More Benevolent Über-Government Intervention In Action

July 31, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Employment, EU, German, Germans, Germany, Government Interference, Industry, Jobs, Osram, Regulations, SPD Leave a comment

It goes like this: An EU regulation forces Osram and the rest of the industry to shift from traditional light bulbs to light-emitting diodes. They are smaller, more energy-efficient, have longer lifespans than traditional bulbs (except that they don’t really), are very much more expensive and must therefore be forced down the consumer’s throat and, well, everybody here hates the damned things and wants their old light bulbs back.

The benevolent part? Now 8,000 Osram workers lose their jobs because of this.

„Durch die EU-Verordnung ist das traditionelle Glühbirnen-Massengeschäft von Osram weggebrochen. Dort war Osram führend.“

We Don’t Need No Special Treatment

April 22, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, High Art, Humor, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy Tags: Employment, Football, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, IGBAU, Soccer, Special Interest Groups, Unions, World Cup Leave a comment

We don’t need no fraud control
No dark sarcasm at the workplace
Boss man, leave them bums alone

We just want our union members to be able to turn up late for work after watching Germany World Cup games that begin after 10pm, unions say. That’s all.

“It would a noble move by employers if they showed a bit of flexibility during the World Cup.”

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

February 2, 2014 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Early Retirement, Employment, Free Lunch, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Polls, Retirement, Satire, Scams, SPD 2 Comments

Ein Frührentner (an early retiree). Please laugh, but please also be assured that I personally know a German teenager who actually answered this question this way and was NOT joking.

And this really shouldn’t come as a surprise in a country where, according to the latest poll, 53 percent of the employed don’t plan to work past the age of 63 and barely one third of them expect to work until the “official” reitrement age of 65. Or is it 67 now? Wait, or is it 63 doch (after all)?

At any rate, whatever the official German retirement age may be, rest assured that it will not be the age at which the majority of Germans will be retiring.

Ein knappes Drittel will dagegen bis zum regulären Renteneintrittsalter weiterarbeiten.

Taylorismus-Made

November 25, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Amazon, Employment, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Robots, Satire, Unions, Work, Working Conditions, Zombies 2 Comments

Please read the following out loud in that classic monotone el cheapo Hollywood movie robot voice:

We are all robots here. No one talks. It is ghostly quiet here in the Amazon warehouse.

We are forced to wear these weird orange signal jackets. Amazon wants us to hand over our brains at the door once we enter here. There is no turning back.

Only the customer is allowed to have any individuality.

Everything is fully conform. Every step is standardized. Deviations would disrupt the calculation.

They have got me so far that I now do everything they say (just like I already do outside when watching the Tagesschau or when reading Spiegel Online).

I have no free will. We are all victims and are being ausgebeutet (exploited) to an unbearable degree. This is Kapitalismus pur or something. Oh my God we are all going to die. No, wait. We are dead already.

“Mich haben sie jetzt so weit. Ich mache, was man mir sagt.”

German Job Wonder So Wunderbar That Millions Of Germans Have Two

August 14, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Employment, German, Germans, Germany, Job Wonder, Jobs, Second Jobs, Work 4 Comments

Or need to have two, I should say.

Nearly 3 million Germans or over 9 percent of those working full-time are now working part-time as well.

Nope, it’s not because Germans are particularly fleißig (hardworking). This German job wonder that everybody envies so much over here, like everything else in life, comes with a price. The income from many of these wunderjobs is simply no longer enough to get by on. Kein Auskommen mit dem Einkommen (can’t make out with what comes in), or something like that.

Ist es pure Not oder der Wunsch, sich mehr leisten zu können?

Nobody Wants To Work In The World’s Most Popular Country

July 28, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Blue Cards, Employment, German, Germans, Germany, Green Cards, Humor, Immigration, Polls, Popularity, Satire, Surveys Leave a comment

Why aren’t there zillions of highly qualified foreigners standing in line to come to live and work in Germany (but not like forever or anything if you don’t want to) as expected when the German blue card was introduced a year ago?

