OFFICES IN GERMANY!!! 7 Differences to Know About
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- čas přidán 2. 08. 2024
- From job applications to coffee to office parties and YES, even paper & more, here are few of the big differences I've noticed when it comes to working in an office in Germany & the USA.
Watch More:
Work-Life Balance: REALLY DIFFERENT in Germany & USA: • Work-Life Balance: REA...
Why So Much Small Talk in the USA?: • Why So Much Small Talk...
Links:
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices - www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/
So my question for you is: What do you think of these workplace differences in Germany and the U.S., and what other workplace differences have you noticed around the world?
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Graph paper > Line paper
The thing is that you can write on graph paper and you have options to draw little graphics if necessary and you just can't do that on line paper so it just gives you way more options for notes.
zomfgroflmao1337 you can also use lined sheets for everything. I've been the only one in school to not use graph sheets whatsoever. Not even in math lessons.
But you can write SOOO much more on Graph Paper. So you use far less paper (which is better for the environment, your purse and your back, because Paper can be quite heavy xD)
Christoph Hößelbarth again, depending on what you are used to. When I had to use graph sheets in exams where we weren't allowed to use our own paper, it was a pain in the butt. I had to use to rows to write readable, and one or better two rows again for letting space. I never had to leave a line empty on lined sheets to make sure that one can read my text.
But I heard the same from people who are used to write on graph, so I think it's just what you are used to.
double the lines, same price
It's more like multi purpose paper 😁
That's so interesting!
When I worked in the US, I was a recruiter for a bit and one of my biggest clients (that I was actually sent to work onsite with at one point) was an Italian company. I had to train the hiring managers on how we conduct interviews here; what questions they could ask, vs what they couldn't. They were so annoyed when they couldn't ask if they were married, had kids, went to church, etc.
Apparently in Italy, if someone has a family, the company assumes they'll work harder to stay with their company longer since they'll need to support their family. The majority of their hiring decisions were made by personality and how the person would fit in with the company, rather than experience. They figured, they'll learn the jobs that they need to by working. SUPER different! lol
Also, they had cappuccino machines too ;)
Sonnie Travels I'm really annoyed by the fact, that German employers are so obsessed with formal education. Even if you worked in a job for a while they may not acknowledge your skills just because you don't have a paper with the government's seal. So to me the Italians seem quite clever. ;)
Sonnie Travels thanks for that information, thats really interesting :) I prefer the way it is done in the US, its fairer...just because someone has no family doesnt mean he is going to work less....
Miss Blueberry I think this can turn out even worse, like it does in Germany. If you have family, you are suspected to work less. Especially if you are female.
I think for Italians family is a very important thing, so that might be, why they think this way.
Ca Sz yes, you are right, I have that feeling too :/ if a woman has kids here it can be really difficult to get a job....cuz the kids could get sick or something, it seems really that here having kids is getting a bad thing (we just have to look at our birth rates....)
Sonnie Travels i
I am a US citizen working in Germany for the past 2 years and have to say you did a great job noting these differences! I have only worked at 1 German company so I often don't know what is "typical", BUT at this company (and was told others as well) there is a rule about your desk/working area requiring windows! It actually makes sense - I couldn't figure out why they had these somewhat useless courtyards in the middle of the buildings, and was told that one reason was to provide more windows for more offices on the inside of these buildings... not sure if it is actually a law, but it seems to fit with prevailing workplace attitudes, etc.Our US "cube farms" are the basis of frequent questions from my German colleagues - they seem not to be so common here... Again... not sure what it unique and what is typical as my experience is narrow, but so far all of your observations fit with mine!
The part about meetings getting _right_ to the point shouldn't come as a surprise. The whole office social environment is different in Germany. It's beneficial to employee productivity when the whole workplace is oriented toward _work;_ not chitchat. The Germans pride themselves on their _efficiency,_ after all.
lazyperfectionist1 // Right, if we do want to socialize with our coworkers, we mostly doing it in our coffee's or cigarette's break. But it depends, in routined workplaces, especially in the social sector I come from, it can lighten up a bit, to the beginning of the meeting or the end.
I live in the USA and I hate the chit chat environment. My mother and father are of German descent, and I was raised to be efficient. My coworkers will just stand there talking to one another for half an hour at the start of the shift and I want to turn around and say, "I'm working, shouldn't you be?"
This issue was discussed in a Swedes in Germany kind of group on facebook recently... There is another way of looking at it. Your brain needs some rest every now and then, working constantly isn't necessarily efficient, it just looks like it. Have a little break, exchange ideas, get some new energy, THEN you can work efficiently! :)
(Obviously we like to chit chat a bit more than Germans. Everybody does.)
I am not sure that is the reason. It is simply not that common to do smalltalk in german culture in general. So it does not naturally occur, its not just in meetings, its in most situations. At least I do feel quite uncomfortable with smalltalk.
But with or without smalltalk, most meetings are still highly inefficient...
So spot on Dana! Good job! I always tell expats to watch your video as an introduction to living in germany. Keep up the good work!
Thanks so much!!😃🌟🌸
Love your style in this video!
Hallo Dana, wieder mal ein klasse video!!
