When I grow up I want to be a lift manufcaturer, like Koni or Otis (aside: did you know that Otis have their UK headquarters in Reading. This makes for a very uneasy conversation if you ever call them, as the receptionist answers the phone, "OTIS READING, how may I help". Calls related to sitting and the dock of the bay are not well received). The reason that I would like to be a lift manufacturer when I am grown up will become apparent from the following.
Schindler's Lift.
Every time I venture to and from my office I take the lift (lazy, yes, but I work on the 10th floor and my old legs aren't what they used to be). Usually there is noone else to share this journey and I can occupy the time regarding my self narcissitcally in the mirror which it seems it is obligatory to fit in modern elevators (maybe to give the impression that it is bigger than it really is, a kind of tardis effect, in fact if you read the maximum load recommendations you would be forgiven for assuming that the lift is twice its actual size ? up to 22 persons! I think getting 10 anorexic supermodels in would be a feat, never mind 22 leather clad, sausage eating mustascheod Hermans). But occasionally I share my ride with my co-workers, and often they are German.
Now the Germans love efficiency more than anything else (if the truth be known they operate only on negatives so in actual fact they hate inefficiency more than anything else) and what is more inefficienct that waiting for the doors of a lift to close? So whereas I get into the lift, and press the button for the 10th floor (or ground floor depending on which way I'm going) and then pause to say goodbye before I get on with the business of preening in the mirror. Your german cannot abide this and they feel compelled to press the close door button (usually labelled ><) to save that fraction of a second they would have to wait for the doors to close unprovoked. This is not just a casual automatic response, it is a serious time saving efficiency drive on the part of all Germans, to the extent that I have been the last to enter a lift on a couple of occaisions and have hit the 10th floor button, but not the ><>
So now you can see why I want to be a lift manufaturer, either to make lifts that don't have such a button. Far better still to make lifts that have a button labelled ><>
I might even have a novelty where if the button is pressed twice, a voice chimes 'Patience is a virtue', see how you like that Fritz!
In a moment of ponderance, maybe while waiting for the lift doors to close I ran through some quick caluclations. The average German works 46 weeks a year 5 days a week, they have 13 bank holidays and about 10 days sick leave. They probably make six elevator journeys per day, and save about a half second each journey by pushing the >< second =" 621">
While we are on the subject, if you happen to drive past Northampton on the M1 you may notice a tall tower on the outskirts of the city. Now call it rumour, call it urban myth, but I have it on good authority that this building is actually a research facility for all things elevator related. This is where the next generation of lifts will be developed and tested. Maybe they are, as you read this, developing a special feature for the german market where the doors slam closed the instant someone is inside. Or perhaps they have perfected the specifc rendition of Greensleeves played on pan-pipes that will drive humans insane while travelling between neighbouring floors.
Another phenomenon of german lift culture is the Lift Tschüs (Tschüs means Cheerio, Toodle-ooo, See ya). Now when Helmut is walking down the street the very last thing on his mind is saying hello to strangers, he is no more about to tip his hat, twirl his mustache and muse on the vagaries of the weather than he is to buy a British car. He is a focussed automaton. And he will not take kindly to you interupting his spazieren. His demeanour does not change when his journey requirres vertical movement. He gets in the lift presses the button for his floor (presses the ><>
Friday, July 16, 2004
Monday, March 01, 2004
Wo ist die Küche?
Having just signed a contract on an apartment in Düsseldorf I feel that there are a number of considerations I should warn you about. Good thing: Usually the bills are included in the rent price, or Warmmiete as they like to say over here, hurrah, no council tax, no heating bills, no electricity or communal area maintenance bills hurrah! Bad thing: everything else.
Generally apartments (and houses) are rented unfurnished, properties equipped with 70?s brown sofas and flock wallpaper tend to command twice the price of a bare equivalent. But renter beware unfurnished means UNFURNISHED, no curtains, no light fittings, everything but the kitchen sink is removed. No wait a minute they took that too. Yes it?s true. When Klaus and Katrin move out of their apartment (maybe because Klaus jr is on the way) they dismantle and remove the kitchen! How much of a pain in the A55 is that?
I have been trying to figure this one out, how did this become the norm? (Fortunately they leave the bathroom suite intact.)
