WorkTales

A friend of mine was boarding an intercity train from Munich to Stuttgart and was making her way to her seat when she overheard something familiar. She overheard someone speaking what sounded like Russian on the telephone. He was also looking for a place to sit down and so she assisted him as best she could. It was not actually Russian but most likely Ukrainian.

This guy must have been pretty lucky as she managed to find him a seat just near her. She was not especially interested in his travels but as she is a kindly person she did listen to him and found out that he had traveled from Greece, to Venice Italy, to Munich and was going to visit his friend in Stuttgart.

Eventually she managed to extricate herself from that conversation and managed to do a bit of reading. A short time later a trio of plainclothes policemen walked through the car, not speaking with anyone until they found this “Greek” businessman.

The policeman tried to speak with him but it turned out that he couldn’t speak German or English. The English was not so important as the policeman also did not speak very good English. It was at this time our heroine decided to ask the police if they wanted her to translate for them. Their first question was actually directed to her and asked if she was a friend of his.

She explained the situation and showed them her train ticket. The nice young policeman said that he was not responsible for tickets and she would need to show that the to train conductor. She also asked if they wish to look at her documents – she was quite proud of the fact that she had managed to navigate through both the German and Uzbekistan bureaucratic mazes to get them updated just a few months back.

No, the police did not have any interest in her documents but they did wish to look at the businessman’s passport. She did pass this information on to the businessman who did produce a Lithuanian passport. One of the policemen called headquarters to check out this document with a colleague and while that was happening the police wanted to have a quick check through his luggage.

The businessman pointed to his three suitcases and they were searched and besides the underwear, socks and other clothing were found two interesting items. The first was a small transparent plastic case about the size of a SD card with some sort of blue ink or powder inside. This was explained as probably clothing color or something similar.

The second item was about the size of a 6” subway sandwich. It was a transparent bag containing what looked to be a white powder. The police did of course ask “what exactly do you have in this package?” and the response was as silly as the question was obvious. The answer was that “this was sugar”. The police didn’t stick his finger in and taste it but did a quick sniff test and did not think that this was sugar. My friend also did not think this was sugar as it appeared to have the wrong consistency, which was more like flour.

Natasha He says this is a bag of sugar
Police Do you really believe that this a big bag of sugar?
Businessman Yes

Actually, about this time the train started to brake very suddenly. The conductor announced that due to an accident on the tracks that there would be a small delay. This was too much, my friend who felt like she was at a crime scene started to get a bit worried. One of the policeman suggested that she should calm down that everything will be OK. A few minutes later, it was announced over the loudspeaker that the delay was due to a wild boar on the tracks.

Oddly enough none of the police were especially excited about the items which were found in the businessman’s luggage but it was about this time that the third policeman got off his mobile phone. He came back with the knowledge that the name on this particular passport did not match the number of the passport. It seems that that passport number was reported stolen in 2005, which by an odd coincidence, was the issue date on this passport.

The businessman said that he simply received this passport from the police. After all that had transpired this did not ring true. The policeman suggested that this “small passport” issue does need to be checked out and they wanted to stop by the police station in Ulm. They suggested that as this is probably a small clerical error and this should only take about an hour to clear up.

The businessman did say that he really did not want to go to Ulm as he was being met by a friend in Stuttgart. My friend did suggest to the businessman that if the police wanted to have a visit with him at the police station then this was something that he should not resist. As the four men were getting ready to depart my friend did make once final bit of advice to the businessman. She did suggest that if indeed there was anything wrong with his passport that should expect to be at the police station for longer than one hour.

Natasha worked at the bank in one of the loan departments. She was a student studying economics but working at the bank part time. Her group was in charge of deciding which companies get either local currency or hard currency loans.

One of the things that was slightly different between her first job and my first job was how she was paid. At my first job somebody came around every two weeks with an envelope and inside was a check along with a breakdown of how much tax and other costs were coming out of my check. Natasha had an envelope that was about an inch thick and it was filled with cash. All the staff were paid in cash.

I was afraid to ask if any taxes were taken out.

There are actually a lot of differences between America and Germany, but one of the more interesting ones is when you turn on the television. Hollywood is big business, you see the result of their work everywhere. Did you see Star Wars? What about Titanic? Any of the Harry Potter movies? Depending on the movie or more specifically its content you may see less of the movie on German television than in America.

