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As a German I spent an abroad term in Canada, so here as a grain of salt the difference between German and the work ethic across the pond. 9am: I arrive in the

As a German I spent an abroad term in Canada, so here as a grain of salt the difference between German and the work ethic across the pond. 9am: I arrive in the lab at around, sit at my desk and set up my stuff. Unfortunately there was is one around to start the day with a coffee break. 10am: Canadian lab mates arrive, sit at their desks and go on facebook. noon: After spending three hours reading papers, fitting curves to data, etc. I get hungry. I go to lunch with a Dutch person I met in the building a couple of weeks ago. 1.30pm: Back at my desks. Through the towers of take away junk on my lab mates desks, I can see they made some progress on facebook. 3pm: I try to convince some of my labmates to go for the coffee place within the building to have a short communal coffee break. Of course everyone is too busy and cannot socialize, except for the post-doc from india (who does not facebook) 3:45pm: Back at the desk, wrapping up the results of my day, my lab mates are still "working". Next morning, they will tell me they stayed till 8pm in the lab and how increadibly busy they are. Granted, in between visiting facebook and skipping communal lunch- and coffee breaks, they got some work done and I don't claim I delivered more results in terms of research and learning "output". Yet I think it summarizes my and the experience of other Germans quite well. In Germany there is much more focus on not working long-hours but spending the hours you work productively. A German workday of an office worker is limited to max. 10h per day by law and my employer follows that rule religiously. Many colleagues contractually have 35 h work weeks and working 40 h requires a permit from the worker's council. If you are sick, you stay at home on sick leave, you join your colleagues again when you are better. American colleagues working here for a year or so as part of their assignment quite often start out to send an email that they are sick and will work from home. If you are sick, why do you work? Your job now is to get better. Quite often, breaks for lunch or coffee are started and ended together. Only few people come into the office with half-liter coffee mugs to consume on their desks. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, and office cultures of individual companies may differ. My current company's culture is very German if you arrive before 8am, you might be welcomed with handshakes by your colleagues.

