The Greeks and the Germans

Over the past year....the Greeks have kinda been in the background of Germany.  After the full-blown Greek economic crisis....Greece ended up on its knees.  They'd basically screwed up....dozens of times....and kept telling folks over two decades of great numbers...when they weren't any great numbers.  The Germans gave their typical view of how to fix things, and the Greeks objected.

This week....the Irish came around to admitting they were in bad economic times....for differing reasons from the Greeks.  The Greeks decided to pop up and blame Germany on the rise in borrowing costs going on in Europe.

I stopped and pondered over the typical difference between Germans and Greeks.  I've spent two weeks of my life in Greece, and fifteen years in Germany.  I admit I know more on Germans, but I've had a chance to observe Greeks and make a few observations.

Greeks tend to have a family view of success.  If you do well...you ought to share in your success with your brother, your cousin, your uncle, etc.  For a German, it's a singular view of success.  A German doesn't typically share his fortune or get the family into his successful restaurant business.  On the other hand, a Greek also shares his misfortunes and lack of success also with the family....which the German doesn't typically do.

Greeks and Germans both have an expectation of the government taking care of them.  The difference between the two is that Germans have a price-tag attached to the bill and can tell you where the breaking point is.  The Greeks don't know the price....don't care about the price....and will just spend on and on until someone mentions that they've pretty much spent every single penny they had.

Laziness?  Well....yeah.  Germans are this breed that hates any element of laziness.  You can note them in the yard on a Saturday morning....spending time to trim everything and make it all appear proper.  Germans put effort into a project.  The Greeks?  They tend to need a bit of encouragement....then a bit more encouragement....and then a bit more of encouragement.

For a Greek....tomorrow is another day and if we've got work left....then it's not a big deal to continue on with a project.  For a German....you wrap up the project today and don't waste time on what could be accomplished today.

If you got into a war situation....the Greeks would all eventually argue about tactics or discipline or life in the barracks.  The Germans would have the map and expect each goal of the day to be accomplished, then you could talk about strategy or things you hate.

These are two very different societies, and it's almost amusing watching the two debate on things because they just can't see eye to eye on anything.  Germans learn from screw-ups and Greeks tend to discuss the screw-ups but never get to a lesson's learned stage.

I'm pretty sure that the fat lady hasn't sung on this mess....and we'll just get more of complaining between the two.