German car companies: No christmas vacation for workers

[Rogue 9]

Wait.

Some German companies give employees more than a WEEK off for Christmas?

Americans get like...one day off. Maybe two. And we're supposed to be the Christian fundy nation. I'd like to file a complaint with the appropriate authority.

My work shuts down on the 23rd and doesn't start back up again until January 3rd. Of course, they force us to use our vacation time during the shutdown unless we want to come in and do maintenance work.

[Rogue 9]

Wait.

Some German companies give employees more than a WEEK off for Christmas?

Americans get like...one day off. Maybe two. And we're supposed to be the Christian fundy nation. I'd like to file a complaint with the appropriate authority.

My work shuts down on the 23rd and doesn't start back up again until January 3rd. Of course, they force us to use our vacation time during the shutdown unless we want to come in and do maintenance work.

Addendum: They force us to use our vacation time, of which we only get six days a year to begin with. And it doesn't start accumulating (at a rate of half a day per month) until you've been at work six months. I haven't been there six months, which means that over the shutdown I simply don't get paid. However, my manager's usually pretty good about letting me switch days off around, so I'm going to see if I can work between Christmas and the new year and take the days off later.

[Colonel Olrik]

My company closes between the 23rd and the 10th. Armed guards surrounding the facility ensure no young engineer tries to get in. Me, I took vacations from the 19th on, in order to be home for my mother's birthday. Still 25 days of vacation left to take next year.

[His Divine Shadow]

You haven't lived till you've been in Rome, Paris and the Rhine cities.

I've been to two of those three, and Naples in lieu of Rome. I could throw in Stockholm, Oslo, uhhh....some Finnish islands(I was like 6, bite me), Copenhagen, Luxembourg, Mons, and London. Outside of Europe I've been to Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Bahrain, Oman, Dubai, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Seychelles, Various Garden Spots of Central Asia,various Canadian/Mexican locations, and Japan(well, Okinawa). I've been to more states than I care to sit down and figure out(and I am speaking terms of visiting them, not "passing through"). At the risk of tooting my own horn, I'm pretty goddamn well traveled for a 28 year old American, and I mean in sights I've seen not mileage I've traveled.

As it is I am halfway a fulltime college student, a fulltime employee, my company sends me to technical training early and often(get paid for that too), I am in a quasi-relationship, and my idea of outdoor recreation is to drive 2-3 hours west into the mountains and wander around old forestry roads, with government travel at least once a quarter. Once my "rollover" vacation/company holiday/sick leave hours extend past a certain point(and they inevitably do) I get them banked at the end of the year, so it isn't as if they are disappearing into the aether. My boss knows that I am extremely reliable and I have persistently gotten payraises in the 10% range annually, in a small company of under 100(I'm employee #50) this is no mean feat. Unlike most American males(without a college degree) my age I am approaching the 6 digit mark in my savings account(although a large chunk of that is cash dating from my time in the navy), not counting my 401k. While everyone else in this country is worried about social security and retiring around 70, I'm going to have been futzing around doing pretty much what I please for years and years before then.

I guess if I were to boil it down: I do not feel that I am "wasting" the vacation, and I do not feel that I "haven't lived".

EDIT: *Feel, even

Maybe it's me but I haven't traveled anywhere foreign except to Sweden & Estonia a few times and once to Düsseldorf on bussiness, I can't say traveling interests me in the slightest, don't feel like I haven't lived either. Will goto egypt after christmas, to please my GF who likes to travel as well as visit my parents who own an apartment there, personally I have many other things I'd like to spend my tax return on but you give some, take some.

Someday I want to go to the USA though.

[Thanas]

More promising signs for the German economy.

See what happens when a country is actually run properly instead of the hokey-pokey banking bailout money printing monkey business that nearly every other country insists on doing?

Of course I still say you guys should renounce the Euro, go back to the Deutsche Mark and tell the countries leeching off your economy to go die in a fire.

I'd say you were sarcastic but given your past track record I am not so sure.

You haven't lived till you've been in Rome, Paris and the Rhine cities.