Love your videos Dana
I can totally agree to the point with the coffee machine. Some american colleagues visited us for a big meeting and during a short break the wanted to go to the Starbucks because the wanted something else than regular coffee. The were pretty confused when I showed them our 50in1 coffee machine in the kitchen. They only knew the one gallon bowl with Caf and Decaf from the US.
Agreed; in our kitchen at work, we have a coffee press and a pretty fancy Keurig.
I am german and I have never worked for a company of another country, but I have been to france for some weeks from my company, cause we built a facility there. I noticed, that meetings don't start at the time it should have been. A lot of the french people came 15 to 30 minutes after the time and then started talking random stuff, that had nothing to do with the meeting. It was really strange to me, but I heard it's very common in a lot of countries, so I think it was a strange situation for them, too.
I loved the video!!!!!! And your HAIR LOOKS AMAZING!
I love your shirt! Looks so retro!
Thank you for the interesting video! I'm working in Munich in a lawyer's office and would like to share my experiences with you, Dana =)
We indeed do have a coffee machine in the office kitchen, but the coffee thereof is just horrible, and nothing fancy with different types of coffees or anything, so most people bring their own coffee (or even have their own small coffee machine in their rooms) by themselves if they want something good lol.
For eating, there are indeed cafeterias around, but in our case, we don't have an own one and have to go to the one in the next building, if we want. We have to pay full prize, which is quite expensive if people go there everyday, so we usually don't go there. BUT the food in that particular one is indeed really delicious in terms of cafeteria food!
I was wondering about the paper thing, because so far I thought it's just personal taste what kind of paper people use. I personally prefer graph over line paper. My boss takes notes on blank paper. Most of us do because we're using old paper with missprints and such as notes paper very often.
The photo thing for the CVs, honestly I don't know why German comanies ask for photos and I honestly would prefer if they didn't insist on photos because it makes me believe that they want to judge people by looks before deciding if they invite them to a job interview or not. Which in most cases really isn't necessary. I mean, applying for an office job is quite different than applying for a job as a model or such.
I kind of wished that people who are having birthday would GET something from the company, at least some congratulations, but fact is, except a few close co-workers/friends at work noone knows or cares about your birthday in the office, at least not in my company. People only will congratulate you if you offer them some cake, like one of my bosses uses to ask"Oh, is someone having a birthday?" everytime one of our team members brings some cake or cookies or treats (which we do sometimes, even if there's nothing to celebrate, just to share our baking).
Sky
Video is trending in Germany!
Any place with a large enough static workforce in the US will have a cafeteria. I worked at an auto plant in the US that not only had a cafeteria (not free, but paid by weight), it had its own hospital. A smaller factory that only had a couple hundred employees had a very sizeable "roach coach" contracted to show up at a particular place on the grounds at a particular time to serve as what was essentially a temporary, but daily, mobile cafeteria. There was a lunch room/kitchen not far inside the factory for sitting down with your food.
Industrial parks with many relatively small businesses will often have a similar arrangement with a mobile food service truck, though the employees may have to eat at their desks instead of at table.
Isolated businesses with 10-50 people will probably have just a break room with a basic kitchen with multiple microwave ovens and refrigerators for the food brought from outside.
True. Back in the days, my dad worked at Fokker (Dutch airplane company) and they had their own medical service, cafetaria and such, but that was really something only large companies have and it's still like that, although I would not be surprised if some large chain in the food-sector took over those cafetaria's.
Where I work (just over 50 people in total) there indeed is quite a break room with a microwave, frigde and refrigerator (and an extra one for all the beer that is consumed at the friday-afternoon drinks) a fry-pan (again, for the friday-afternoon drinks).
It's forbidden to eat the place where you work (hazardous substances could be around) but in reality you won't hear anything about it unless your superior really thinks it's unsafe what you are doing.
There is a snackbar about a kilometer from our place, just as there is a Subway: some go there once a week (both the snackbar and Subway have a drive-through service) but most people take their own bread/whatever kind of lunch with them. Hot water and coffee is served from machines, but not everyone likes the machine-coffee and a few have kept an old drip-coffee 'machine' in one of the offices.
The hot water can be used for tea or soup: the last one is served by a machine that holds 3 different flavours.
I worked in the mid 80's for Breuners (a furniture store in California) at their home office that had a great cafeteria that did breakfast & lunch. To be fair, the office had been built many years prior in what had been a orchard & there were no near by places to eat or buy food. The cafeteria was a holdover, but the area had grown phenomaly by the mid 80"s surrounded by homes & other office buildings, malls, restaurants, & fast food places. It was so nice having the cafeteria there & most of us took advantage of it but I heard it was ended after I left before the 90's.
I've worked for a couple older companies that also had cafeterias (subsidized by the company). I think it was more commonplace 50 years ago. I've also heard that it's coming back in popularity especially in the tech arena. I have a friend that works for a tech company and they have gourmet chefs prepare food and you can pretty much get whatever you want, whenever you want it for free.
As an American I TOTALLY get the difficulty writing normal sentences/words on graph paper! It is so weird!
There actually is an antidiscrimination law in Germany which says you don't have to add a picture to your CV. But the companies don't have to give a feedback with a reason when they ignore an application, so there are no consequences if they don't invite someone because he added no picture..
