Tyskland forum < Are Germans rude??

  • Rudeness in international business...

    innsent av Slettet bruker i Tyskland forum 

    Since I am teaching office clerks, it is a very important part of my lessons to raise awareness for the different approaches in different countries. In international comparison, the "blunt instrument" school of German manners has to be carefully avoided, but it is a very complex matter. You see, in the German companies I myself worked in, there were many upper echelon execs who could and did behave impeccably and had flawless "international" manners- the lower ranks, especially if they were tech support or development guys with an engineering diploma, normally behaved like steamrollers when talking to colleagues from our European offices- they were allowed that in the German company because that´s just what they´re used to.
    Remember that in German, just a "yes" or "no" without any "frills" is not necessarily rude in itself. So our tech guys just adapted that to English and came across as rude b*stards.
    I teach differently for some time now, but I have to admit it´s a bit like trying to teach Asians NOT to smile when embarrassed- well, you get the picture, not that I never tried that one...

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