Posts in category Work and employment matters

Put Away Your Checkbook

Mar18
2013 Written by Ruth

Of all the things one can miss about a country after departure, the banking system probably shouldn’t be at the top of the list. For this ex-expat, however, it is actually one of the things I miss about Germany. The banking system there has arrived in the digital age, and North America is left in the dust.

For starters: put away the checkbook. Nobody in Germany has written a check in decades. When I arrived in 2000, checks were already obsolete. I was confused at the time: how do you pay individual people when you don’t have cash? The answer: bank transfers. In those dark ages of the internet, you paid others by filling out a paper Überweisung (transfer) slip, and giving it to your bank (possible via drop-box at most branches). READ MORE »

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues, Miscellaneous, Red tape and bureaucracy, The euro and money matters, Tips, advice, suggestions - Tagged bank accounts, banking, cash cards, checkbook, checking account, girokonto, money transfer, Ruth, überweisung

Luisa Weiss’ Advice for the Expat in Germany

Mar11
2013 Written by jjpark

It’s Monday, but I got to talk to the creator and author behind the popular food blog The Wednesday Chef, Luisa Weiss, last week. She’s also the author of the best-selling memoir, My Berlin Kitchen which came out late last year, and as you may have guessed, she lives in Berlin.

Posted in Book reviews, Daily life, Expat issues, History and culture, Tips, advice, suggestions - Tagged Berlin, expat, expat advice, Expat Blogs, expat family, expat interview, food, Jane, Luisa Weiss, My Berlin Kitchen, The Wednesday Chef, Third Culture Kids, tips, TKC Germany

KiTa Kids

Feb25
2013 Written by Chloe D

We toy sometimes with the idea of returning to the UK (by that we really mean London). For our careers and old friends and family, it can seem very tempting. Very tempting indeed, until we start talking about childcare. Berlin’s plentiful offering of affordable places for children to spend their time is almost unbeatable and it is one aspect, amongst many, which ties us firmly here for now.

Our children have attended KiTa (Kindertagesstätte - nursery school for pre-school children) since they were eighteen months old. They could have started younger – many children in Berlin are sent at 12 months from 9am to 4pm – but for us that seemed too soon. So we were slower: at first, it was only for a couple of hours each morning, and then progressively more, until we found a rhythm that works for them and for our working patterns: three days a week from 9am to 3pm and two days a week from 9am to 12.15pm. They could stay for longer but we are happy to have them at home as much as work allows. READ MORE »

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues, History and culture, Miscellaneous - Tagged Berlin, childcare, children, Chloe, cost of living, KiTas, london, nursery school

German Workers’ Councils Demystified

Feb04
2013 Written by jjpark

I’m taking on a lofty goal by trying to spell out what German Workers’ Councils or Betriebsraete are in 500 words or less, a concept that is often abstract to those of us from countries without them.

The Betriebsrat is a body of employees elected to represent their fellow employees of a for-profit business. These representatives serve on the Council for four-year terms. The Betriebsrat is involved in all decisions relating to employees on the individual as well as collective level. READ MORE »

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues, German language, History and culture, Tips, advice, suggestions - Tagged arbeitsrecht, Betriebsrat, employee rights, German employer, German labor law, Gewerkschaft, Jane, unions, Workers Council

The “Trailing Spouse”

Jan14
2013 Written by JessicaL

It’s hard to believe that I have been living in Europe for nearly six hockey seasons. Though, when I think back to my first year in Germany, and how much I have changed since then, it feels like it could be much longer. Of course making the nearly-spontaneous decision to move to Germany was exciting, but that first year abroad was equally as difficult as it was enjoyable. Aside from learning how to adapt to a new culture and language, it was the change in lifestyle that really took the most adjustment. I had been employed, to some degree, since I was 12 years old. I didn’t know life without work. Just before moving with my then-new boyfriend, to this foreign place called Dusseldorf, I had taken on a great new job; the career kind. I had moved out of my best friend’s basement and got a little house all my own. I bought a brand new car, and everything seemed to be heading in the right direction for me. Little did I know then that within only a matter of months I would quit that job, rent out that house, and tarp up that car on my mom’s driveway. I wasn’t aware of the term at the time, but I was about to become what is known as the “trailing spouse”.

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues, Tips, advice, suggestions - Tagged Germany, JessicaL, marriage, relationships, school, spouse, trailing spouse

Hookers . . . sorry, prostitutes, in Germany.

Dec11
2012 Written by JessicaL

My first trip to Hamburg’s famous Reeperbahn was a bit of shock. I think I can more accurately call it culture shock now though, as I look back at my reaction to the “sinful mile”. Having only been in Hamburg for a few days, after spending the summer in Canada and living the previous two years in Switzerland, the large German city certainly took some getting used to. Specifically the Reeperbahn, with its boldly lit sex shops and strip clubs, mixed in with typical touristy pubs, theaters, and a cop shop; at first glance it was all both amusing, but also confusing. Amusing were the map wielding, walking-shoe adorned tourists, departing from their musical matinee, gasping at the sight of shop windows decked out with ball-gagging manikins. Confusing were the young women lining the side street across from the police station, each placed perfectly six feet from each other, dressed in hot pink and sporting fanny-packs. “Promo girls?” I asked my husband, assuming they were part of some street marketing team. “Not quite” he replied. No, they weren’t in fact selling any products, they were selling themselves. “Hookers” he explained, “sorry, prostitutes.”