Correct. And it should be added that this particular legal provision is quite new. Before that, it was just tradition and good manners to include a foto, no one who had ever heard a lesson about how to do a proper application would have even thought about not including a foto, it was just considered unprofessional, though when thinking about it, there really isn't much of a justified reason why an employer should need a foto (unless you apply as a model or actor or something like that, of course), he can see what you look like if he decides to invite you to an interview soon enough and for most jobs, it shouldn't be too relevant for the preselection.Since it hasn't been outlawed to include a foto, I very much doubt that this custom will die during the next 20 years, since it is just so common that an employer will likely think that you do have a reason not to include your foto if you don't (looking particularly hideous, wearing muslim headwear etc.) and may discard your application just for that reason if he can find any other "official" reason not to invite you for the Job interview.
If you want to discriminate, you don't need the foto. You can still do that after the interview when you saw the candidate. Where is the point of leaving the foto out?
Dana always looks so happy in her videos. That's fascinating me, because I don't know many people who are so happy in their real lifes.
Ahhh, while I wrote my thesis at Philips (Hamburg) we had a cantina. And on 6th of december we got goose breast with potatoes and red cabbage for 3,10 Euro (that was the usual costs for soup, meal and dessert on regular days).
During this time we also had a christmas party. But not at the office, but on the property. They booked a whole little christmas market! With several little booths with different food (all inclusive!) and a huge party tent for dancing and warming up (drinks included as well).
I prefer graph paper for notes. I deem it more space-efficient than lined paper. Lines are closer, and you may use two or three squares as a spacing. Of course, you must ignore the vertical lines!
(edit: That was German style, no courtesy, straight to the point.)
Honestly, no fake courtesy:
I like the video - good insight and presented with enthusiasm - and well to the point!
I can see the utility of graph paper if you work in a company that does lots of calculations. Our company does some statistics, but on-line, and, as you say, I think it would be hard for me to 'tune out' the vertical lines (-: . I prefer a cleaner page, easier for me to refer back to notes and find what I'm looking for..
I worked for a vending company in the late 80's that had many machines in a clothing factory cafeteria. There were sandwich machines and hot food machines along with drink machines and snack machines. Come to think of it, there was also even a cigarette machine.
I work in the software business and every company I have worked at has had a large cafeteria with multiple stations (a salad bar, sandwich bar, grill, special of the day etc)
I was thinking the same; that software companies in the U.S. are kind of known for being the 'wave of the future' in terms of providing creature comforts for their employees in-house (also many other creative-type firms). I'm NOT in that industry and while I've worked at places that had restaurants (usually pretty mediocre) on the ground floor of my building, I've never worked anywhere that had a company-run cafeteria.
I work in software in the UK. I had two offices with my first company, both of which had an onsite café. The first one was on a university site so it was mainly aimed at university students and the second was on a business park so was used by many companies as well. I think larger companies do tend to have their own canteens as it's generally not expected that employees should have to bring their own lunches to work.
Yeah most tech/gaming companies have decent cafeterias/restaurants on their campuses. Some have free food like google and Facebook, some are subsidized like EA, etc
Dana, if you ever get a chance check out the LucasArts cafeteria in San Francisco. It's like a restaurant. Actually, it's like several restaurants.
They have a salad bar, a daily changing veggie meal, a daily pizza or pasta meal, and I also remember the day I ate there they had burgers which where prepared when you ordered them. Most stuff they would in fact prepare when you ordered it.
Their cafeteria completely blew my mind - I've never experienced anything even close to that in Germany.
The best cafeterias in Germany I've personally dined at are the cafeteria of the Max Planck campus in Tübingen and the cafeteria of the MDC campus in Berlin - both science organizations.
By far the worst was the employee cafeteria at the Benjamin Franklin university hospital, also in Berlin. That one almost made me stop having lunch altogether.
Thiesi my partner worked there and ur right, it’s amazing! (It’s called ILM/Lucasfilm) And it has an awesome view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Food is tasty too, even a sushi bar.
amiesparkle00 And they even have an authentic R2-D2 there! Not in the cafeteria though.
We have our Christmas parties in a nice restaurant or hotel and also retirement parties. If it’s a baby shower or Birthday party, we will decorate and have it in our office lounge. We celebrate by birthday month and bring in a big cake each month. We have refrigerators, microwaves, toaster ovens, coffee, and water machines as well as vending machines in our lounge. If we want to run to Starbucks or a restaurant, we have several within a couple minutes drive.
Nice Video :)
Just 2 comments from a germans perspective.
The paper:
I always thought it was obvious to use it. In school we had to use lined paper when it wasn't a science class. But as soon as i wasn't longer under that rule i started using graphed paper for everything. Think about it. You still have the horizontal lines to use for your writing, but you are flexible enough to quickly include a graph or a simple chart without much hassle. So i was really stunned to hear, that you can not write on it. Just ignore the vertical lines when you don't need them. ;)
The job application:
I am currently undergoing professional development and the topic of job applications was brought up in class.
And we were highly advised to NOT ask for a photo when we make a job advertisement.
If we were to include a photo requirement we too would be subject to possible discrimination charges. So it might still be practised a lot in germany, it is not a good idea. It seems to be a relic from the past. Back in school we all learned to include a photo in our applications. I feel a lot of the requirements in this Job ads come from the fact, that the writer remembers what he should have put in his own application. Kind of "school said we should" therefore "i say you must". I sincerely hope that was an understandable explanation :P
We have a full on-site subsidized cafeteria, Guckenheimer here in CA, USA. The same company Toyota uses. There's breakfast oatmeal, cereals, muffins, eggs, sausages, etc, daily lunch entrees, soup and salad bar, grill items burgers, fries, sandwich and deli wraps, and desserts. Nice and convenient. Or outside alternatives. Birthday celebration is thrown by your boss or colleagues. Then I listen to calm ‘relaxdaily’ 🎶 from Cologne, Germany.
