Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#121

Post by GFischer » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 12:58 AM UTC

akadruid wrote: post #108

sqrt17 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably right about the labor-saving techniques. In Germany, you get gardeners with automatic leaf blowers (i.e., faster, but more noise), and with a whole slew of bottom-tier jobs (such as supermarket baggers) missing. The car industry is purely based on robots and automation - which is probably the same in the US.

I suspect this must be a European thing then. I'm in London and I'd assumed that leaf blowers were a universal thing, and I had to google "supermarket bagger" - it seems like a weird gimmick, is this common?

Well, leaf blowers are sold in South America too, but we have supermarket baggers like in the U.S.

Something odd is that gas stations over here are called "service stations", and we get our cars filled (no filling it yourself), oil checked and other niceties - it's so disconcerting for me going to an European gas station (went to one in Vienna).

Wikipedia once again surprised me with the depth of the article on Filling Stations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filling_station

I guess I'd only experienced full service stations before going to Europe.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#122

Post by tonf » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 6:55 AM UTC

hugothefrog wrote: post #19

I just returned from Berlin a couple of nights ago, and met an English guy (I'm a New Zealander living in London) who'd worked there for a few years. He is an aerospace engineer working for a very famous English engineering firm in their German office. He was of the opinion that German productivity, at least when compared with other European countries, was a myth. He told exactly the same anecdotes about German indiv…

Germany would not be the second biggest exporter in the world if it was a myth. German approach seems to work better than English one at least in older, more established industries (cars, etc).

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#123

Post by loewenskind » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 8:58 AM UTC

Vivtek wrote: post #105

loewenskind wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "many, many decades old" mean? You do realize that there are people living in houses in Europe that have existed longer than the US has been a country, right? You do live in disposable houses. Have you seen how a house in the US is built? The walls are made of what are called 2"x4"s [1], spaced 1.5' apart. If you've ever been to Lowes or one of those kinds of places and seen insulation you'll see why. Insul…

I'm pretty sure tptacek knows how houses are built, loewenskind. I believe his point, though, is that not all of us live in disposable houses - just all the poor schmucks who have a house built after WWII, really. I have a carriage house apartment that shows a bit of the transition; it was built in 1946. Instead of slats under the plaster, it has sort of horizontal strips of sheet rock, over which plaster was applied…

>I should tell you, though, that drywall is gaining popularity in Europe as well. It's just so cheap and quick, you see.

What part of Europe? In the parts of Europe I'm familiar with people seem smarter about real savings. For example if you build a pile-of-sticks US style house, yes it will initially cost very little. But maintenance, heating, cooling, etc., etc. will cost a great deal more for the whole time you have the house. Perhaps if utility costs were so incredibly cheap like they are in the US people wouldn't think about it as much.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#124

Post by eru » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 1:44 PM UTC

ulf wrote: post #114

yardie wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have sick days. When you are sick you are sick it could be 1 day or 6 months. They don't give sick days because the government pays for your time off. So while they may miss out on your productivity, financially, they've lost little. As an American I've encountered far too many Americans coming into work with just "a little cold" and getting the rest of the office sick. Dragging everyone else down with the…

"They don't give sick days because the government pays for your time off." That is not true. The employer pays the salary for six weeks of sickness. After that, the health insurance provider takes over. I believe that the american sick-day-model could never work here because of unions and other employee-interest organizations. So it is not really up to the company, they have to pay you your salary and cannot take vac…

> However, ongoing sickness can be a reason to fire an employee.

Are you sure about that?

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#125

Post by eru » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 1:45 PM UTC

ahoyhere wrote: post #103

wheels wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wages are in general lower, and on the whole the spectrum is compressed -- so low-paid jobs tend to be a big higher, but a software developer in Berlin makes about half to a third of what they would in Silicon Valley. Also, the article is a bit off on some of its numbers -- 6 weeks of vacation aren't required by law, 24 days are (i.e. just under 5 weeks), though 6 is a common perk. Additionally, at least in the softw…

But in Berlin, you can have a top notch meal with fresh veggies and local ingredients for $5, a beautiful apartment near all sorts of great things for $800 easily, and, oh yeah, excellent healthcare and other social benefits. You can't talk about salaries in other cities without considering the cost-of-living differences. That said, I know programmers in Vienna making what I would consider pretty good salaries (60-70…

You mean a self-prepared meal for $5? If you want to go out, $5 will buy you a Döner or Currywurst.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#126

Post by ulf » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 2:01 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #124

ulf wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They don't give sick days because the government pays for your time off." That is not true. The employer pays the salary for six weeks of sickness. After that, the health insurance provider takes over. I believe that the american sick-day-model could never work here because of unions and other employee-interest organizations. So it is not really up to the company, they have to pay you your salary and cannot take vac…

> However, ongoing sickness can be a reason to fire an employee. Are you sure about that?