Posted in History and culture - Tagged Germany, Hamburg, JessicaL, prostitution, reeperbahn, strip clubs

Expatriates and the cost of living in A, D, CH

Nov29
2012 Written by HF

Expatriates don’t always have a choice of where they’re assigned to work, but they definitely need to know the cost of living in their assignment location. If your salary is paid by a US company, for example, that salary might put you at a huge disadvantage if you are working and living in Tokyo, Japan, which happens to be the most expensive city in the world for expats. (The news for Germany is much better.)

Companies with employees assigned to overseas locations usually offer some sort of cost-of-living allowance to supplement the increased costs. So even if you are going to an overseas location by your own choice, without company support, you need to know how the cost of living there compares to your current or home location. But how do you get that information? One excellent source is the xpatulator.com website, from which we derived the rankings discussed here.

It may surprise you to learn that, except for New York City, Honolulu, Anchorage, San Jose and San Francisco, most cities in the United States of America have a far lower cost of living than places in Asia, Europe, Africa, South America – and even Canada! My own hometown of Reno, Nevada ranks 455th out of 780. Most places in the southern states of the US rank much lower than that. READ MORE »

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues, The euro and money matters, Tips, advice, suggestions - Tagged Austria, Berlin, Bonn, Canada, Cologne, cost calculator, cost of living, euro, Frankfurt, Germany, Hamburg, Hyde, Koln, Munich, Switzerland, USA, Vienna, Wien, Zurich

Berlin’s desk revolution

Jul30
2012 Written by Chloe D

“It’s like being interviewed for a shared flat,” my German friend, the freelance TV producer, says to me one Wednesday morning over one of those pungent Berlin coffees. Having left our laptops gently purring on our dining table desks, we are now sitting outside a local cafe reinvigorating our brains with caffeine and a vitamin-C-laden fruit salad. After three years working from home, the washing machine peeps have interrupted the flow of my friend’s creative juices one time too many and she has finally decided to find herself a real desk in a co-working space.

She is not alone: approximately 80,000 people worldwide are currently using co-working spaces, and Berlin is one of the capitals for it. In the post-financial-crisis digital age, swathes of ambitious young people are shunning traditional careers and looking instead to freelance projects or setting up their own business as alternative paths to professional greatness. And it turns out that not all of these digital nomads are happy to work surrounded by last night’s dirty dishes or with the ever-alluring TV in the corner telling them it really is alright to watching two hours of N-TV (the German new channel) every lunchtime because its ‘educational’. READ MORE »

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues, History and culture, Tips, advice, suggestions - Tagged architecture, Berlin, careers, Chloe, design, freelancing, offices, work

Online Lifelines

Apr09
2012 Written by JessicaL

Remember that time not long ago when long-distance phone calls were reserved for special occasions? Your uncle on the other side of the country would get a nice three minute phone call on his birthday, and your grandmother across the ocean could expect a quick “Merry Christmas” once a year. Oh how far we have come. Now with new cable and internet technologies, long distance communication is no longer the family-gathered-’round-the-phone occasion it once was. Yesterday, as my mother walked me through how to prepare the perfect Easter ham from her respective kitchen miles and miles away via Skype, I considered what it must have been like for expats living so far from their family and friends, just a couple decades ago, before the internet, email, and social media.

Posted in Daily life, Expat issues, History and culture - Tagged communication, education, Jessica, job search, online, phone, Skype, social media

Go Forth and Reproduce

Aug03
2011 Written by Ruth

It’s a fact: Germany needs babies. The generous welfare system of this social democracy needs young people to work hard and pay enough taxes to support the rest of society. One problem: young people are too busy working to bother with raising the next generation of workers. How to solve it? Pay them to reproduce!

Ok, it sounds like really tacky social engineering when I put it that way. Let me try again. READ MORE »

Posted in Expat issues, Miscellaneous, Red tape and bureaucracy, Tips, advice, suggestions - Tagged children, Elterngeld, Kindergeld, maternity leave, parental leave, Ruth, work

sei oder ist ?
hi, gibt es zwischen den zwei Saetzen einen Unterschied? Er denkt er ist ein Arzt oder Er denkt er sei ein Arzt […]
Das word studieren
hi, manchmal verstehe ich nicht wie ich das Wort (studieren) benutzen kann. Also Beispiel : Seit einem Monat mache ich einen Deutschkurs. ... […]
Entsprechen and other dative verbs
OK, so I know understand entsprechen (to correspond to) takes the dative (understandable) es entspricht dem Mann, der hier wohnt. How would you... […]
Laut
When you use laut with the meaning of 'according to' it takes the genitive case. Is this right? This is what I was told but i've since seen it... […]

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Posts in category Work and employment matters

Put Away Your Checkbook

Luisa Weiss’ Advice for the Expat in Germany

KiTa Kids

German Workers’ Councils Demystified

The “Trailing Spouse”

Hookers . . . sorry, prostitutes, in Germany.

Expatriates and the cost of living in A, D, CH

Berlin’s desk revolution

Go Forth and Reproduce

The German Way and More

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Posts in category Work and employment matters

The German Way and More

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International Electronics

Expat Women

Information | Contact

GW on Twitter

Recent Comments

Kalender

Archives

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Blog and website Copyright © 2013 Hyde Flippo