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Comment by JauntyHatAngle | Hacker News Reader

I don't see any evidence you've provided to show present day Germans are not efficient as a tendency.

Anecdotally, from working and living in Germany, I've very much noticed that Germans are better with time management, and work shorter hours and get more done compared with my home country (Australia).

I'd be surprised to see contrary evidence, though it's certainly a possibility. But the article you linked does not appear to demonstrate much of substance in terms of present day productivity.

Stereotypes can be damaging, sure, but when discussing certain aspects of a culture they can be true and based on cultural norms. I don't think we should broadly dismiss them when used in the right context, and not in a discriminatory fashion.

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Spaniard here. Stereotypes are bullshit.

- We are not lazy.

- Not everyone in the country does siesta. We just have lunch.

- There is no Sun everywhere. The North is rainier than the UK. And the sky is as much as gray, if not more.

- There is no Mediterranean climate everywhere.

- Catholicism plummeted since Franco's death.

I think you may have misunderstood my post somewhat.

But to respond directly to you, a stereotype typecasting an entire country to lazy is damaging and not particularly useful unless you want to insult someone.

However handwaving away trends in cultures as a stereotype can also result in missing important facets, e.g. Burn out in Japanese work culture.

Are Germans more "efficient"? Idk, let's look at some data and try to nut out whether it checks out.

If it is, would be nice to know what aspects make it so. Though it's usually not simple.

In terms of productivity per worker, Germany does pretty well.

My guess is that because there are all sorts of limits on how much people can work (there are lots of holidays here) so the industries that tend to survive are those that are highly automated, and have high productivity per worker.

My feeling is that productivity-per-worker is essentially a political choice. Low skill, low automation labour is inherently unproductive, but it's also flexible and it doesn't require any strategic direction from the state. High skill high automation jobs are very productive, but they are brittle - if the market moves, all that skill and tooling becomes worthless.

The German (also Japanese) approach isn't all sunshine and rainbows, though. In Germany, for example, a pack of ten paracetamol costs like four euros. That's about a 100x markup from what paracetamol actually costs. This is because in Germany, pharmacies are protected from competition, to preserve the sector. The same is true of taxis, for example.

>Are Germans more "efficient"? Idk, let's look at some data and try to nut out whether it checks out.

It's more complex than that. In Spain the "presentismo" (being in-place ,in your office, phisically in your seat) it's taken from the middle manager/boss as a religion. Thus, productiviy is halved even if we work even more than you than average.

And, yes, OFC, this was a big issue because of the Covid and remote work over the internet.

> Not everyone in the country does siesta. We just have lunch.

Obviously nothing is universal. But to an American visiting Spain the hours of operation there are striking! I only visited Madrid and Sevilla, but I found that restaurants and many stores were open much later than I was accustomed to (my hometown mostly shuts down around 8pm or 9pm, for example), and the fact that anything was closed around lunch was very odd! It definitely gave a fun "flavor" to my trip that was quite different from, say, Singapore.

That's because of Franco's timezone shift: we were shifted to GMT+1 because the fascist dictator loved Germany. Odd because the Greenwich meridian crosses half of Spain in Aragon.

Not really. The difference between eastern Spain and southern France is already striking and they are on the same meridian and same timezone. Its not hard for me to see a shop that closes at 9pm in Spain, then move 50km north and find exactly the same brand shop closing at 6pm in France (E.g. fnac), practically with midday sun on summer.

Lately France is getting a bit more of the delay too, with shops opening at 10 and closing at 19.

>Lately France is getting a bit more of the delay too, with shops opening at 10 and closing at 19.

Technically we should be on GMT, not GMT+1. Then we aren't that far from France.

I think it's informative to look at the location of a place within a timezone. Between the eastern and the western edge of a timezone you can have more than an hour of shift in daylight (in the broader zones), of course people's rhythms will be shifted.

From working with Germans, I have not noticed any real difference in work patterns or efficiency compared to my home country (France). I doubt there's much variance accross Europe as a whole. It seems their reputation in that respect is empty. Though I've notice cultural traits that do have some reality behind it (being sticklers for rules).

As a German living outside of Germany for 15 years I have an interesting perspective on this:

The rule-following in a work setting is all about risk mitigation and rules tend to help with that. Similarly for following established processes. I know this is pretty annoying but at least I'd argue the status of work is transparent and the outcome reliable (even if it may take a long time because too many hypotheticals were considered). The unstructured working style of the US can certainly drive a German a bit crazy at times :)

In a social setting rules are also enforced to ensure that you don't negatively impact the personal enjoyment of others. For example, no mowing your lawn on Sundays so everyone can enjoy a quiet peaceful day. No talking loudly at your table in a restaurant so you don't bother the other diners etc

Compared to the US I find Germans and French to be fairly similar with the difference being that French are more relaxed in attitude but definitely complain even more than Germans haha

Right, this sort of thing is difficult because it's not evidence based. It's entirely subjective and anecdotal as compared to your past experiences in Australia, or mine in my own home country.

You come from a country where trains are ALWAYS VERY LATE, Germany is efficient because the trains are just a little late.

You come from a country where the trains are ALWAYS ON TIME, Germany is inefficient because the trains are just a little late.

What I do think is interesting is that people think German's are efficient. Where does that come from? That's what the article is about.

To be clear, I've looked at these assumptions before as a comparison, and from the sources I read at the time, Germany did have less hours compared to Australia, by a lot.

Social studies have too many variables to strongly conclude exactly why, and I'm not coming out with great sources here (om phone), but it does appear that Germany works far less than Australia, US, Mexico etc.

https://www.instarem.com/blog/are-you-working-more-than-you-...

Some of it is likely wealth. But some of it is definitely cultural attitudes to work.

Modern Spain has a problem of workers overworking, if I recall.

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