I see a number of problems: i) your kitchen is designed to fit into the room, the right number of cupboards to fit along the wall, etc. what is the likelihood that the apartment you move to has the same size and shape of Kitchen (although I wouldn?t put it past the Germans to come up with standard kitchen sizes that home builders must adhere to. ?Ve haf vays of makeeng your kitchen fit.?). So your lovely kitchen suite doesn?t fit your kitchen. And when you tried to buy an additional cupboard to fit the larger room you found MFI no longer stock your kitchen in light oak, so you will have to settle for beech. Now you have a patchwork kitchen suite.
ii) Inconvenience. I have seen kitchens being installed and I can attest that whilst they are engineered to be simple to construct, the gap between theory and practice is large. Now I don?t know whether German kitchen manufactures go for more of a Lego type approach, but if not the thought of taking the kitchen apart, packing it up, and rebuilding it seems like the worst job ever (especially to a DIY-ophobe like me) Of course if they do opt for the Lego approach this could make moving far simpler as you could dismantle your kitchen and rebuild it into a large truck to move the rest of your possessions in.
iii) More inconvenience. When moving into a property your average first time renter is faced with the task of installing a kitchen. Now I am sure that you can get Pogenpohl or Smallbone of Devises to do you a nice custom job, but generally even a small kitchen, plus appliances runs to several thousand euros. And how long does Joe KitchenFitter take to install your kitchen? Probably longer than you want to wait (10 minutes).
iv) Relationship stress. So Hans and Gretel each live alone, fall in love at some beer festival or other and decide to get a place together. Now they face the biggest trial of their relationship, one which no British couple has to face, thank god. Whose kitchen should they install in the new pad? Of course if it were in Britain the answer is obvious, Hans (if he even had a kitchen and not just a bin for empty take away boxes) wouldn?t really care, its not like he?d be spending any time there. But remember where we are. The country whose language has no word for compromise (apart from ?die Kompromisslösung?, but notice it has the word ?lösung? in there so roughly translated this means ?he who compromises loses?, probably).
I envisage Hans and Gretel standing infront of all their combined kitchen units picking one thing at a time, much like junior school football captains choosing teams. I pity the poor cutlery drawer that doen?t make the cut.
Needless to say I went out of my way to find that most illusive of properties, the unfurnished flat with Kitchen.
Generally apartments (and houses) are rented unfurnished, properties equipped with 70?s brown sofas and flock wallpaper tend to command twice the price of a bare equivalent. But renter beware unfurnished means UNFURNISHED, no curtains, no light fittings, everything but the kitchen sink is removed. No wait a minute they took that too. Yes it?s true. When Klaus and Katrin move out of their apartment (maybe because Klaus jr is on the way) they dismantle and remove the kitchen! How much of a pain in the A55 is that?
I have been trying to figure this one out, how did this become the norm? (Fortunately they leave the bathroom suite intact.)
I see a number of problems: i) your kitchen is designed to fit into the room, the right number of cupboards to fit along the wall, etc. what is the likelihood that the apartment you move to has the same size and shape of Kitchen (although I wouldn?t put it past the Germans to come up with standard kitchen sizes that home builders must adhere to. ?Ve haf vays of makeeng your kitchen fit.?). So your lovely kitchen suite doesn?t fit your kitchen. And when you tried to buy an additional cupboard to fit the larger room you found MFI no longer stock your kitchen in light oak, so you will have to settle for beech. Now you have a patchwork kitchen suite.
ii) Inconvenience. I have seen kitchens being installed and I can attest that whilst they are engineered to be simple to construct, the gap between theory and practice is large. Now I don?t know whether German kitchen manufactures go for more of a Lego type approach, but if not the thought of taking the kitchen apart, packing it up, and rebuilding it seems like the worst job ever (especially to a DIY-ophobe like me) Of course if they do opt for the Lego approach this could make moving far simpler as you could dismantle your kitchen and rebuild it into a large truck to move the rest of your possessions in.
iii) More inconvenience. When moving into a property your average first time renter is faced with the task of installing a kitchen. Now I am sure that you can get Pogenpohl or Smallbone of Devises to do you a nice custom job, but generally even a small kitchen, plus appliances runs to several thousand euros. And how long does Joe KitchenFitter take to install your kitchen? Probably longer than you want to wait (10 minutes).
iv) Relationship stress. So Hans and Gretel each live alone, fall in love at some beer festival or other and decide to get a place together. Now they face the biggest trial of their relationship, one which no British couple has to face, thank god. Whose kitchen should they install in the new pad? Of course if it were in Britain the answer is obvious, Hans (if he even had a kitchen and not just a bin for empty take away boxes) wouldn?t really care, its not like he?d be spending any time there. But remember where we are. The country whose language has no word for compromise (apart from ?die Kompromisslösung?, but notice it has the word ?lösung? in there so roughly translated this means ?he who compromises loses?, probably).
