Vignettes #9

This was shortly after I had finished school. I had started studying German literature and philosophy at the university, and my school pal Wolfgang joined me in my classes, but hadn't really decided yet what he really wanted to study. We both had a few days without any courses, so we decided to go to Erlangen and visit my sister Andrea. At the time she was working for Siemens. Since Nuremberg was close we also planned to visit his dad who worked for the state railroad administration which had its headquarters there.

In those days the German railroad was still completely state-owned, and all employees were civil servants ('Beamte') which in Germany is a quite privileged form of employment with certain tax exemptions, a greater freedom at work, a life-long right to your job, etc.

So one morning at 9am Wolfgang and I were at the Railroad headquarters. We quickly found his dad's office. Although there were 3 desks in the room, he was the only one present. In fact, we hardly had seen anyone in the offices we had passed. He was happy to see us, we had a short polite chat, then he invited the two of us to have something in the canteen.

We went down to the ground floor - it was a huge building, and Wolfgang's dad led the way. We finally arrived, and on opening the doors to the canteen we were greeted by an incredible noise of a mass of people having a good time. It was a tremendously huge hall, and there were at least 1000 people present and hardly room for us three to join in. All of these employees were having the traditional Bavarian 'Brotzeit', a pint of Weizen beer and sausages - at 9am in the morning.

Wolfgang and I were were quite astonished. But while I was thought it was amusing to see how Bavarian culture was ranked higher than work ethics, Wolfgang was considerably impressed. From that day on he decided to become a civil servant like his dad.

And so he did: shortly after he applied and since then he works for the state employment office.