Everything you described for Germany is almost the same in north Italy with the exception of meetings: in Italy they start with small talks, continue with small talks, and end with small talks never reaching the point! That drives me creazy.
Claudio G.:you nailed it!!!
You look particularly wonderful in this video. I can't tell if it's the hair, the lipstick or both. Anyhow, great video!
Where did you buy your T-Shirt? I love it!
I would like to know that too! :)
At work Cafeteria's are somewhat common on the West coast, with tech companies having them quite often. Google, facebook, oracle, Cisco and Yahoo I know all have them on some of their campuses.
Los Alamos National Labs has a nice cafeteria. And I love graph paper, but I tend to use the green kind. Yep, I went to a STEM college :)
I think they got it right about the chit chat!
Dein Channel ist so cool👌👌👌👌
The company I work for (SAP) does offer a subsidized lunch in all main locations arround the world. This includes also our offices in US like Philadelphia and Palo Alto etc. . Also the quality of food is pretty good.
4:24 that's the same in German schools. Starting from kindergarten or primary school the kid who has birthday brings something to the class.
so I think we're just used to it since we're learning it like that already at a really young age.
that also applies to private birthday parties. You are in charge of making cake for your guests.
The food at the cafeteria where my mom works is really good. And we live in the US
My sister in law works for a Korean cosmetic brand in California that offers a cafeteria and free lunch. They even send the leftovers home with the workers.
I worked for the phone company in Ohio for 40 years. When I was working in a large office building or where there were several smaller buildings close together, we had a cafeteria. The company did not pay part of the cost of the meals, but usually tried to give the contract to a caterer that would provide good food at reasonable prices. Just before I retired, the cafeteria closed at the building where I worked because the food quality had gone down and the prices went up. Employees were not purchasing the food so the caterer did not renew the contract. I guess they couldn't find another caterer that wanted to buy into that situation.
On the office coffee pot, I've worked in buildings where no personal/department coffee makers were allowed; one that had a "coffee club" where you paid a set fee each month for all the coffee you wanted to drink from a commercial coffee machine; to the last office that had a coffee pot but no one but me drank coffee, so I used instant because I like it better and I didn't want to have to wash the pot every day. :)
nice video!
in Korea, photos in resumes are also required
I currently work in the semiconductor industry here in America, and my plant has a cafeteria on site. I wish the food was subsidized so that it would only be a few dollars, but you are able to get some specialty items here (we have a sushi chef on staff!!)
Beautiful hair and beautiful shirt.
The cafeteria is definitely a nice benefit of working at a German organization. At my workplace, its called the Casino (no idea why), but I've also seen it called Mensa at other institutes.
I once worked as a temp for an insurance company in downtown Baltimore (Maryland). They provided employees a cafeteria with discounted meals. Another time I worked for a bank at their operations center. As there were only limited places to go outside for lunch they provided a cafeteria with really delicious food. So delicious that sometimes I could not decide which main course I wanted so I had both. Once when I was working for an academic library, I went with my director to another university to obtain some books that were donated to them that they did not need but we could use (about 20 boxes worth). While there, we ran across the library's director who treated us to lunch in the Executive Dining Room where deans and above ate. The best seating and service anywhere! The quality of a 5-star restaurant.
About the company cafeteria: I worked for Deutsche Telekom in Berlin once, and they had a lunch cafeteria. Nice food, nice prices, and we always had the dinner plan for next week in our mailboxes on Friday. -- I chose to eat there only sometimes, because I like Thai and Indian food, which was also cheap and nearby, but a traditional German dish now and then, why not?
Some companies demand that you pay for the Kantine a week or a month in advance, or buy vouchers, or something like a cash card. Not so there: You could come when you wanted and pay cash, just running the risk that when an especially popular dish was served, they were sold out if you came late.
As to coffee, I once worked for a company who forbade "private" coffee machines in the offices. Everyone had to use one of the central vending machines, and not only that, use a wireless pay key to pay for your coffee you had to "charge" with some money first. That thing really looked like a key, but neither that nor the machine showed you how much credit you still had. To avoid running out of coffee, I bought a second key. (Yes, you had to buy them. 5 euros each, I think.)
Well, the latter wasn't a good company anyway, that's why I don't mention the name. I quit after 6 months.