I've been to two of those three, and Naples in lieu of Rome. I could throw in Stockholm, Oslo, uhhh....some Finnish islands(I was like 6, bite me), Copenhagen, Luxembourg, Mons, and London. Outside of Europe I've been to Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Bahrain, Oman, Dubai, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Seychelles, Various Garden Spots of Central Asia,various Canadian/Mexican locations, and Japan(well, Okinawa). I've been to more states than I care to sit down and figure out(and I am speaking terms of visiting them, not "passing through"). At the risk of tooting my own horn, I'm pretty goddamn well traveled for a 28 year old American, and I mean in sights I've seen not mileage I've traveled.

Yeah, that is pretty impressive. But have you been there for more than a port visit? Because properly visiting takes at least five or six days each.

[J]

See what happens when a country is actually run properly instead of the hokey-pokey banking bailout money printing monkey business that nearly every other country insists on doing?

Of course I still say you guys should renounce the Euro, go back to the Deutsche Mark and tell the countries leeching off your economy to go die in a fire.

I'd say you were sarcastic but given your past track record I am not so sure.

I'm being entirely serious on the first part. On the second part, not entirely serious but with a kernel of serious.

Besides, most Germans want their Deutsche Mark back.
Linky and excerpt:

The row emerged as a new poll showed nearly 60 percent of Germans wish they had the mighty Deutschmark back in their pockets and purses instead of the euro.

The latest poll for the ARD TV broadcaster also showed that 66 percent of Germans fear that the current financial crisis will torpedo their savings.

While 57 percent want the D-mark back, only 32 percent said they found anything positive about the common currency.

The last euro survey earlier in the year - before Greece and Ireland meltdowns - showed 51 percent wanting the mark back.

And seventy five percent believe that it is the financial markets and not the politicians who will decide the eventual fate of the troubled euro.

This is the highest percentage of Germans wanting the D-mark to return since several polls in the 1990's showed close to 70 percent of them wanted to retain the currency of the 'economic miracle.'

The zone's financial stability is still far from certain and many analysts believe the crisis will worsen before it gets better

Which may be why Germans are hoarding gold & silver.
Linky & excerpt

"Germany cannot keep paying for bail-outs without going bankrupt itself," said Professor Wilhelm Hankel, of Frankfurt University. "This is frightening people. You cannot find a bank safe deposit box in Germany because every single one has already been taken and stuffed with gold and silver. It is like an underground Switzerland within our borders. People have terrible memories of 1948 and 1923 when they lost their savings."

But that's getting a bit off topic.

[Zaune]

Using the Daily Mail as a source? Way to nuke your own credibility from orbit, pal.

[Lonestar]

Yeah, that is pretty impressive. But have you been there for more than a port visit? Because properly visiting takes at least five or six days each.

Port Visits tend to be in the area of a week.

[Thanas]

^Impressive.

And J, you better stop now before you make more of a fool out of yourself.

[J]

And J, you better stop now before you make more of a fool out of yourself.

I'll be serious when you Germanains stop hoarding gold!

---

Putting on my serious banker hat, the Euro works for the benefit of Germany at the present but it cannot be expected to do so indefinitely. When, not if, when the rest of the PIGS come looking for bailouts, the monetary outflows from Germany will exceed the inflows from increased trade & manufacturing sales. This is at the mininum, a $500+ billion problem, not counting any of the CDSs and derivatives which are held by your banks. Also keep in mind that the majority of bailout costs will fall on your nation's shoulders, you will pay your nation's share plus a part of everyone elses' share since they're too poor to pay for it and you and France are the only ones with any real amount of money left.

Until the proposed European Stability Mechanism goes into effect sometime in mid 2013 the full costs of all these bailouts will fall upon the taxpayers. If the bond yields and CDS spreads are accurate, and they usually are, the PIGS do not have another two and half years. The problem then becomes this; will the citizens of France & Germany tolerate further bailouts for insolvent countries, will they be willing to pay higher taxes and work more to support what they may perceive as lazy freeloading countries? And if they won't tolerate it, can they be convinced to do so by the politicians? We already saw some rumblings leading up to the Greek bailout earlier this year, we're likely to see more of the same or worse when future bailouts are considered.