I envisage Hans and Gretel standing infront of all their combined kitchen units picking one thing at a time, much like junior school football captains choosing teams. I pity the poor cutlery drawer that doen?t make the cut.
Needless to say I went out of my way to find that most illusive of properties, the unfurnished flat with Kitchen.
Friday, January 23, 2004
Its oh so quiet
Now I live on a little residential cul-de-sac bearing the tongue-twisting name of (At Cherry Tree Wood). Now even the Germans have difficulty saying the name and given the number of expatriate employees living there it ought to be renamed KleineAuslandStraße, but I digress.
The thing about At Cherry Tree Wood, is that it is very quiet, the population is composed of young(ish) professionals and some small young families. The place is bristling with Mercedes and Audi A2s. If you had the inclination to sit staring out of the window, you could count the hourly activity on the fingers of, well, one finger, probably.
There is a sign as you enter the neighbourhood, which indicates that the area is restricted.
This means:
No buses ? ok, we don?t want big smelly buses zooming up and down our residential streets, making it unsafe for the kids to practice their?(remind me to tell you about my Brave New Welt theory).. so no buses, that?s fine.
No taxis! well call me old fashioned, but when I live 3 or so kilometers from the city centre and, okay - let?s say, my Mercedes is being serviced, then I would quite like a taxi to pick me up. Not to mention take me home. I am not sure how this works, whether the taxi driver will take you as far as the edge of the deregulated zone, and then offer a shrug and a ?more than my licence?s worth, Guv.? Leaving you to complete the rest of the journey on foot.
If you were to walk a few streets on from At Cherry Tree Wood, you would find a street named Sturzelburgerstrasse (I kid you not), now this place makes my street look like the M25; they even have a sign to indicate ?No bikes?! It must have been murder living on Sturzelburgerstrasse before this restriction was imposed, think of the idyllic scene one Sunday, everyone out washing their Mercedes, until the silence is shattered by some crazed hooligan riding their bike, with its squeaky crank, up and down the street. I would have to move house.
Spokey-dokes are outlawed throughout Germany!
I have ventured no farther in this direction, for fear of encountering a ?No Nikes? sign and having to make my way home barefoot? on tippy toes? avoiding the cracks in the pavement? and fallen leaves.
The thing about At Cherry Tree Wood, is that it is very quiet, the population is composed of young(ish) professionals and some small young families. The place is bristling with Mercedes and Audi A2s. If you had the inclination to sit staring out of the window, you could count the hourly activity on the fingers of, well, one finger, probably.
There is a sign as you enter the neighbourhood, which indicates that the area is restricted.
This means:
No buses ? ok, we don?t want big smelly buses zooming up and down our residential streets, making it unsafe for the kids to practice their?(remind me to tell you about my Brave New Welt theory).. so no buses, that?s fine.
No taxis! well call me old fashioned, but when I live 3 or so kilometers from the city centre and, okay - let?s say, my Mercedes is being serviced, then I would quite like a taxi to pick me up. Not to mention take me home. I am not sure how this works, whether the taxi driver will take you as far as the edge of the deregulated zone, and then offer a shrug and a ?more than my licence?s worth, Guv.? Leaving you to complete the rest of the journey on foot.
If you were to walk a few streets on from At Cherry Tree Wood, you would find a street named Sturzelburgerstrasse (I kid you not), now this place makes my street look like the M25; they even have a sign to indicate ?No bikes?! It must have been murder living on Sturzelburgerstrasse before this restriction was imposed, think of the idyllic scene one Sunday, everyone out washing their Mercedes, until the silence is shattered by some crazed hooligan riding their bike, with its squeaky crank, up and down the street. I would have to move house.
Spokey-dokes are outlawed throughout Germany!
I have ventured no farther in this direction, for fear of encountering a ?No Nikes? sign and having to make my way home barefoot? on tippy toes? avoiding the cracks in the pavement? and fallen leaves.
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