The Christmas Card

My wife (the German), works for a company that makes a couple of products and sells them across to grocery operations throughout Germany.  This requires a transit situation where pallets are bundled up at the production centered, and a transit company (trucking operation) is hired to pick-up and deliver to stores or grocery warehouses throughout Germany (some even in Austria, the Netherlands, and France).

There's one single transit company which gets the deal, and provides the trucking support.  At Christmas time, they typically send gifts to the product company, and 'warm greetings'....being very happy over their contract. 

So Friday, the wife came home with a gift, and a card from the boss of the trucking company.

Most of the time, these Christmas cards (even in Germany) are fairly routine and maybe a ten-liner talking about the holiday theme, great business, a profitable year, and expectations for the next year.  It's boring stuff.

This card, written by the trucker operation owner...was one of a kind, and not the typical card that you'd expect.

It's about sixty lines....small font because it had to fit onto a card.

So this guy opens with the typical wording (in German)....about the year that passed in Germany, and he carves out a great opening.

Then, he lays out anger and frustration.  Politics has created a stagnant atmosphere.  Politicians can't solve problems anymore.....they've become part of the problems. Schools are in decaying order.  Money is being wasted by the government in record levels.  There aren't any leaders to be found.  The election in September hasn't found a new government yet.  Record levels of tax collection, but there's no clear view of it being spent wisely.  Promises of more trucker rest-stops?  Forgotten history.  Immigrants arriving who turn themselves into terrorists. 

It's a passionate piece.....not really a Christmas card type that you'd expect. He doesn't mention any particular political to blame, and you get the impression that he blames all of the folks sitting in Berlin today.  None of them seem to be concerned with working-class Germans or their needs.  Even at the end of the card.....he doesn't suggest supporting some political party.  He just wants real leaders to show up and represent actual Germans. 

I asked my wife if this was a typical thing, and the answer was 'no'.  Every employee in her company read the card, and noted that they believed exactly what the guy had laid out.  In their mind....at least in terms of business, the economy, and problem-solving....the government, and the political parties all deserve some amount of criticism. 

I am reminded of Macron of France, and how he gave up on representing one party because of the internal mechanism and failures.....so he made up his own party, and shocked the French political establishment by destroying both the center-right and center-left of France.  For years, they had the bulk of votes in the election....and here in 2017....they barely got a total of 20-percent between the two of them combined.  I think a Macron-poker table is being prepared in Germany, and the same political frustration will play out in four years as the next election occurs. 

The card really did say alot within sixty lines of text, and it wasn't the normal Christmas theme that you'd expect.  But it got the message across to the reader.