It turns out that violence in Germany is considered bad and that violent scenes have a tendency to get cut. That isn’t to say that very graphic violent scenes are especially entertaining or add much to the plot but they are likely to get cut. Depending on the movie and how some of the scenes are done, it is difficult to impossible to follow some parts of the movie when parts of the movie simply disappear.

That doesn’t tend to happen so much in the US, the more violent movies do tend to end up on the television a bit later in the evening or on cable. What makes this a bit ironic is that the situation is exactly the opposite when it comes to sex and nudity.

In Germany sex or nudity is not censored in the same way. In the United States, movies with more of this type of “adult” content does end up on television much later at night or the movie gets censored. Not only that I did notice that for a while on one of the German television channels they had scheduled soft porn on a fairly regular basis.

The same is also true for their literature as well. Pornographic magazines have no protective opaque wraps and isn’t always on the top shelf.

I remember when I first came to Germany shopping was a complete challenge. Stores could be open until eight pm Monday through Friday but just because they can be open doesn’t mean that they will be open. My biggest problem was supermarkets, as a young guy in a vibrant company I didn’t need to get to work early but we rarely got out of work early.

That’s ok, they are open on the weekend right? Well, only partly. They are open only on Saturdays and then only until one or two in the afternoon. The opening hours was actually not an accident, in Germany the opening of shop hours is governed by the Ladenschlussgesetz. This group then essentially guarantees that stores cannot open before six am nor stay open later than eight pm. I was not the only one who was inconvenienced by the opening hours; this topic did come up especially with the other foreigners. Despite the complaining it was pointed out that over a decade progress was made. The shopping hours were slightly relaxed and it was now possible to do some shopping up until four pm on Saturdays.

That isn’t to say that things didn’t get better. In July 2006 there was actually a very positive change, the government did handover control of the opening hours to the individual states. When the law was changed of course there were some vocal opponents, my absolute favorite quote on the topic came during a television interview. He said that having the shopping hours extended like this might encourage people to simply go shopping for the entertainment value as opposed to shopping to purchase things.

I kept asking my friends about this and was told that the law was in place to make sure that people were not forced to work long or bad hours, basically to make sure that everyone gets time for rest and recuperation. I could almost understand this during the week, but I always found this to be a very hypocritical answer as it related to the weekend. There were of course exceptions for some special professions.

• Fire fighter
• Policeman
• Doctor
• Gas station staff
• Hotel staff
• Public transportation staff
• Restaurant staff
• Airports staff
• Train station staff
• (the list goes on)

While speaking with someone who grew up in Slovakia I found out that he did a bit of agriculture work when he was young. How the straw is processed is slightly different than in the US. Rather than creating the bales and dumping them out the back on the ground they were dumped into an attached trailer, approximately one every ten seconds.

One person per trailer, stacking the hay higher and higher. Simply walking around the outside of the stack trying not to fall off. It was during this time he did see what might only be a person looking for a Darwin award. One of the guys, Zoltan, had forgotten his “safety” equipment, er, his gloves. He felt he was tough enough to do hay baling without any gloves, this was despite the fact that they received a new set of gloves each day due to the wear and tear on them.

We all knew that Zoltan must have had a good set of genes. This was both due to his tough attitude but also because Zoltan’s father was also there showing off the rest of the family gene pool. He never seemed to be doing anything important. He was always sitting on top of the hay trailer smoking a cigarette.

Zoltan was actually very tough, he did survive the entire day without any gloves, but unsurprisingly he did not show up to work the rest of the week.

After a discussion about corruption in the EU I had a chat with someone from another country that was a bit further away, she was from Uzbekistan. I did hear that indeed there is corruption in Uzbekistan but that is usually at a government level. She had no personal stories about corruption, neither taking or giving anything for better consideration. Yet it seemed a bit funny that despite all of experience growing up there she could not remember a single incident even from friends or friends of friends.

People never give bribes, rather they sometimes give gifts or they sometimes do favors. If somebody brings in a small envelope with cash in it – that’s a bribe, but if they take me out to an expensive restaurant that is a favor. Not only that, at the bank they have rules that you cannot accept any gifts for a value of greater than 50 euros, but below that is fine, the CEO said so. When the clients gave them gifts of perfume or candy we never changed our minds about giving them a loan, also we shared the gifts within the department.

After I finished speaking with my friend I wasn’t sure if bribes didn’t exist or if the people with whom she worked simply didn’t stay bought.

