Things that don't happen in America

I drove 20 years in America and now I've evolved into a German driver. There are lots of articles online about the way people drive here, and Autobahn etiquette, so I won't go into that.

I only drive the fast lane for brief periods as that lane belongs to the BMWs and Audis*. But every morning I can be seen there racing annoying foreigners (ahem, I'm one of those) and this morning I was listening to VNV Nation and enjoying the feeling of flying along at slightly less than 100MPH.

Then I saw a cop car in the slow lane and hit my brakes for a moment, did a quick mental note of where exactly I was, reminded myself there is in fact no speed limit on this portion of A1, and continued, leaving the cop car behind me very quickly.

It struck me as funny because 20 years of driving in America, I've never blown by a cop like that.

Some groups want to impose a speed limit on the entire Autobahn system, but Germans are to their speed like Americans are to their guns. No way.

* - You simply must see this Audi commercial if you're a trekkie.

UPDATE --- This is one of the few moments of my 12 years of blogging that someone has recongized the music I have referenced. Since that happened, I must post a link to the song and its lyrics (you can actually hear the song, isn't that nice? GEMA has not forbidden it forever, punishing me and my German locale?) Here is that song I was listening to at the time. Click the mini-youtube video to play the song.

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I've switched from working for American software companies to a European one. Germans love to use English to enhance their expressions during meetings, they use the same buzzwords that Americans do, just sometimes awkwardly, and mispronounced.

I'm sensitive to cussing, but it's different here. For example, sh**! can be heard in church, it's just not that bad of a word, both the English and German version.

It's also considered very cool to use the F word, ours, in Germany. (The Germans have a very similar F word, but so far I've never heard it at work.) I'm used to hearing developers shout it as they work, but in America I'd never heard it used in all-hands meetings.

Twice now I've been in an all-hands meeting and one of the board members, yah, a director, has used the F word to flavor his message. This time it was something like, "We call that client our f-ing whiniest." Ha, ha, everyone laughed. I was one of 3 Americans in the room, and probably the only one who was offended by the unprofessionalism of it, and to me, it's offensive and immature.

Recently a dev called something I wrote "complete BS" (in English). You know, cussing in a foreign language is never as intense, cuz it's not your own swear word. But I think my colleagues should think about this - you're using some of my land's worst words, as if they're not that bad.

I don't know how many of my readers are in the software industry, but I'm curious if things have changed in the last 6 years to where this is normal now. Is using the F word common in meetings where the CEO and other directors are present?

Funnily, I sometimes hear colleagues saying "Darnit!" when they spill coffee or something, and where else could they have picked that up but from me? I should watch my mouth. Mr Rogers' worst expletive? "Mercy!" Way to go Mr Rogers.