We've run the analysis at my work (unfortunately I can't share the details until some of the data & sources we used becomes publically available, or unless someone gives it to WikiLeaks) and it shows the core EU nations will be better of if they abandon the Euro and return to their own currencies. The PIGS and parts of Eastern Europe are dead as a doorknob but they would be anyone even if the Euro is retained, it just takes longer and drags down a few more countries. The ideal case was retaining the Euro and forcibly resolving the PIGS as per the ESM proposals, except carried out immediately instead of sometime during or after 2013.

[The Kernel]

I honestly can't imagine anything more important than getting plenty of vacation time to spend with friends, family, and doing interesting things--I'd accept a salary 1/3rd lower if it meant I got 2 months of paid vacation a year as is quite common in many European countries. Your attitude just seems utterly foreign, and more than a bit terrifying that I'd be held to your standards in the workplace, which is one of the reasons I remain interested in moving to Europe on completion of my degrees.

It's not just a difference of 1/3 you are dealing with here, getting into upper management (which is the difference between making $100k a year and $300k a year) means showing people that you are not only willing to put in the hours but to actually produce serious revenue for the company. That means that you don't take long vacations and you make sure that you are always there to babysit your projects. If you're happy working regular hours and getting regular vacations then there is nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn't expect to get promoted based on sheer merit that way.

That being said, it's not like I don't have any downtime. I still managed to get in close to 20 ski days last year on the weekends and I should be able to do the same this year. There are also other ways I can makeup for the hours I work (I live 3 minutes from work for example so I don't have the 2 hour round trip commute that a lot of my coworkers have to deal with).

If being in the office 4% more days of the year is a significant factor in that, you are working for a shitty company that I wouldn't want to be a VP of. Good job performance in senior roles relies on quality over quantity even moreso than programming.

Actually it's about quality AND quantity, and a good candidate for upper management can do both. I don't skip vacations just to keep up appearances, I do it because I proactively have several projects that I'm working on in unison and I can't afford to leave and have the quality of these releases slip.

You can say that there is no way to produce quality products without taking regular vacations but I've taken a total of 5 or 6 vacation days in four years and the products I produce are performing strongly in the marketplace.

And I'm not an engineer, I'm a product manager. Which means that if there are engineers working on my products, I need to be in the office.

[Dahak]

Unfortunately I am not sure if I will have my 2 weeks holidays between 24th and 6th of January, because maybe, just maybe some crazy guy in Spain will give the Go-Live for a new system (without testing, of course, but that's just details...).
Almost every company in Germany basically forces the people to take their holidays in one way or the other. And that does include management positions, too.
Maybe it's the work culture, but it is generally accepted that any project will happily continue working without some persons for a week or two. Might be a bit tough on the self-importance of american-style management...

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The Kernel: Well, if that's really that important to you in life. But personally I was thinking of the difference between a 70k salary and a 48k a year salary as being something perfectly acceptable. I'd consider it quite reasonable to start my career at 48k a year instead of the higher figure, and max out at 80 - 85k a year or so at most if that meant I could reliably count on 2-months of paid vacation a year plus bank holidays, adjusted for inflation, of course. That's time with children and loved ones and traveling and exploring you're just not going to get back, and not going to be able to reliably do in retirement due to the vagarities of old age, either. I have no real desire to ever be in management, either, I'd rather move on to research and university teaching positions instead, and that part truly is just a difference in life philosophy.

[Thanas]

And J, you better stop now before you make more of a fool out of yourself.

I'll be serious when you Germanains stop hoarding gold!

We really do not. Sensationalist reporting. Most Germans actually have diversified holdings and a lot of the gold stuffed in boxes is actually in the form of family jewels, which many Germans do not keep at home.

---

Putting on my serious banker hat, the Euro works for the benefit of Germany at the present but it cannot be expected to do so indefinitely. When, not if, when the rest of the PIGS come looking for bailouts, the monetary outflows from Germany will exceed the inflows from increased trade & manufacturing sales. This is at the mininum, a $500+ billion problem, not counting any of the CDSs and derivatives which are held by your banks. Also keep in mind that the majority of bailout costs will fall on your nation's shoulders, you will pay your nation's share plus a part of everyone elses' share since they're too poor to pay for it and you and France are the only ones with any real amount of money left.

