THE GERMAN AT HOME.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 106, 26 June 1911, Page 5

THE GERMAN AT HOME.

In an interesting article on the “German at Home” in the May number of the “World’s Work,”\ Mr J. H. Collins remarks that the “German business man works abomnially long hours. Ho and his clerks are on hand at eight in the morning after a cup of coffee at home. “At 9.80 everybody stops fifteen minutes to oat a bit of bread and butter, brought in the pocket. At noon, two hours are allowed to go back home for a hearty dinner. In the afternoon another stop for tea or coffee, after which everybody worlds through till eight in the evening; sb that the German business people are catching trams for home and supper about the time English people are going to the theatres. “Even in retail shops and in factories, the pause, or ‘powza’ as it is pronounced in German, is regidly observed. Workmen stop in the morning and afternoon for bread and beer served from their canteens, and every retail simp, large or small, has a place where clerks can warm and eat food.

“At noon, many of the employees find time for a nap at home, and the ‘boss’ almost invariably takes a ‘snooze’ of an hour or so on the sofa, which is a fixture in every private office.

“This habit is so ingrained that in many cases, especially outside of Berlin, business men will halt a transaction at the sacred dinner-hour, to resume after they have eaten and slept. . . .

“The German has a vast assortment of quaint beliefs about his stomach. Food must bo put into it cautiously six or more times a day, and his strict ideas as to what may bo done to the stomach' and what may not load him to condemn our three simple meals. “His stomach guides him in selecting a wife, and its general state after marriage is the latter’s rating of efficiency. Stomach governs German business ways too; for, just as he and his staff are getting on with the day’s work under a good head of steam, the whole machine is stopped for a ‘powsa’ and laboriously steamed up again after each snack, with the outcome that no more real work is done, usually, than in our shorter days. “Five years after a German clerk is hired, he will appear before his employer, click his heels together, bow deeply, and call attention to the fact that ho has been there five years.

“Does ho expect an increase of salary? Not at all! This is merely the German respect for length of service. By doing so, ho politely intimates that he thinks bp must be of some use around the place or ho wouldn’t bo there.

“At the end of ton years, fifteen years, and twenty years the same reminder is given; until, when the twenty-fifth anniversary comes round, the ‘boss’ is looked to for a handsome jubilee dinner.”