I was speaking with my colleague Zachary about a recent article about corruption in Europe. The statistics said that 12% of people had experienced corruption in the EU, but oddly there was a higher number in Sweden. I thought that this was a but unusual but my colleague suggested that perhaps people had simply reduced some of the numbers because they looked too awful. He said that assuming the correct age, ie excluding children, that perhaps 100% of the people have experienced corruption. Being the inquisitive, nosy, person I asked for an examples.

Rural development
I personally do not know what the attraction to horses is, but I have heard of more than one person whose ideal job was to have a horse farm. It seems that some countries in the EU have a fairly poor track record of using such rural development funds. My colleague was talking with his ex-girlfriend Mary who did have such a dream and she felt it could be possible with such a grant.

Zachary was a bit skeptical, but Mary was saying that she felt she could make a very good presentation. He said that one of the reasons that these funds were not so effectively used was that in addition to the EU rules other “local” rules and conditions were considered by the people who made such decisions.

Mary did not get her grant this doesn’t prove anything like corruption does exist.

Five door bus
One rather superficial example was about public transportation in Bratislava. It seemed that some new buses were needed and so the exact requirements were made available that companies could make an offer.

It is difficult to say if there was any official preference, but it almost seems that the specifications for the public tender were a copy from one of the bus manufacturers spec sheet. One of the requirements was that each bus had five sets of doors, vehicle weight, length and other technical specifications. Some of the other manufacturers cried fowl as there was only a single manufacturer who currently made such a bus.

The tender was canceled as the conditions did not appear to be fair, transparent and non-discriminatory.

http://spectator.sme.sk/articles/view/49268/3/70m_bus_tender_to_be_scrapped.html

Just a gift
I had read articles about how in Greece since the austerity cuts have been implemented there have been cases where medical care in the hospital may actually require a small “gift” to speed service along.

I was actually very surprised to hear that this has been standard operating procedure for quite some time in other European countries as well, in this case it was Slavakia.

My question “did that change things from all day waits to a one hour wait?

Nah, it is still all day. How much do you pay? I don’t know but you should just ask the nurse they will know what kind and how large the gifts should be.

First impressions
When meeting people for the first time it is always a good idea to be on your best behavior. Just as the saying goes, you never have a second chance to make a first impression. Well in Hungary, just like some other hospitals around the EU apparently when you meet with the doctor for the first time it is quite common to bring a small gift. That is what I heard from a male nurse working in a German hospital. This was the first thing he did when going to the hospital in Hungary he met with the doctor with a gift to help ensure that things went smoothly.

It is good to have friends
I have been told that in the not too distant past if you got pulled over for a speeding ticket, you might have a small chat with the officer who pulls you over. At the end of this discussion, perhaps the two of you could come to an arrangement and might involve a small gift and this little problem would just disappear.

It appears that this particular situation is becoming more and more difficult to change. When the policeman catches a speeder, it is saved in such a way that it cannot be deleted – well on-site. The only people who could do that would probably be back in headquarters and it is a much longer chain of people and the cost to “fix” something small like a speeding ticket is it really is not worth the effort compared to just paying the speeding ticket.

A friend of a friend, or victim in this case, got into a car accident with an intoxicated person and of course the police were involved, pictures were taken, notes were taken probably even a sobriety test was taken. Just to be on the safe side the victim also took a few photos with his phone. The accident went to trial and a very odd coincidence occurred, it seemed that the evidence of the accident was somehow lost.

The victims pictures were not lost and even though they were submitted as evidence it seems that the police did interpret them quite differently. With no other real evidence available the judge ruled against the victim who then had to pay the damages and fines.

What? How is this possible? Well, this took place in a fairly small town, it would of course be possible to appeal the decision, but even that result would probably have the same decision. Only if the case were appealed to the state level would it have a fair chance against “outside” influences.

Yet, if the victim would go through this effort, he would end up in a completely fair venue but there would still be no evidence, the process would have taken years and would have cost even more to get to that point.

Fit for human consumption
I was speaking with a colleague about how things were back home. It is pretty common that everyone has one or more complaints about how things are done at home. I was airing a few of mine but my new consultant managed to remind me how everything is relative. Back home for him he had a story about a food safety department. This department was responsible for testing various food crops such as wheat or corn just to mention a few.

I was told there were certain outcomes that would occur in the course of the testing of the food. When some sort of “gratuity” was not offered to the inspector before the tests were performed the odds of your food passing the tests were pretty negligible. Unsurprisingly when a gratuity was offered the food was always fit for consumption. I started to bring up the “B” word but I didn’t even get a chance when he clarified the situation.

It isn’t a bribe, its a gift.