There are some very strict requirements, but yes, it can be a reason for termination. The requirements are things like future prognosis of the employee's health, and undoubted negative impact on the economic situaion of the employer because of the illness.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#127

Post by eru » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 2:05 PM UTC

ulf wrote: post #126

eru wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, ongoing sickness can be a reason to fire an employee. Are you sure about that?

There are some very strict requirements, but yes, it can be a reason for termination. The requirements are things like future prognosis of the employee's health, and undoubted negative impact on the economic situaion of the employer because of the illness.

OK. But isn't there a clause, that when you already knew when you hired the guy, that you can't fire him? (Or was it the other way around, and you were barred from knowing when hiring? It's all complicated.)

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#128

Post by Ras_ » Fri, Oct 01, 2010, 10:25 PM UTC

ulf wrote: post #114

yardie wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have sick days. When you are sick you are sick it could be 1 day or 6 months. They don't give sick days because the government pays for your time off. So while they may miss out on your productivity, financially, they've lost little. As an American I've encountered far too many Americans coming into work with just "a little cold" and getting the rest of the office sick. Dragging everyone else down with the…

"They don't give sick days because the government pays for your time off." That is not true. The employer pays the salary for six weeks of sickness. After that, the health insurance provider takes over. I believe that the american sick-day-model could never work here because of unions and other employee-interest organizations. So it is not really up to the company, they have to pay you your salary and cannot take vac…

Six weeks... quite long compared to Finland. Here the employer has to pay full wages for 10 first days of sickness, after that the state (Social Insurance Institution) covers about 70%.

Ongoing sickness is an acceptable reason to fire an employee (with similar "very strict requirements") also here.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#129

Post by Vivtek » Sun, Oct 03, 2010, 3:32 AM UTC

loewenskind wrote: post #123

Vivtek wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure tptacek knows how houses are built, loewenskind. I believe his point, though, is that not all of us live in disposable houses - just all the poor schmucks who have a house built after WWII, really. I have a carriage house apartment that shows a bit of the transition; it was built in 1946. Instead of slats under the plaster, it has sort of horizontal strips of sheet rock, over which plaster was applied…

>I should tell you, though, that drywall is gaining popularity in Europe as well. It's just so cheap and quick, you see. What part of Europe? In the parts of Europe I'm familiar with people seem smarter about real savings. For example if you build a pile-of-sticks US style house, yes it will initially cost very little. But maintenance, heating, cooling, etc., etc. will cost a great deal more for the whole time you ha…

England. They generally use a drywall with plaster veneer for new construction there - DIY plaster searches generally turn up a lot of English sites. And a few American ones as well.

I'm not saying I've ever seen a studs-and-drywall approach in Europe, no. In Hungary things tend to just be concrete or block or brick construction, and wood is used for looks. This is partly because wood is really expensive in Europe, since the Phoenicians cut down their forests, mostly. We've got Canada.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a light steel interior frame wall with drywall and plaster on it, though.

Re: Why Germans have higher productivity and longer vacations

#130

Post by loewenskind » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 7:13 AM UTC

Vivtek wrote: post #129

loewenskind wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I should tell you, though, that drywall is gaining popularity in Europe as well. It's just so cheap and quick, you see. What part of Europe? In the parts of Europe I'm familiar with people seem smarter about real savings. For example if you build a pile-of-sticks US style house, yes it will initially cost very little. But maintenance, heating, cooling, etc., etc. will cost a great deal more for the whole time you ha…

England. They generally use a drywall with plaster veneer for new construction there - DIY plaster searches generally turn up a lot of English sites. And a few American ones as well. I'm not saying I've ever seen a studs-and-drywall approach in Europe, no. In Hungary things tend to just be concrete or block or brick construction, and wood is used for looks. This is partly because wood is really expensive in Europe, s…

Ah yes, you consider England part of Europe. ;) From what I can see the UK is fully embracing the ways of the US for better (e.g. good restaurants/service) and worse (e.g. cheap crap favored over quality in many cases).