*snip*

We've run the analysis at my work (unfortunately I can't share the details until some of the data & sources we used becomes publically available, or unless someone gives it to WikiLeaks) and it shows the core EU nations will be better of if they abandon the Euro and return to their own currencies. The PIGS and parts of Eastern Europe are dead as a doorknob but they would be anyone even if the Euro is retained, it just takes longer and drags down a few more countries. The ideal case was retaining the Euro and forcibly resolving the PIGS as per the ESM proposals, except carried out immediately instead of sometime during or after 2013.

Bull.

A) We will not abandon Europe, not after sixty years of work on it.
B) Dissolving the Euro essentially kills any hope of a unified Europe, as well as any hope of reaping future benefits from it. It is exactly the kind of idiotic shortsighted analysis which got us into this mess - it does not consider any of the strategic needs of the nation.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Maybe it's the work culture, but it is generally accepted that any project will happily continue working without some persons for a week or two. Might be a bit tough on the self-importance of american-style management...

At the very least it's somewhat of a management hubris to think that their physical presence will be needed all the time. If your project collapses in a week without constant on-the-site supervision, it may be sign of other problems like poor employee morale due to unsatisfying working conditions (i.e. the Dilbert syndrome), which have a huge impact on productivity on any area that requires creativity or basically anything else than manual labor.

[J]

A) We will not abandon Europe, not after sixty years of work on it.

We worked so long and hard on it, therefore it will not fail! Lovely logic I must say.

B) Dissolving the Euro essentially kills any hope of a unified Europe, as well as any hope of reaping future benefits from it. It is exactly the kind of idiotic shortsighted analysis which got us into this mess - it does not consider any of the strategic needs of the nation.

There are benefits now and in the longer term future, the problem is the next 1-6 years where the cost of failing countries on the periphery falls upon the centre of Europe. You believe the Eurozone can and must hold together through the turmoils, I would like to see it hold together as well but do not believe it can do so. The current systems & policies in place do not allow for the proper resolution of sovereign debts & defaults, nor do they adequately account for the differing economies in Europe. The ESM can do that, but that's in 2013 at the earliest and the PIGS won't last that long.

As the recession, defaults and bailouts continue the current system will be sorely tested and I believe it will fail, there simply isn't enough money & productivity in place to cover the potential losses. Assuming no derivatives & CDSs are blown up (a hopelessly optimistic assumption) it's a $2-3 trillion problem for the PIGS alone, add another $1 trillion for Eastern Europe (Austrian banks for example hold an amount equal to around 70% of the country's GDP in EE debts on their balance sheets, counting the off-sheet level 2&3 assets it's around 250%). If the CDS & derivatives are triggered, add a zero to the end of those numbers.

[Thanas]

A) We will not abandon Europe, not after sixty years of work on it.

We worked so long and hard on it, therefore it will not fail! Lovely logic I must say.

Woosh. Sound of point missing your head. The European integration is so far along that nothing will stop it now, certainly not this small (in comparison) crisis.

There are benefits now and in the longer term future, the problem is the next 1-6 years where the cost of failing countries on the periphery falls upon the centre of Europe. You believe the Eurozone can and must hold together through the turmoils, I would like to see it hold together as well but do not believe it can do so. The current systems & policies in place do not allow for the proper resolution of sovereign debts & defaults, nor do they adequately account for the differing economies in Europe. The ESM can do that, but that's in 2013 at the earliest and the PIGS won't last that long.

As the recession, defaults and bailouts continue the current system will be sorely tested and I believe it will fail, there simply isn't enough money & productivity in place to cover the potential losses. Assuming no derivatives & CDSs are blown up (a hopelessly optimistic assumption) it's a $2-3 trillion problem for the PIGS alone, add another $1 trillion for Eastern Europe (Austrian banks for example hold an amount equal to around 70% of the country's GDP in EE debts on their balance sheets, counting the off-sheet level 2&3 assets it's around 250%). If the CDS & derivatives are triggered, add a zero to the end of those numbers.