lnsru 8y ago
I would say, foreigners always do more than locals. They feel, they have prove something, maybe less social contacts too. I observe the same behavior like your Canadian lab mates with my young German colleagues. All day long sitting in mobile Facebook or drinking coffee for 30 minutes every 2 hours. Germans aren’t majority among department’s top performing people. Edit: it’s IG Metall company and you can’t fire people easily. So low performers accumulate over the time. Talents come and go.
- foepys 8y ago
  > So low performers accumulate over the time. This is an incredibly offensive statement against unions and I want to see some proof from you for this. All large corporations in Germany have unions and Germany is still one of the world's economic powerhouses.
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    There are plenty of unions that make it nearly impossible to fire bad employees. Teachers and cops are notorious for it.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      In Germany firing a teacher or cop isn't hard because unions but because they're state employees which makes it hard to fire them at all (though it does happen).
      - AmericanChopper 8y ago
        http://ftp.iza.org/dp5222.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp5222.pdf >union members are less likely to lose their jobs than non-members. In particular, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel we can show that roughly 50% of the observed raw differential in individual dismissal rates can be explained by the estimated average partial effect of union membership. If you read the whole thing you’ll also see that it’s significantly more expensive to fire a union member. It’s much harder and more expensive to fire union members. The natural result of this is that bad or underperforming employees are more likely to remain in the workforce. Like unions or don’t, but this is one of the costs they impose on the workforce.
        zaarn 8y ago
        In part the lower firing rate can be explained by other means, unions do try to work with companies when they're in a financial crisis (for example instead of firing people, they'd reduce working hours). That's sort of the point of a union really; give workers better leverage to work with the company to ensure they'll keep their jobs and have fair wages and compensations+benefits. Of course, you'll get freeloaders but I'd argue that this is a price worth paying for because the workers benefit a lot and the company can benefit a lot too. Plus, this isn't the point either, teachers and cops aren't hard to fire because of unions. They are civil servants, they can't negotiate their wages via unions or even strike. They also lack a number of other rights. However, they are also incredibly hard to fire if they didn't commit serious crimes or felonies, otherwise they hold their job for life. So teachers and cops in germany have little to nothing to do with unions when it comes to being hard to fire.
adrianN 8y ago
As a German, I'm often sick enough that I don't want to infect other people, but not sick enough to feel particularly bad. Like if I have a runny nose and maybe a sore throat I can still work fairly productively. Since I have the option to work from home basically as effectively as from the office, I'll rather stay home and not spread my illness.
- teniutza 8y ago
  I'm not German but I work in Germany. I work in an two floor office with >50 people; we're 4 people in our room, working more or less on the same projects, as a team, and we all have small children. When one of us is sick, they stay at home until they're not contagious any more. You're not only thinking about the people you're working with, but also on the impact of their health on their family members. This is both because of "common sense" and of a "practical sense": you don't want to infect other people and see them get sick (common sense) and you don't want to have your team mates missing, which sometimes makes your job harder. I believe this is also related to the culture and the way the employee is protected by the law when sick. In Germany, you're not going to get fired because you were sick for, say, a week. Although I don't know all the details and subtleties of the American Health/Work System, I can say I haven't heard that many great things about it. Which, in my eyes, would confirm/explain why in the GP's example, their American colleagues work even when sick.
- majewsky 8y ago
  Just because you don't feel "particularly bad" doesn't mean that you should be working. When I feel a little sick and go to my doctor to get written off sick for 2 or 3 days, she always insists on giving me a whole week off because infections typically go on for longer than you feel them, and you should rest to give the immune system time to clean out the gutters.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    I don't think that sitting at a computer and moving my fingers greatly impairs my immune system. It's not like I'm running a Marathon.
_0ffh 8y ago
IIRC, the BBC documentary "Make me a German" mentioned analogous observations about the concept of working hours being used for actual work.
m12k 8y ago
I think you have a very good point, and one the term 'Sitzfleisch' kinda misses. The point is to be actually productive, not just to be seen working long hours - the 'ass in seat' mentality. The former actually actually achieves something, the latter mostly wastes your time, but is a low-effort way to stay in a job where management has a hard time measuring actual progress. It's a pathological way to game a system that can only reward perceived effort.
wink 8y ago
Can't comment on abroad as I've never been there, but I have to agree on the "in Germany" part - it's more common to buckle down and have maybe one small chatty coffee break and really do work for the rest of the day, but leave on time. People spending hours on social media and then doing more hours is kinda rare. (Said the hypocrite commenting on HN from work...)
p410n3 8y ago
As a german living in germany I use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique to stay motivated. Otherwise I would just shut down after 2hrs of work
orev 8y ago
I found this very interesting and I think most Americans understand this concept in theory, but just don’t do it in practice. Also, and not necessarily related to the above, it’s not always cultural. Many people are night-owls and simply cannot sit down and be productive in cognitive tasks in the morning. However, as the working world assumes that only early-birds are worth anything, everyone has to work a morning schedule. This can lead to some of what you describe, where people are in their seats and not doing much, simply because they have to be there, and don’t really get rolling until later in the day. Of course Facebook is just a huge time suck and can be addictive, so there’s that too.

lnsru 8y ago

I would say, foreigners always do more than locals. They feel, they have prove something, maybe less social contacts too. I observe the same behavior like your Canadian lab mates with my young German colleagues. All day long sitting in mobile Facebook or drinking coffee for 30 minutes every 2 hours. Germans aren’t majority among department’s top performing people. Edit: it’s IG Metall company and you can’t fire people easily. So low performers accumulate over the time. Talents come and go.

