Could one reason be that the working life in Germany is very relaxing?

One way in which this can be seen is the attitude German people have toward their bosses. At a recent meeting with 10 colleagues, our boss came in last. Unfortunately, there were no chairs left, but we neither offered him one of our seats nor brought one in from another room. So he stood for 45 minutes. This embarrassed me, and I asked one of my colleagues if it is normal in Germany. My colleague said it was the boss' fault that he came to the meeting late — even if it was only 30 seconds — and he was capable of getting a chair himself, if he really wanted to sit down, but he did not; in other words, the boss was happy to stand. How logical!

Every aspect of office life in Germany seems easy and frank, especially for Japanese, who are educated to work always with diligence, and respect their customers and bosses in their hierarchical society. On my first day at work in Germany, I had an amazing experience. There was a birthday party for two colleagues in the office. Cakes and snacks were prepared, and we all stopped work to eat and chat — we even ignored phone calls. And I was surprised again, when I found out that the 30 minutes relaxing were not deducted from my wages.

This is not the only way in which the everyday working life in Germany is different to Japan. A friend from home asked me if it was true that Germans work without doing any overtime, and if they take plenty of holidays. I could not answer "yes" to this question for two reasons.

First, if I said yes, I might give my friend the wrong impression about German workers. Average working hours in Germany are shorter than in Japan; however, that does not mean Germans are lazy. They believe that it is very important to be rested so that they can concentrate when they are working. They never fall asleep in the office, as can sometimes happen in Japan. I think this is rather diligent.

Second, not every employee has such good conditions. In Germany, employees have a lot of rights, particularly regarding things like working hours and holidays. It is, however, medium-size and large companies that can afford to allow employees such nice conditions. Also a person's position in a company impacts a person's rights in Germany. Often, managers can decide how long they work and how many holidays they take while regular employees work 35 to 40 hours per week and take 30 days paid holidays. But because German company culture is competitive and managers are ambitious, they hardly ever take more holidays than regular workers.

However, it is true that Germans take more holidays than Japanese. And a vacation does not mean a couple of days off in high seasons like Golden Week. Vacations normally mean a couple of weeks, if not more. There are certain tricks Germany uses to make the system work at a national level. For example, every state has different vacation times for schoolchildren to avoid too many people going on holiday at once. Thus, you do not have to struggle buying train or airline tickets. Also, if you have one working day between national holidays and the weekend, many companies close their offices for a brueckentag (bridge day), so that people can take a four-day minibreak

This sounds like paradise. However, if you live in Germany, you will realize very soon, that people face a major problem — the unemployment rate. This is extremely high in Germany, though the situation is improving.

Another thing that may be confusing for Japanese is job evaluation. People are evaluated on what they did, not how they did it. If you do too much overtime, you will be told to finish your tasks in the allocated hours. No one cares what hours their colleagues work. It is common for companies to use a flextime system.

A German friend who worked in Spain for a while told me how relaxing the Spanish work ethic is. Maybe, a long time ago, a Japanese person worked in Germany and then returned home, explaining how easy and relaxing the German work ethic was. And maybe since then arubaito came to mean limited responsibility, routine work and no overtime in Japanese.

The Japan Times Weekly: July 21, 2007
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