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Fun thing that this article doesn't mention: in Germany it is very, very common to work extra hours that are not paid and not in the books. This is particularly

Fun thing that this article doesn't mention: in Germany it is very, very common to work extra hours that are not paid and not in the books. This is particularly true for high profile jobs.

skore 14y ago
That highly depends on what line of business we are talking about. In some "new" jobs like Design or even Programming it may be true. But the meat of the German Economy - the part that is highly influenced by unions - is far away from that. I would assume that, writing this on Hacker News, you are probably in the former line of work and don't see that it's very different for average folks.
kahawe 14y ago
> in Germany it is very, very common to work extra hours that are not paid and not in the books I am working in Germany and what are you talking about? More specifically which industry? The employment laws here are so ridiculously pro-employee that I basically need to "excuse" and justify myself if I was to work more than X hours a week. And typically, at least in IT, a certain amount of overtime (or a "flat charge") is in your contract and you get more salary for that - more than the so called "collective agreement" requires your employer to pay you. So for most people in regular jobs, I doubt this holds true. Maybe small IT startups try to squeeze the youngens by circumventing all laws and regulations? At least where I am working, typical German bigger but not huge company, you can set your clock by how punctual they show up to and especially leave work; shortly after 5pm they can start cleaning here because that's when practically the whole building is empty except for some poor souls like me. "High profile", executive level jobs are different, that is true but this is to be expected at that level and pay rate and I doubt you will find any other country where this doesn't hold true.
- fforw 14y ago
  I think it's more common with larger companies and the corresponding 9-to-5 attitude. I work for as architect for a small consultancy/software-development company and I'm paid the same salary no matter how many hours I actually work. Contract says 40 h/week, but there are weeks when I reach the 40 on wednesday. MIght be able to work less than 40 hours when times are not as stressful (haha), but the average has to be clearly above 40 h/week.

Fun thing that this article doesn't mention: in Germany it is very, very common to work extra hours that are not paid and not in the books. This is particularly true for high profile jobs.

skore 14y ago

That highly depends on what line of business we are talking about. In some "new" jobs like Design or even Programming it may be true. But the meat of the German Economy - the part that is highly influenced by unions - is far away from that. I would assume that, writing this on Hacker News, you are probably in the former line of work and don't see that it's very different for average folks.

kahawe 14y ago

> in Germany it is very, very common to work extra hours that are not paid and not in the books I am working in Germany and what are you talking about? More specifically which industry? The employment laws here are so ridiculously pro-employee that I basically need to "excuse" and justify myself if I was to work more than X hours a week. And typically, at least in IT, a certain amount of overtime (or a "flat charge") is in your contract and you get more salary for that - more than the so called "collective agreement" requires your employer to pay you. So for most people in regular jobs, I doubt this holds true. Maybe small IT startups try to squeeze the youngens by circumventing all laws and regulations? At least where I am working, typical German bigger but not huge company, you can set your clock by how punctual they show up to and especially leave work; shortly after 5pm they can start cleaning here because that's when practically the whole building is empty except for some poor souls like me. "High profile", executive level jobs are different, that is true but this is to be expected at that level and pay rate and I doubt you will find any other country where this doesn't hold true.

fforw 14y ago
I think it's more common with larger companies and the corresponding 9-to-5 attitude. I work for as architect for a small consultancy/software-development company and I'm paid the same salary no matter how many hours I actually work. Contract says 40 h/week, but there are weeks when I reach the 40 on wednesday. MIght be able to work less than 40 hours when times are not as stressful (haha), but the average has to be clearly above 40 h/week.