foepys 8y ago
> So low performers accumulate over the time. This is an incredibly offensive statement against unions and I want to see some proof from you for this. All large corporations in Germany have unions and Germany is still one of the world's economic powerhouses.
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  There are plenty of unions that make it nearly impossible to fire bad employees. Teachers and cops are notorious for it.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    In Germany firing a teacher or cop isn't hard because unions but because they're state employees which makes it hard to fire them at all (though it does happen).
    - AmericanChopper 8y ago
      http://ftp.iza.org/dp5222.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp5222.pdf >union members are less likely to lose their jobs than non-members. In particular, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel we can show that roughly 50% of the observed raw differential in individual dismissal rates can be explained by the estimated average partial effect of union membership. If you read the whole thing you’ll also see that it’s significantly more expensive to fire a union member. It’s much harder and more expensive to fire union members. The natural result of this is that bad or underperforming employees are more likely to remain in the workforce. Like unions or don’t, but this is one of the costs they impose on the workforce.
      - zaarn 8y ago
        In part the lower firing rate can be explained by other means, unions do try to work with companies when they're in a financial crisis (for example instead of firing people, they'd reduce working hours). That's sort of the point of a union really; give workers better leverage to work with the company to ensure they'll keep their jobs and have fair wages and compensations+benefits. Of course, you'll get freeloaders but I'd argue that this is a price worth paying for because the workers benefit a lot and the company can benefit a lot too. Plus, this isn't the point either, teachers and cops aren't hard to fire because of unions. They are civil servants, they can't negotiate their wages via unions or even strike. They also lack a number of other rights. However, they are also incredibly hard to fire if they didn't commit serious crimes or felonies, otherwise they hold their job for life. So teachers and cops in germany have little to nothing to do with unions when it comes to being hard to fire.

adrianN 8y ago

As a German, I'm often sick enough that I don't want to infect other people, but not sick enough to feel particularly bad. Like if I have a runny nose and maybe a sore throat I can still work fairly productively. Since I have the option to work from home basically as effectively as from the office, I'll rather stay home and not spread my illness.

teniutza 8y ago
I'm not German but I work in Germany. I work in an two floor office with >50 people; we're 4 people in our room, working more or less on the same projects, as a team, and we all have small children. When one of us is sick, they stay at home until they're not contagious any more. You're not only thinking about the people you're working with, but also on the impact of their health on their family members. This is both because of "common sense" and of a "practical sense": you don't want to infect other people and see them get sick (common sense) and you don't want to have your team mates missing, which sometimes makes your job harder. I believe this is also related to the culture and the way the employee is protected by the law when sick. In Germany, you're not going to get fired because you were sick for, say, a week. Although I don't know all the details and subtleties of the American Health/Work System, I can say I haven't heard that many great things about it. Which, in my eyes, would confirm/explain why in the GP's example, their American colleagues work even when sick.
majewsky 8y ago
Just because you don't feel "particularly bad" doesn't mean that you should be working. When I feel a little sick and go to my doctor to get written off sick for 2 or 3 days, she always insists on giving me a whole week off because infections typically go on for longer than you feel them, and you should rest to give the immune system time to clean out the gutters.
- adrianN 8y ago
  I don't think that sitting at a computer and moving my fingers greatly impairs my immune system. It's not like I'm running a Marathon.

_0ffh 8y ago

IIRC, the BBC documentary "Make me a German" mentioned analogous observations about the concept of working hours being used for actual work.

m12k 8y ago

I think you have a very good point, and one the term 'Sitzfleisch' kinda misses. The point is to be actually productive, not just to be seen working long hours - the 'ass in seat' mentality. The former actually actually achieves something, the latter mostly wastes your time, but is a low-effort way to stay in a job where management has a hard time measuring actual progress. It's a pathological way to game a system that can only reward perceived effort.

wink 8y ago

Can't comment on abroad as I've never been there, but I have to agree on the "in Germany" part - it's more common to buckle down and have maybe one small chatty coffee break and really do work for the rest of the day, but leave on time. People spending hours on social media and then doing more hours is kinda rare. (Said the hypocrite commenting on HN from work...)

p410n3 8y ago

As a german living in germany I use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique to stay motivated. Otherwise I would just shut down after 2hrs of work

orev 8y ago

I found this very interesting and I think most Americans understand this concept in theory, but just don’t do it in practice. Also, and not necessarily related to the above, it’s not always cultural. Many people are night-owls and simply cannot sit down and be productive in cognitive tasks in the morning. However, as the working world assumes that only early-birds are worth anything, everyone has to work a morning schedule. This can lead to some of what you describe, where people are in their seats and not doing much, simply because they have to be there, and don’t really get rolling until later in the day. Of course Facebook is just a huge time suck and can be addictive, so there’s that too.