given more autonomy and had a much more valued input, whereas here, the juniors just work in to seniors.

The people at the top make the decisions and the people at the bottom do the work. Hierarchy rules, and people can’t wait to climb that ladder so that they can finally get a say.

This hierarchy can often be detrimental to a working process, with so much missed when only the opinions at the top are valued, but it’s not going to change anytime soon.

And apparently it’s important to stick to your own hierarchical level and not bat above your weight. A friend of mine was even told off for having lunches with more senior colleagues! 

Rant No. 26: Chit-chat.

I will never take chit-chat for granted again.

Walking into a local shop and having a bit of a chat as I buy something. Walking into a pub and getting a bit of friendly banter. Coming into work, and being asked how I am, or how my weekend was.

I thought this was just what people did. But not all people. Not Germans.

I used to work with a girl who whenever I tried to strike up a conversation at the coffee machine, by asking her how she was, would reply “Fine”, not asking me in return, or adding anything in the way of input to the conversation. In the end, I gave up.

I used to sit opposite another girl who rarely ever even said hello or goodbye in the morning or evening. To me, this was just plain rude.

And then there was the guy who always says hello and goodbye, but nothing else.

Where is the banter? Why don’t they want to chat?

I decided that Germans must only like to have a conversation for a specific purpose. Not just because. I don’t know if this is true, but it’s the conclusion I’ve come to.

I’ve also realised that I really like to talk shit. I don’t think every conversation has to achieve something; sometimes it’s just good to chat, and have a laugh, about nothing in particular. I crave pointless banter, and it’s another thing I stock up on when I go back to the UK.

Rant No. 25: Speaking German.

It’s hard to speak German in Berlin.

Not just because German is a difficult language, but because most people automatically speak in English to you.

Even if you order at the bar in German, they answer in English.

The only way to counter this is to continue speaking in German. This makes for a stupid situation where you keep persevering in German, and they keep replying in English.

Then there’s the switch. Even when you do strike up a conversation with people in German, when they realise that you’re English native, then there is the inevitable switch to English.

When I asked a German friend why this is they told me that seeing you struggle with the language makes German people uncomfortable, as they would feel very embarrassed themselves to be making those mistake in English. Another friend replied that English was just “cooler”.

Ok, the intentions are good then, but it’s completely frustrating when you don’t get the practice to improve your German. The amount of time I patiently try to understand broken English, I wish that this were reciprocated. Sometimes if the pronunciation is off, people act like they have no idea what you said, and give you a blank expression. In English, however, I always try and read between the lines what the person was trying to say.

Some colleagues used to be really good, and we’d go out to lunch and speak German. But in the office everyone speaks English to me, because they are used to it. And when I speak in German they are surprised and say it’s “sweet”.

Fair enough, a lot of people are quite happy speaking in English. But what if you actually want to learn German? I took myself off to evening classes every night after work, but the most practice I’ve had speaking German has randomly been in Brazil! My husband’s parents have German heritage, and are both fluent in German.

As I can only really tell someone my name and where I come from in Portuguese, it seems weird to say it, but actually German has actually been my saving grace. At least in Brazil!

Rant No. 24: Sarcasm.

One evening I was sat at work and my phone rang. It had been a quiet day, and I was preparing to leave the office. It was almost 6pm.

It was a colleague on the phone to tell me that we had just got a brief in and needed to present something the next day.

After I put the phone down, I said to my colleagues sat near me:

“Don’t you just love it when you’ve had nothing to do all day and then the phone rings at five to six, and you get a new brief.”

A German colleague beside me turned to me and said, “Really, you love that. I would hate that.”

Enough said.