Black on White

Following yesterdays events, the official version was distributed to the Head Office staff, a newsletter from the head of the board announcing the “restructuring”.
 
Half the board to go and the heads of many departments, the business cut back to the core employees required to simply keep the business running with no decisions on the long-term strategy required. Which simply confirmed what David had told me the day before – the business was to be sold but this was not to be made public to the employees or the wider public. Get the balance sheet cleared up and rid of all the long-serving, pension heavy human assets that put off potential buyers.
 
This short-term, buy and sell, reorganise, restructure, deliberately muddle the accounting waters, practised by many Anglo-Saxon companies goes strongly against the German mentality and brings out their renowned sense of “Angst”. Ever since (and even before) the conquering Romans, the country has been destroyed year for year by some passing war-lord and they so yearn for peace and stability.

It is why German business leaders have great problems dealing with UK/USA companies. Here today, gone tomorrow. It also explains the “cool and aloof” even “no sense of humour” reputation they have. It comes from centuries of building existences and having them destroyed.
 
It’s why it can take years and decades to be called a friend by a German. On coming here, you will stand on the outside of everyone's “friend circle”, being addressed as Mr or Mrs, surnames and the impersonal form of “You”. It's not just for foreigners, it applies amongst the locals too. One mustn’t take it personally when it continues amongst colleagues or even people who meet regularly even outside the workplace. You may never get to know the Christian name of your next-door neighbour, not even after years. Don’t expect a colleague to invite you into their homes – they don’t have anything to hide, in fact, being Germans, their dustbins are probably cleaner and more correctly positioned than your dining room.
 
But at some stage, after many years of building trust (it could be on the day a colleague retires after 40 years of working with you), the day comes. In the business world, it will come from the senior ranking person, in private life, the elder:

“Mrs Smith, you have been my personal secretary for the last 20 years and I think the time may now have come when we can use Du (the impersonal form of you). My name is Hans, what do you (still impersonal) think?”
Stretching out a hand, the reply comes: “Thank you (the personal form) Hans, I am honoured, I am Angela” and there follows a hearty handshake.

The offerer will often have a bottle of something fizzy and two glasses hidden close by and there follows the toasting of the friendship. For the next day or two,  when you pass in the corridor, you will have a laugh when you realise you have both automatically reverted to the impersonal for the "hello" greeting.
 
But from now on you are in the “circle of friends” and can expect total loyalty, any help you need and a friendship for life. You will often hear Germans categorise the standing someone has in a business, by who they are “per Du” with. You don’t complain to a peer about your mutual boss when he happens to be per Du with him.
 
And so it is with business. Outward signs of throwing money, time and effort at a project counts for nothing. A big flash German registered car, a luxury rented house, children at the International school count for nothing – here today, gone tomorrow. You just need to compare how often a German relocates for his business or buys and sells a home. I suspect the average is barely above 1x and even if they only have a rented house, you will find an amazingly low turn over that is probably mainly limited to needing a bigger place if children are born.

So don’t take it personally if your opening words on meeting a German colleague for the first time “Hi Hans, my name is Angela” is ignored. You get used to it.

Just the same as I got used to the cynical nature of big business' approach to responsibility towards its employees, even though it took me another 13 years and two big multinationals to get there.

As a hard-working colleague peer had told me about five years earlier in his office at the Pithay, Bristol (I remember the scene some 35 years later as if It was today): “Do the job you are paid to do, no more, no less. You are only a number in the personnel files”. I nodded but the message didn't get to the brain.