About 5 or 6 years ago, I worked at a large call center/ distribution center for a clothing company in New Hampshire (in the USA, I'm American). The company had a cafeteria, but the employees paid full price for food, it was not subsidized by the company. I don't know how good the food was, because it was only open for lunch hours for the day time workers, and I worked the evening to night shift. However, the company did also have a big lunch room seating area with multiple flat screen TV's mounted on the walls and huge industrial-sized refrigerators for employees to store their lunches in. They also had a bunch of vending machines, with a selection of like sandwiches, yogurt, and microwavable stuff, in addition to typical vending machine foods like snacks and candy and drinks. However, I agree this is not typical in America. I believe the reason this company offered these things was because it was a very large facility, with the distribution center running around the clock and the call center running from 6am until midnight. I can't think of any other nearby companies that have such a large facility, nor can I think of any other companies that provide cafeterias... so the place I worked was definitely the exception, not the rule. Where I currently work doesn't offer a cafeteria, just some microwaves and snack foods you can buy, and the lunch rooms are much smaller and there are no refrigerators for employees to store their lunch, so you have to bring a lunch bag with an icepack to keep it cold and keep it in your locker or in your car. I enjoy my current job a thousand times more than my old one at the call center, but I have to admit that it was nice to have access to such nice employee-oriented facilities.
Yes I worked for IBM and our buildings had cafeterias, both in New York and North Carolina.
In elementary schools in the USA, it's common for the birthday kid to bring in treats for his own birthday. I like that tradition. I carried it into high school and adult life when applicable. It's neat to have your mind focused on sharing your special day with others rather than sort of hoping people remember.
In my German workplace it's customary for the birthday celebrant to throw a round of Sekt (that's German bubbly wine, like Champagne or Prosecco).
I've seen several places that offered cafeterias for the staff. I lived in Washington, DC for a time working a government job and our office had a cafeteria that offered breakfast and lunch. Also did some contract labor at power plants during their maintenance shutdowns and the larger power plants, especially the nuclear power plants had cafeterias open. I do believe though that some of the power plants only offered hot food for sale during their shut down times when they brought in large numbers of contract laborers to perform plant service. No employer provided cafeteria I've ever seen was ever subsidized, or if they were then the subsidization was nominal as the food largely cost about what you would expect to pay at any restaurant in the area. In some cases in fact the food was a bit more expensive, the power plants were remotely located and leaving the facility for meals was often highly discouraged, both essentially resulted in the options of pack your lunch, pay whatever they decide to charge, or just forgo meals until your shift was over. Since many workers were from out of town and were staying in local hotels, packing a lunch often meant buying whatever the local gas stations offered in the early morning hours, even if they charged more, the cafeteria was often a better meal.
3:22 never saw graph paper on a flip chart here in Germany. Just blank paper.. that's what I'm used to :D
From my experience, hotels tend to consistently have complementary cafeterias for their employees. I work for an A/V company and have had shifts at a Sheraton, several Hyatts, and a Fairmont. Since we are contracted at those locations we get access to the cafeterias as well :D
A lot of larger US companies had cafeterias with lunches that were affordable. I don't know of that is so true anymore. The cafeteria in the place my older brother worked for had great food, but this was in the mid 1980s.
Intresting
The World Bank HQ in Washington DC has a very nice cafeteria; all the places I've worked in the UK have had somewhere on-site, but most of those are universities so may not be typical.
In my company its actually common that your coworkers decorate your desk and we also started to bring a cake for the birthday of our coworkers and not the other way around.
great TShirt Dana :)
In our company, we do not only have a cantine but also a small kitchen where you can boil water, drink tea, eat fruits, make coffee or cappuchino and the best th8ng is, there is s microwave. So most people bring their home cooked food, heat it and then go to the Kantine to have their meals together and a break from sitting in front of the computer. You can still buy food there and it's pretty cheap and good. Sometimes we also order food from outside, like pizza friday. The company goes grocery shopping every week, so there is milk, coffee, tea, fresh fruits, water and even a ton of sweets available for free for all the workers. I just work there as a student and still have access to everything. When I worked as a hostess on trade faires, we were also provided warm meals, drinks, coffee and snacks during the breaks. I REALLY appreciated it because it would have been hard to do my job without proper energy and defenitely helped me a lot to stay healthy. I cannot imagine working without proper food. Must be horrible.
As for the chitchat, we do have some small talk when we meet in the corridors or kitchen, even in the office. However, I always feel bad when it takes too much time and keep it as short as possible. It's usually done when you're busy with something not work related anyway, like making coffee. Since the company provides food and such, I feel like dedicating my time to work the best I can is the least I should do. That doesn't mean you don't talk at all. XD
As for the photo, I whish there was no photo needed as it takes time and money to get professional photos taken. I don't really get the discrimination argument because you have to show up in person sooner or later and who wants to waste time for a racist company anyway? :)
The photo thing is being widely discussed meanwhile. The intention once was to give the employer a first impression of the applicant's personality. But with our society changing and discrimination of ethnicities becoming a real thing, voices are getting louder who demand the interdiction of photos in application files. Some even go so far as to suggest anonymous application procedures because there have been employers who made a point in sorting out women and foreign sounding last names.
Other than when I worked at my University, in 30+ years of professional life, only one company I ever worked for had a cafeteria. It was a bank and they were bought out in a merger and acquisition after I was laid off. My husband has never worked at a company that had a cafeteria. We just went to my husband's company party last night at a fancy hotel with excellent food and some of the best drinks I have ever had at a corporate event. They have it in February to celebrate the company's anniversary and because it is much cheaper at that time of year and people are less busy.
I worked at Siemens and we had a cafeteria. My husband has also worked at companies (Verizon, Sanofi) which had all had cafeterias.
