The German Workplace (Daily Living Part II)

My job in Leipzig is with the City Development Planning department with the City of Leipzig. Their job, in essence, is to prepare plans for specific parts of the city (for instance each block in the city center) and to work with private developers to build the best possible development for the city, its residents and the private developer. They also deal with a lot of European Union programs. The City applies for pretty much every grant they can find through the state and federal governments and the EU.

The reason I chose Leipzig over other (potentially more beautiful) cities in Germany is because up until about 2000 it was a shrinking city, which is what I want to form my master's thesis around. Since then, it has accepted that fact and dealt with it in the context of a post-industrial urban area. These aren't our best pictures we've taken, but this is the building where I work (on the fifth floor next to the large tower not pictured here):

 
 Most of what I do (in addition to data entry) is read through the material the department already has in English and make corrects and additions. This sounds like a simple enough task, but the nuances of the English language are ever so slightly mangled and destroyed by the efforts of the Europeans. For example, seven-line sentences are NOT okay in English. In German, those sentences actually make sense and are (relatively) readable. However, this does not make it okay in English.

The office life in Leipzig is somewhat different than in the US. The dress code is drastically more relaxed than all other offices I've worked in in the States. For instance, I showed up in khakis and a button-down shirt for my first day (which I didn't think was in any sense over the top), but found that I was incredibly over dressed. Turns out, jeans are generally acceptable for everyone except maybe the head of the department. The guy I share an office with, who must be around 40 years old, showed up in ratty jeans and a South African Springbok rugby jersey. He also feels that he must crush every key on the keyboard in order to type anything.

The lack of openness is also quite different here than in the offices I've worked in up until now. In America, nobody (with a few exceptions of course) closes and locks their doors in the middle of the day I feel. We are subdivided like suburbs into two-person offices that are connected via other doors (which are also shut at times). It's taken a little getting use to, but I have learned quite a lot about how German cities are structured and developed, and hopefully I can bring back that information to turn into some kind of thesis!