Germans hate travel delays. Hate them. This is because they belong to a culture in which efficiency is prized above all other aspects of society. In Germany, efficiency is king; a cold, unfeeling despot sitting atop a mountain of dead alarm clocks high above the heads of lesser priorities, such as passion, hope or basic human enjoyment of life.
For a German, it’s all about getting from point A to point B, and anything holding up this process is to be regarded with weaponized contempt. Late flights, tardy buses and delayed subway trains drive them absolutely bugshit. And traffic jams? Oh God, traffic jams will rocket their emotional state all the way from Eerily Stoic to Nuclear Wrath.
On an important side note: In German, the letter ‘J’ is pronounced like the English letter ‘Y’ (e.g. ‘John’ becomes ‘Yohn,’ and ‘Jazz’ becomes ‘Yazz.’)
This is why, back in Portland, Oregon, as my wife was attempting to drive west on I-84 during rush hour, she sent me the following photograph and angry text message:
THE WIFE: “I am today in a very bad traffic yam!”
Click here to learn more about the term “Denglish.”
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Oh God, My Wife Is German. 
While I can’t speak to the Germans’ particular distaste for traffic yams, I can honestly say that, despite having heard of “German efficiency” virtually my whole life, I’m continually amazed at how INefficient I’ve found things to be here (at least in Berlin). True, for the most part, the trains run on time — brutally so — but other than that, I continually find myself stunned at the overall inefficiency of everything else. For example, it took us 6 weeks to get our phone/Internet installed. In addition to it taking forever for the tech to come out in the first place, there were 2 problems that required him to come out a total of 3 times: (1) our flat was refurbished just before we rented it and someone (presumably the electrician who installed the lights) somehow thought it would be a good idea to just cut some wires that he didn’t need to complete his work (yep – those were our in-house phone wires); (2) the telco tech who had hooked up service for the previous tenant had used the wrong color wires and only by doing what was the opposite of the standard operating procedure for connecting service was the telco tech who installed our service able to get OUR service up and running. (And, fortunately, OUR telco tech was a “loose cannon” because HE actually tried something that was contrary to standard operating procedure — but I think he was Turkish. Yet another reason why I love the Turks, in addition to their making available the stuff of which hot (scharf) foods can be prepared.) Or another example is our grandson’s school. The kids have lockers at school. The lockers have locks so, theoretically, they kids could leave most of their books at school each night and take home only the books they need for that night’s homework. Nope. That’s not allowed. They can only use the lockers for their coats and boots during the day and EVERY afternoon they must take home EVERY school book they have. Bear in mind that this applies to first graders (and the lower grades in the school in general) and that these loaded book-bags weigh at least 20 pounds and most kids get to school by public transportation or walking. And if you’re a parent (or grandparent) taking your kid (or kidS!) back and forth to school, you have the joy of lugging these things throughout the city. The 6th graders, however, CAN leave their books in their lockers. In other situations, it’s hard to tell whether the absence of the concept of “customer service” is at the heart of inefficiency. Nonetheless, after almost 4 years here, “efficiency” is not a word I still associate with “Germans.”
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Oh yams. What are you doing playing in traffic? Get back in the oven with the brown sugar and marshmallows! (Can you tell it’s holiday casserole time in the Midwest?)
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