“That’s such an American attitude!” my friend said, giving me a hostile look. For a moment I wondered if our cozy rendezvous in an Erfurt café was coming to a sudden end. All I’d done was offer a friendly suggestion, but it was one that clearly went against everything she believed in.
Nadine (not her real name) had been talking about her job, which is handling paperwork at a bank. A recent merger meant that the future of her job might be uncertain. So I asked if there wasn’t some kind of training she could get to become more valuable to the company — and possibly earn more money in a better position.
“Of course there is,” she said, “but why would I want to do that? I love the job I do now. It’s the perfect work environment. I love the people I work with. And it’s all very flexible. I can take any day off, and not just in advance. I can call in in the morning and take the same day off, as long as someone else is there to do the work.
“Why would I want more money?” she continued. “I have a nice apartment, take lots of vacations and travel wherever I want. What’s wrong with that?”
That’s when she accused me of having an American attitude. My belief in being prepared for a changing economy came across as an inability to appreciate what one has, and a desire to always have more. I was being lumped in with Dick Cheney, who seemed worried that his net worth of $160 million wouldn’t be enough, and Donald Trump, who, despite being worth billions, still goes to a job where he doesn’t do anything except earn more money.
If there was an American attitude in my mind, it was the product of those people at the opposite end of the scale: the Walmart employees who were asked to put work before family, and the Twinkie makers who were asked to earn less and less while the cost of living continued to increase. Even though I live in Germany, I work in an industry with an uncertain future and have to plan for my own survival. I’m sure others do, too.
So while I was in Erfurt, I got a second opinion. Another friend of mine, who like Nadine grew up in eastern Germany, is a journalist, and a very good one, except that he hasn’t been able to find a steady job in his chosen profession. I’ve known Christoph (not his real name) for several years, and I’ve seen this eat away at him. So when he confided that he’d been offered a job doing something completely different, I was very happy for him.
Christoph wasn’t sure it was right. To him it was a last resort, almost an admission of failure. But I saw it differently, and told him so. “This is your chance to get some real-world experience,” I said, “to talk to real people and hear their stories. You will be an even better journalist after this. It will show in your writing.”
He thought about this, and his whole expression changed. “You’re right,” he said, relaxing. “I feel a lot better about this now. I’ll do this for a couple of years and see where it takes me.” Again, American thinking — taking a lateral and, if necessary, indirect approach to things — but this time it got a very different response.
My journey to the East gave me a lot to think about. Nadine does have the perfect life, the one the rest of us aspire to. The question is whether we can ever stop aspiring and actually live that life. Maybe Christoph will be able to do that someday — and I hope I can as well.
Language note: Journey to the East is the English title of Hermann Hesse’s Die Morgenlandfahrt, in which the author’s travels bring him new insights.