I've only worked for one company in the U.S. that had a cafeteria and it is contracted by Aramark ( not a good service provider). One day a week a fast food chain will come in as a guest to serve or we may have a day of food trucks parked outside the cafe to serve. Our corporate center has a wellness center with a small nursing staff, doctor and mental health counselor. There was vending machines through out the three buildings that offer candy, chips, pastries and nuts. For the vending machines for drinks it is bottled water, soda and energy drinks. Other corporate centers (which are mostly call centers Nationwide, GM Financial, USAA) offer a gym on site, Zumba classes, work from home teams and discounted healthy options in the cafe. Unless you work for a large corporate center or Tech sector you won't find those amenities at most US companies.
Birthdays- cubicles are always decorated for one's birthday (ballons, confetti and pictures of someone's fav sports team, ect" and a cake provided to the team by the team manager or friend (this is totally optional) each team will have a "social committee/birthday committee" that organizes everyone's birthdays and the entire team will sign a birthday card.
Meetings always start with chit chat for about 10 min.
When I was in school, we were teached to add Photos to our CVs, it is very common here in Austria
My husband works for a wonderful payroll company named PayCom and they have a cafeteria where they feed the employees for $4 a day. It also has its own gym and basketball court where you can rent lockers bimonthly. The neat thing about that is let's say you work out in the morning, leave your dirty laundry in the locker. Go to work out after work again and your clothes have been washed for you. He LOVES it there.
I have worked at 3 companies in the US who had subsidized cafeterias, but they were all very large companies who did business globally.
As far as I know only the largest post office building in my district (in the us) has an actual cafeteria with hot foods. The smaller offices have vending machines. Luckily the places I work at are near shopping centers, which means food everywhere.
I work for a company that tries its best to be as good as it can be to its employees: they throw parties throughout the year for the kids of the employees (typically Easter, Halloween, and Christmas); have a company picnic (usually on-site, although occasionally at what is basically a local theme park); provide free coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and a choice of a muffin, granola bar, or piece of fruit for the first break of the day; and yes, has an on-site cafeteria that is staffed by a third party catering company almost every workday of the year. My company has its roots in my home state of Oregon, but also has manufacturing plants in Canada, Brazil, China, and France, as well as distribution centers in Belgium, Germany, Japan, and other countries around the world. I don't know if the other locations have as many of the benefits as we do, but I hope they do, as it is a really nice benefit to have.
I've worked at several different employers in the USA that had cafeterias. All had either subsidized or free meals for employees.
Very interesting! A lot of that you also see in American shows. I think Germany and the Netherlands are very similar, except for the graph paper and the applicant photos. It may be encouraged to make a CV with photo but you don't have to. What always struck me is the big water cooler bottle culture, at least on tv. We certainly don't have that to that degree, largely because a lot of Dutch are insane coffee junkies. The typical cubicles are also not that common, unless people work with phones. Some modern offices have few doors and walls and then you can just sit where ever, but these are not main stream. This also doesn't seem to work that well.
I worked at a senior living facility for a while and we were able to buy hot lunch for only $2 while we were working. That’s the only place I have worked at that offered something like that.
Dana I love your shirt! I am visiting Frankfurt right now and love it! May I ask where you got your shirt?
I worked for a company in Austria where free beer was available. Although you could drink this free beer at anytime during the day the unwritten rule was only to take a bottle after the end of normal working hours, if you were working late, so after 1700 hours. Free soft drinks (soda) and coffee were also available which would be drunk during the day.
Hi Dana, how are you and Mr. German Man?
All the love from Adelaide, South Australia 💙
The photo thing actually is forbidden (for many years) for the same reasons as in the U.S. and is now totally voluntary
the last application I had said ''if you'd like you can put a picture here'' but there is absolutely no need to in ANY application
but I guess many people still do it tho
Correct, that's like asking you if you are thinking about pregnany.
But it has been common for so long in Germany, to send a letter of application with a photo that everyone just expects it.
Pretty much all photographers offer special "Bewerbungsfotos" - photos for application that shall sell you as serious and self-confident. There is a real economy behind it.
they still teach it in schools that a picture is extremely important... even when I went to Reha the guy we asked about how to write an application said that a picture is a must
You don't *have* to send a photo in Germany but if you don't you're most likely not gonna get any job. Your photo tells a hell of a lot about yourself: what kind of person are you? Did you take efforts to have your photo taken professionally or did you just put a crappy selfie? (btw you should never do that) Do you look arrogant or nice? Do you come across as sophisticated? A bad photo can make a possible employer throw your application away without even checking further into it.
I often applied without a picture and I've always been successful
I never even thought about not putting a picture in cause I've never heard someone do that in germany... so obviously when someone has a ton of applications with pictures on and there's one without a picture I would imagine they would rather throw it away... obviously I might be wrong about that
I wish it was the norm to not send a pic though
Silicon Valley engineer checking in, with regards to company cafeteria’s, here it’s very common. At the smaller companies, they will even have dinner every night, as long as you stay late that is. I’m sure Mr. German man, if he’s been here, could verify. At some of the big companies, you can get laundry, and haircuts, car washes and lots of other perks. With regards to pictures, while they won’t ask, if you look people up on LinkedIn, there is a picture there. But regardless, it all depends on the job. If you’re not customer facing, then they just want you to know the job. If you are then there for sure is discrimination happening (although of course this will never be admitted to) Keep up the great work on the videos!
