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Comment by suction | Hacker News Reader

As a German person, this and so many other stories about customer - business relations gone awry or lost in miscommunication, I sometimes want to scream at the monitor, "why the hell wouldn't you get that in writing???"

The same goes for many work situations where the boss suddenly lowers the pay or fires someone for not filling in last minute for another employee calling in sick on a weekend. How is that possible? Don't you Americans value written contracts?

I am often annoyed by the amount of paperwork needed to make my life go smoothly, from work to private matters to whatever - but the times I was glad I could just point to a written and signed, extremely detailed contract which is the only thing that matters should things ever get in front of a judge, easily make up for the tedious writing and reading of contracts beforehand.

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> As a German person

It's not about anybody's nationality. If one does good work, one does good work.

In any country, there's always going to be lots of smart people and lots of not-so-smart people.

Big screw ups happen everywhere, even in Germany [1].

> Don't you Americans value written contracts?

Americans value written contacts. A lot of things do go according to plan in America (as well as Germany I hope).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9935980

>> As a German person

> It's not about anybody's nationality.

I don't think 'suction' wanted to imply it'd be about nationality, but rather about culture. Germans are known to be very orderly and doing business with Germans often becomes very (!) contractual. And they will happily slap you the contract around your ears, should you miss/neglect the one or other point, that has been written down.

Source: I am from Germany and knew people, who did business with Germans, and that's exactly what they said.

Maybe I should have said "as a person being used to German standards of doing business", would that have made you less defensive?

> would that have made you less defensive?

Loaded question fallacy [1]. Can't say yes or no without putting myself in a bad light.

I know I was the one who brought it up (and I'm sorry), but I won't make further comments about the "German standards of doing business", because I suspect it'll not lead to any productive discussion.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question

OK, apology accepted. To address your url, I am not sure how the disastrous execution of the Berlin airport construction is a counterpoint to my claim that there is very little legal work going on here (and surely other EU countries) without detailed, written contracts. Whoever was at least partly responsible for the Berlin problems was or will be sued, be penalised, and have to suffer the consequences of their mistakes or shortcomings. Because whoever worked on it had to sign binding contracts. This isn't the wild west, after all.

Yeah mate. Thanks. Have a great day.

Is this how you talk to people in real life?

>work situations ... Don't you Americans value written contracts?

No, certainly not for employment.

Employment in the US is, by in large, "at will." This means either the employer or the employee can terminate the relationship for any [non-illegal] reason or no reason at all. Literally at any time.

In practice this means the employee just has to deal with the whims of the employer.

How can anyone plan their future if their work situation is so insecure, i.e. have a family, get a mortgage, etc.?

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