Sunday 8 March 2009

Morgen, Sam. Moin-moin, Ralph

Whether as an ice-breaker, small-talk or as a segue, Americans tend to ask strangers what they do for a living. That's a ham-fisted way of putting on in one's place. There is a saying that while Americans live to work, Europeans work to live. Remember these characters? Ralph, the wolf, and Sam, the sheepdog? I used to think about how they clocked-out when the whistle blew, no longer arch-enemies, whenever 16:00 cam around and I could hear the punctual clatter of my German co-workers as they took to the stairwell and out the door, right on the dot. Once, having stayed late myself during that week several times, H expounded on the rationale why that was. I had never shared the opinion that the majority of Americans hold that that shows lack of dedication, being kept on a pretty lax leash myself, and, unless it was an emergency (and there were few objective emergencies) anything could wait until morning--especially considering most of the administrative gate-keepers were German and had called it a day already. H explained that with any job, factory work or a more nebulous otherwise, there was an allotted amount to finsih one's assigned tasks--that people more expert than us decided what could be accomplished in a day and we were not the first to cycle through, and having to stay later either reflected poorly on the employee's ability or on the supervisor's for time-management.