In Romania is also required photo on your CV.Actually there is this Europass CV that usually you need to send.The photo is required because in a place where you get to work with people or so,you need to look decent,to be clean and from my experience,if you don't take the photo correctly,they don't call you.I saw weird photos and selfies on CV.If you send the CV and they don't see the photo,they just throw it.
good job with the german ch sound as in ich :) 👍 however macchiato is italian, and although you could make a very bad figure in italy pronouncing your ks too hard (swiss style) like the emphasized k sound written as ck as in Hackfleisch, it's actually k in macchiato, I mean they even put a double c to emphasize the k sound there (and the h is only used for spelling to prevent the c from being pronounced not as k but like the german tsch in Tschechien or the english ch as in itchy when followed by i or e. ciabatta bread doesn't start with k, but cHiabatta would, technically :) it's oftentimes similar to english, where it's cell or city (s sound) but cat, cold and cut (k sound when followed by vowels other than e or i) same rule for g in italian. Love your entertaining videos and the effort you put in them, keep up the good work :)
I prefer the graph paper, because there are the horizontal lines just as on the lined paper, but if I have to do some calculations it way more convenient to have graph paper. And because the squares are smaller than the lines you can write more stuff on one sheet. So you have less paper to carry and it saves the environment.
ElRackadusch always save the environment!!
Actually i do prefer the square-paper rather than the one with rectangles... the rectagled ones are suprisingly rare in germany as far as i can tell.
When using the graph paper you can easily draw tables and other stuff requiring vertical lines, you don't waste that much space and everything seems to be more... structured.
....and squares are beautiful...
And its fun for boring lecures as you can color those squares... ^^'
i prefer blank paper. it gives me the most freedom. second comes squared paper, third "Millimeterpapier" -- which is, well, squared paper with squares of the size of a millimeter (quite expensive for some reason, else it would be second and no 3rd)
i never use lined paper or rectangled paper... so none of those papers shown in the video i would ever use ;D
Photos in job applications were really common in germany. But it got less common over the years, after some new laws got applied against discrimination. Companies can't force you anymore to add a photo of yourself, you can still add it if you want though, it's up to you.
The birthday present collections can be a problem in bigger companies. On one job I worked at, the department had somewhere between 50 and 100ish co-workers, and it was common to collect some money among the other colleagues to buy some gift for the birthday boy or girl, who was in turn expected to buy a cake or some other food stuff for the office. This is all nice, but when every week of the year there are one or two collections, it can get quite expensive. Of course you get something in return when it's your own birthday, so it kind of evens out. But usually the gift is something meaningless you wouldn't have bought yourself and that just collects dust at home. So after a few collections I decided to pull out of that silly scheme, together with some co-workers in the same room. From that day on the collectors knew they didn't have to bother us.
Our office used to do the monthly birthdays, get a cake, circulate cards for those who had birthdays during that month. Ultimately (after a number of years of this), we stopped because the card would get lost and turn up a month later and the sentiments in it would be repetitive anyway unless you really knew the person well. And we stopped the cakes and collecting money for all of this. It just felt a bit artificial, as those you know at the office might take you out for your birthday anyway.
One company, at least around here where I live, ADM, has a cafeteria for their workers and many fast-food workers get so and so % off of a meal they buy if they buy it at work(ie culvers employee buying culvers).
Graph paper is always better ... you can write on it in Portrait and Landscape mode ;-) and of course draw precise Boxes, Arrows, Statistics and align your text.
In the companies I worked the birthday cake was totally optional, some people want to celebrate and bring self-made cakes, drinks, deserts and decorations, most did something easy like buy a cake or bake an easy one directly on the oven-tray, some did nothing and some even took a day off. But it was optional with little to no group pressure.
Jörn Albert in my work group in the lab (in Germany) we had to bring a cake if we came in late for the lab meeting.
Needless to say, that I had to bake a lot of cake... xD
Pretty funny to describe paper as "portrait or landscape mode" 😂 but I totally agree!
You can more easily play tic tac toe on graph paper during long meetings.
I worked at a company called American United Life back in the early 90's that had a cafeteria on the first floor. Anyone could eat there but, if I remember correctly, AUL employees got a small discount. What I really remember was that they had anything and everything there and it was all delicious! (Their salad bar was what most salad bars aspire to be someday! LOL)
One thing that I noticed was that it seems that everyone here in Germany keeps their office door closed. Even in government buildings. In where I came from in America (Mississippi), it was normal that if the person were in their office, their office door was open. Here in Germany, everyone's office door is usually closed...at least here in my area. So, you have to knock on the door and then wish you had a glass to put on the door so you can hear if someone says something. If you don't hear anything, you don't know if someone is in the office but on the phone etc and can't respond to you, or they don't want to respond to you, or there isn't anyone in the office. So...you stand outside and debate on what to do. Finally you either open the door to look and get embarrassed because you interrupt a meeting, or you wait like a nervous rabbit for 15 minutes only to finally find the door is locked. So irritating!!!!
In american movies you always see people carrying starbucks mugs when going to work. Is starbucks cheaper in the U.S.? I have been to starbucks once and the prices shocked me. I think the cheapest one was about 3,50€. After one year of buying this coffee I would have 1000€ to buy a machine that makes coffee as good as starbucks and I could bring my own coffee every day.
