Before my arrival in Germany, I had a romanticized view of the country and its culture. Being a German minor at Rollins, I developed a passion for the language and ultimately thought that I would succeed in Germany without too much culture shock or home sickness. During the past few months in Munich, however, I have been confronted with cultural misunderstandings and frustrations which I never would have considered about Germany before studying abroad. Stereotypes about the German people tend to revolve around a supposed cold or aloof demeanor, generalizations in which I tried my hardest to steer away from. Unfortunately, I caught myself thinking in terms of these stereotypes while dining at the Hirschgarten, the world\u2019s largest Biergarten. The German waiter who served a friend and I would not make eye contact, or even look at us while taking our order. He seemed generally disinterested in acknowledging us, which I found slightly disrespectful based on my cultural background of dining in the United States. I notice that German employees often appear unfriendly to me, but my feelings are simply an example of cultural differences manifesting themselves. As a service worker in America, I was taught to smile at every customer I served and be as polite and friendly as possible, in short, I was trained to believe that \u201cthe customer is always right\u201d. In Germany, work culture and customer service are very different because work is simply viewed as a task, not as an opportunity to befriend or appease customers. When I encounter German service workers, I acknowledge these differences and try not to let these interactions get to me on a personal level. I also respect that Germans do their jobs properly, though there may be cultural differences surrounding the idea of service. I believe that work culture in the United States could benefit from the German approach to work, which may reduce the stress of workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before my arrival in Germany, I had a romanticized view of the country and its culture. Being a German minor at Rollins, I developed a passion for the language and ultimately thought that I would succeed in Germany without too much culture shock or home sickness. During the past few months in Munich, however, I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[369],"class_list":["post-20796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jym","tag-rollinsabroad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20799,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20796\/revisions\/20799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}