This blue card holder above (the person on the right) is only about one of only about 2500 who have expressed an interest in doing so since the card was introduced – and 70 percent of those 2500 were already living in Germany under a different status at the time of the card’s introduction.

I don’t get it. I thought Germany was so well-loved in the world and all that (there are at least 100 reasons for this I am told). There seems to be some kind of a disconnect here. Why are so many foreigners still insisting to prefer going to such yucky places like US-Amerika instead? Don’t they ever read the papers or anything? Hey, if you’re that uninformed pal, Germany probably doesn’t want you in the first place. So there.

Die meisten Blue-Card-Besitzer kamen aus Indien (1971) – gefolgt von China (775) und Russland (597). Das Bürgerkriegsland Syrien ist mit 389 Akademikern ebenfalls stark vertreten.

Take Your Pick

November 2, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, High Art, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Elections, Employment, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Hype, Jobs, Journalism, Obama, Romney, Spin, The Presidential Election Leave a comment

You can have the German headline Zahl der Jobs seit Obamas Amtsantritt gestiegen (the number of jobs has increased during Obama’s term of office)…

Or you can have the German headline Arbeitslosenquote steigt vor US-Wahl leicht (the jobless rate climbs slightly before the US election – with the emphasis on slightly here, people).

The main thing is that they both remain misleading. I guess this psychological prepping now will be needed later to explain how dumb and ungrateful Americans are (if Obama loses) or how truly deserving his magnificent victory really was (if he wins).

Man of man. You can almost cut the nervous German nervousness here with a knife right now.

Arbeitslosenzahlen lassen Obama aufatmen.

Germany Drains Spain’s Brains

April 29, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Hustle (Hoax) Tags: Berlin, Capitalism, Economy, Emigration, Employment, Engineers, EU, Euro, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Industry, Jobs, Satire, Spain Leave a comment

In a ghoulish plan to intensify their already ironclad grip of an anemic Europe, depraved German industrialists have now begun luring unsuspecting southern European engineers to Germany by offering them well-paid jobs which will allow them (the depraved Germans) to drain their brains at leasure.

To make matters worse, if that were possible, another grisly gimmick has also been introduced in which so-called “blue cards” (green had already been taken) are being offered to skilled non-EU workers, as well. Although ostinsibly intended to “make the immigration process” easier, this “blue card” babble is clearly just another cynical euphemism for more German brain draining activity.

The gruesome brain-sucking capitalist bastards.

In December, a planeload of 100 Spanish engineers flew to nearby Stuttgart for a weekend of job interviews. Within a month, about a third of them had been hired. And some German companies have been making connections over the Internet, simply plucking Spanish, Portuguese, Greek and Italian professionals from sites like LinkedIn.

Speaking Of The Dark Side

February 8, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Economy, Employment, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Jobs, Satire, Unemployment, Wages Leave a comment

Here’s a little tidbit about the dark side of “Germany’s jobs miracle.”

“BEST LOW WAGE SECTOR IN EUROPE”

Job growth in Germany has been especially strong for low wage and temporary agency employment because of deregulation and the promotion of flexible, low-income, state-subsidised so-called “mini-jobs”.

The number of full-time workers on low wages – sometimes defined as less than two thirds of middle income – rose by 13.5 percent to 4.3 million between 2005 and 2010, three times faster than other employment, according to the Labour Office.

Germany can only hope that other European countries do not emulate its own wage deflationary policies too closely, as demand will dry up: “If everyone is doing same thing, there won’t be anyone left to export to.”

PS: Like I noted on a post the other day, the USA and Germany have more in common than they think. Now the Greeks are burning German flags, too.

Europeans Hurting Republican Feelings Again

January 10, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Hurt Feelings Tags: Berlin, Employment, Europe, Europeans, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Satire, Working 2 Comments

The title reads: Greeks and Italians Work Harder Than Americans.

One common reaction to the European debt crisis has been to blame the victim: If only those Greeks/Italians would work harder, like us Americans/Germans, then they wouldn’t be in this pickle, the thinking goes.

Except it’s not, how do you say, true: Greeks and Italians actually work more than Americans and Germans.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Employment