Starbucks is almost the same price as in Germany in the US but people just buy it daily I could never understand it when I was living there
I think in US movies it’s just product placement mostly. Meaning Starbucks pays to have people carry around their cups in movies. Most people I know either bring coffee from home or get it at work. Or you can get it much cheaper from a convenience store like 7/11 or QT. McDonalds coffee is also popular as is Dunkin Donuts which is a national donut chain.
Claire Woerner the lines at the drive through in the morning are really long sometimes a 15-25 min wait at every place that sells coffee if it's Starbucks or Macdonald I think it was more about people buying so much opposite to bringing it from home or getting it in the office
@Kklara Zprand okay, I don't like these 'special' coffees. I just want a good coffee crema. And if you buy a good coffee machine (for example Bosch) the coffee crema is as good as that starbucks stuff (if you use the right coffee beans). And I think I paid 3.95€ (about 4.80$) for a mug. But it was a few years ago.
Thx all for these informations. I learned a lot. I hope I will have the chance to visit the U.S. myself someday.
The only place I’ve ever worked where I had the option of getting lunch in-house was when I worked at a school. There teachers and staff were offered a free salad bar that was usually pretty good so I ate salad almost every day. Sometimes the lunch room staff would make something extra for us like baked potatoes or if they had extra of what the children were eating we could have some of that (which was sometimes good and sometimes not; baked chicken or vegetable soup sounds good to an adult but fish sticks shaped like sharks don’t). The only office I ever knew of that had a cafeteria was the large military office my dad worked in. He worked on a military base and so there weren’t many options on base for lunch. Since his office complex was large they had a cafeteria and snack bar. Both of them were run by a company hired by the government that employed people with disabilities.
The only time i was supplied food at work was when i worked in a residential school. In fact,we were required to eat from the cafeteria if we wanted to eat while working so the kid wouldn’t get jealous if we had better food than what they were having.
I think its funny. I watch your videos more for the learning about the US. I am officially a US Citizen but i am born and raised in Germany near Munich and besides 2 short trips as a child/teen i have no impression of the country what so ever (outside of media and your videos). Thanks for shedding some light on my unknown home country for me :D
As far as i know the trend of requiring a photo for job applications has gone back already in germany, although it is still dominant i guess. One of those things where you just can not get the buerocrat (i bet i butchered that) out of the Germans. Like with the "No stepping on the green spaces"- or other "Verboten"-signs.
I remember great , large cafeterias where people has scheduled lunch. Also remember that it took long time to break into the friend zone.
i ran a cafeteria in a corporate building they are common on long island
There are some large tech companies in CA that have a cafeteria, usually because the campus is so big that it's not easy to walk somewhere to eat.
In the U.S., people who work in hospitals tend to have subsidized lunches and a cafeteria. Teachers do also but I’ve almost never seen a teacher eat a school lunch.
In Sweden it´s tradition that the employee brings cake or something for birthdays except for those completing a ten year, 30,40 50 and so on and normally at 50 you also get a gift from the firm or at least something from the coworkers. Some labour unions have even gotten it so far that you get your 50-yearday off with full payment.
The paper you showed isn't graph paper. Paper with those slightly tall rectangles are for accounting etc. with one digit or letter in each column. For graphs, squares are used, either uniform 5mm squares (cheap and common) or tiny 1mm squares with emphasis at 5mm and 10mm (used mostly for engineering and math, because it's more expensive). There are of cause special patterns for special uses, like logarithmic, circular etc., but that may be going away because computers.
I prefer graph paper over line paper since I can remember. Even in school, I always asked the teachers of the non maths related subjects, if I'm allowed to use graph paper in the exams. :D
Wow!
Everywhere I've worked as had free coffee. Usually nothing fancy, just the usual Bunn setup. Where I work now, we have a Keurig and all the schmancy flavors. I still just drink Maxwell house black. I'm just a simple girl I guess.
Subsidized cafeterias are quite common in large companies in the US. My last company had 9000 international employees and 1000 at the main campus headquarters with subsidized cafe. I currently work for a startup (near San Francisco/Silicon Valley) that offers free catering a few times a week and fully stocked kitchen with lunch options (sandwich/salad), drinks, and snacks. This might be restricted to the startup environment though.
Speaking of meeting chit chat, I'm curious about office chatter around desks and cubicles in Germany. Depends on the company, but light chatter is usually tolerated here in the US. Also for Germany, are headphones a common sight for workers in open floor/cubicle work areas?
My company has a subsidized cafeteria for just my location. The food isn't cheap, but they have a wide variety of foods, even a vegan burger.
The paper differences are not only because of graph vs line paper. Actually, there are more and more German companies giving out unlined paper as well. No, the actual big difference is the format of the paper. US format is "Letter", European format is "DIN", and in the DIN system normally size A4, for notes also A5 (which is half the size).
Regarding coffee, it depends on the size and the type of company you are working for. Bigger companies normally have fancy big coffee machines, yes. Smaller companies either have not that fancy coffee machines (mostly those with capsules) or just have a "normal" coffee machine for filtered coffee. Big companies that pay poorly (e.g. call centers) might have both, filtered coffee and fancy coffee machine, but only the filtered coffee is free, and you as employee have to pay for the fancy drinks.
Actually, it's quite common that you get bottled water for free, or that the company provides bottles which you can refill for free at a water "fountain" (Wasserspender, is that a fitting english expression?).