I am willing to bet good money on the continued existence of the Eurozone. Are you? Or is this another topic where you put on big airs but are not willing to put your money where the mouth is, like every time where you screamed about a big recession and were mistaken?

[J]

I am willing to bet good money on the continued existence of the Eurozone. Are you? Or is this another topic where you put on big airs but are not willing to put your money where the mouth is, like every time where you screamed about a big recession and were mistaken?

So instead of trying to refute my points...your response is to make a bet and claim that my prior claims of a big recession are mistaken. Are you for real?

[Thanas]

So instead of trying to refute my points...your response is to make a bet and claim that my prior claims of a big recession are mistaken. Are you for real?

Yes, unlike you. Your past responses to any crisis all read the same - maximum doom and gloom, little substance and pretty much just biased copy/paste works. I see no interest in debating someone who is always wrong, nor to have faith in their analysis. Heck, your oil predictions are just massive sources of amusement and you can be very thankful you did not use your real name with these, because I do know a few professionals who are greatly anticipating every new release of you. You have become something of a comedy icon in our economics department.

[J]

Yes, unlike you. Your past responses to any crisis all read the same - maximum doom and gloom, little substance and pretty much just biased copy/paste works. I see no interest in debating someone who is always wrong, nor to have faith in their analysis.

Let's see, I correctly predicted the failure of WaMu & Wachovia, how TARP/EESA would be one of the largest abuses of government powers in US history, failure of QE, zombie Ireland waiting to fail, consequences of a Greek bailout, among others. I admit I missed on how much government intervention the markets would tolerate without revolting.

Heck, your oil predictions are just massive sources of amusement and you can be very thankful you did not use your real name with these, because I do know a few professionals who are greatly anticipating every new release of you.

Saved from an oil supply crisis by demand collapse due to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It still doesn't change the geology or the supply picture.

You have become something of a comedy icon in our economics department.

Would this be the economics department which believes the Euro is the hardest currency in existence?

[Thanas]

Let's see, I correctly predicted the failure of WaMu & Wachovia, how TARP/EESA would be one of the largest abuses of government powers in US history, failure of QE, zombie Ireland waiting to fail, consequences of a Greek bailout, among others. I admit I missed on how much government intervention the markets would tolerate without revolting.

....and so far, none of your real doom and gloom predictions have come to pass. You are correct in details, but the big picture less so.

Would this be the economics department which believes the Euro is the hardest currency in existence?

Don't believe so.

[J]

....and so far, none of your real doom and gloom predictions have come to pass. You are correct in details, but the big picture less so.

That would be the government intervention part. I did not think it would be possible for ~$30 trillion of bailouts & guarantees to be handed out (of which around $7-8 trillion has been drawn upon to date) without the bond and currency markets putting an end to it. Now that I'm in the financial industry I understand why this is so (the backdoor bailouts & support from central banks are far more extensive than I could ever imagine), I did not have a full grasp of it before. It's still early in the game and there's a long way to go, it's delayed events for a while but unless the bad debts are cleared the end result doesn't change. It's merely paying one credit card with another, the bill still comes due eventually and then it's either pay it or default.

[Phantasee]

Guardian

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has warned for the first time that her country could abandon the euro if she fails in her contested campaign to establish a new regime for the single currency, the Guardian has learned.

At an EU summit in Brussels at the end of October that was dominated by the euro crisis and wrangling over whether to bail out Ireland, Merkel became embroiled in a row with the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, according to participants at the event's Thursday dinner.

Merkel's central aim, which she achieved, was to win agreement on re-opening the Lisbon treaty so a permanent system of bailout funding and investor losses could be established to deal with debt crises that have laid Greece and Ireland low and are threatening Portugal and Spain. The Germans also called for bailed-out countries to lose voting rights in EU councils.

At the Brussels dinner on 28 October attended by 27 EU heads of government or state, the presidents of the European commission and council, and the head of the European Central Bank, witnesses said Papandreou accused Merkel of tabling proposals that were "undemocratic".

"If this is the sort of club the euro is becoming, perhaps Germany should leave," Merkel replied, according to non-German government figures at the dinner. It was the first time in the 10 months since the euro was plunged into a fight for its survival that Germany, the EU's economic powerhouse and the lynchpin of the euro's viability, had suggested that quitting the currency is an option, however unlikely.

Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert would not comment on her remarks today. But the threat, he said, was "not plausible. The chancellor sees the euro as the central European project, wants to secure and defend it and the government is not at all thinking of leaving it," he said. "Germany is unconditionally and resolutely committed to the euro."

Despite overwhelming opposition to her calls for depriving eurozone countries of their EU votes if they need to be bailed out, Merkel stuck to her guns on the issue at the summit, while conceding that the proposal would not feature at another summit in Brussels in two weeks' time.

She argued that under the Lisbon treaty, which came into force a year ago, EU member states can have their voting rights suspended if deemed guilty of gross human rights violations. "If this is possible for human rights infringements, the same degree of seriousness needs to be awarded to the euro," Merkel told the summit, according to the witnesses. She shelved the demand for suspension of voting, however, but won the argument on more limited change of the treaty to enable a "permanent crisis mechanism" to be established for the currency from mid-2013. This was rechristened the European stability Mechanism at last Sunday's emergency meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels which decided on an €85bn (£72bn) bailout for Ireland.

Insisting on the loss of votes would have outraged most other EU governments. The Lisbon treaty would have needed renegotiation, opening a pandora's box of possible referendums in Ireland, the Czech Republic, and Britain, and placing immense strain on the EU's survival.

EU finance ministers are to meet again early next week ahead of the summit on 16-17 December. The mood in Brussels is febrile and there have been rumours of another extraordinary summit or session of finance ministers this weekend.

Officials said today there were "no plans" for a weekend session. But it is virtually taken for granted that Portugal will need to be bailed out and the €750bn rescue fund agreed in May may need to be increased as insurance against a Spanish emergency. Two EU ambassadors told the Guardian Portugal would need to be rescued very soon, despite repeated public statements to the contrary.

The summit in two weeks' time, said a senior European diplomat, would be preoccupied with the treaty change needed for a permanent bailout mechanism to be established when the €750bn fund expires in mid-2013. "The real question is, is there enough in the fund? If not, how much more do we need?" the diplomat added.

"Portugal will need to be saved. The big issue is Spain," said another senior diplomat.

Since the euro crisis erupted this year with Greece heading for sovereign debt default until it was bailed out in May, Merkel has repeatedly insisted that the primacy of politics over the financial markets has to be restored. That has yet to happen as Europe's leaders flail around in a mood of worsening "panic and despair", according to diplomats and officials in Brussels.

The current phase in the crisis started when Merkel and the French president Nicolas Sarkozy met in mid-October and delivered an ultimatum to the other 25 EU leaders: the treaty would be reopened and a permanent rescue system created which would entail "haircuts" or losses for creditors and investors if eurozone countries need to be bailed out.

Although this is to take place only from 2013, the markets took fright at the scale of potential bond losses, pushed Ireland's borrowing costs ruinously high, and forced last week's bailout of the Irish.

Diplomats, analysts, and officials generally agree that Merkel is right to focus on "moral hazard", insisting that the markets and not only governments and taxpayers have to share the losses if a eurozone country implodes. But her timing could not have been worse, they add.

I thought this was interesting.

[Dahak]

A) We will not abandon Europe, not after sixty years of work on it.

If an idea fails or is about to fail, why should you be duty-bound to drag the corpse on? Just because it took 60 years to get to this point doesn't mean it's above dissolution.
Not that the EU is there (yet), but should we as a state do better getting out than staying in, I don't see the point. Besides, of course, "it took so long to build it".

[wautd]

The American attitude on vacations is utterly retarded due to the productivity losses that result from it. It would save money if we had productivity per hour closer to that of Norway--27.6% higher than we currently do--and correspondingly cut working hours by 27.6% per year. Yes, that's right, with the right working culture, and sufficient worker productivity, the United States could have a 30-hour work week, with salaries 25% per hour, so that everyone made the same amount of money... And productivity would be the same. Except that corporate profits would actually increase, because electricity, cleaning, and other plant operational costs would decline for any business which does not have to be open 24/7 to start with.

+ more days off = more time of spending your money = good for the economy. Everybody wins