7/27/2019 Druckversion - Bureaucracy Gone Awry: The German Certificate Fetish - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

1/2

26/09/11 01:49Druckversion - Bureaucracy Gone Awry: The German Certificate Fetish - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Pgina 1 de 2http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,druck-417486,00.html

05/22/2006 04:15 PM

Bureaucracy Gone Awry

The German Certificate FetishHeaven for Germans is filled with orderly rows of binders. Collecting and storing

certificates documenting every aspect of life is a national pastime. And if you

don't have the right one, you may not exist.

How many pages does a basic job application really need to

be? A cover letter. A resume. A couple of recommendations

maybe. That's it, right?

Think again.

While much of the world tries to avoid major harm to theworld's forests when looking for work, Germany casts its

environmental-mindedness aside. Here, applications for jobs

from high-level CEO right down to entry-level data-entry

positions look more like Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks" than

Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha," and often stretch desktop

publishing software to the limit. Why the extra heft?

Applications in Germany need certificates documenting almost

every year of an applicant's life from the moment he or she entered elementary school

until the moment the application is signed -- including the language, computer and

motivational courses completed in between.

And it's not just job applications. University students, taxpayers, home owners, visa

applicants -- virtually everyone who has any contact with officialdom -- has to possess

advanced organizational skills to keep the avalanche of paper scraps under control.

Germans are simply obsessed with paperwork to prove prior experience. Certificates are

holy. And if you don't have a signed, stamped document proving that you have received

training in -- say -- slopping paint on the side of a house, or entering numbers in Excel,

then you simply don't know how to do it.

The obsession has its positive side. Germans are masters at keeping track of their

own official, written lives. Hardly a household in the country doesn't have a walldedicated to the almost mythic Leitz Ordner-- the German two-ring equivalent of the

three-ring binder -- holding documentary evidence of virtually every bill ever paid, every

official step taken.

Even university students, typically crammed into less than roomy digs, have to sacrifice

valuable space to the Leitz Ordnergods. While many of the binders do keep valuable

academic research material from the sinkhole of entropy, organizing the vast array of

certificates necessary to actually graduate from university is a concern of at least equal

importance. For each class completed, students receive a small piece of paper to prove

it. Prior to final exams, the certificates must be presented to the "exam office" which

then grants students allowance to sit the tests.

DDP

The German binder fetish is a

direct result of the German

certificate fetish.

http://www.spiegel.de/

7/27/2019 Druckversion - Bureaucracy Gone Awry: The German Certificate Fetish - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

2/2

26/09/11 01:49Druckversion - Bureaucracy Gone Awry: The German Certificate Fetish - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Pgina 2 de 2http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,druck-417486,00.html

SPIEGEL ONLINE 2006

All Rights Reserved

Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH

Away from the ivory tower, things don't get much better. Practically everywhere you turn

as a resident of Germany, you'll be asked for your Meldebescheinigung -- the police

issued slip of paper providing evidence of where you live. Without it you can forget about

such day-to-day banalities as opening a bank account, renting "Das Boot" at the local

video store, or checking out the "Idiot's Guide to Resume Writing" at the public library.

But be careful. Just having read the "Idiot's Guide" doesn't qualify you for an official

looking certificate proving that you're able to write resumes. And when it comes togetting that peach of a job in Berlin, it's the certificates that are important. Buy a scale

instead. The more heft the better.

cgh

URL:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,417486,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,417486,00.html