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Discovering German joys

Posted on July 4, 2005July 4, 2005 by Surya

Came across this wonderful piece by Andrew Hammel in German joys via Washington Monthly via Venk@.

As someone who used to think working 12 hours a day and then some more on the weekends was pretty normal, I can easily say the one thing that took me the longest to adjust to here was the “work/life balance”. I am a total subscriber to it now, but the passage wasn’t easy and there is still the odd day or two when I send email after email after phone call asking the same question, emphasising the urgency of the situation – until I pester someone into responding. I could not agree more with Andrew Hammel’s advice, which applies not just to Americans moving to Europe, but pretty much anyone not used to working less than 40 hours a week:

I don’t want to quote the whole thing, but heres a brief. But do scoot over to get the real thing.

* Don’t brag to other people about how hard you work. [..]
* Learn your environment. [..]
* Change your standards. [..]

[..]enjoy your free time! [..] spend lots of time with their friends and family, they pursue hobbies much more complex than catching up on all the episodes of Sex & the City, they visit museums, read complex books, drink a whole lot, go to parties, fairs, and circuses, and take lots of vacations.

And I have discovered a wonderful blog – a fellow Duesseldorfer too – boy! its made my day!

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Related posts:

  1. A good read : Economist’s survey on International Banking
  2. Wien The Wonderful
  3. Discovering Dusseldorf – Part I

2 thoughts on “Discovering German joys”

  1. Venkat says:
    July 5, 2005 at 6:40 am

    Looks like you have already read it! Will probably do so today…

  2. Madan says:
    July 5, 2005 at 1:50 pm

    Very ture..Indians work less and enjoy less. We do everything in moderation. Enjoying and Partying after a hard days work is a sin in our country. Attitude matters. Thanks for the post and German Joy Blog.

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