Arrogant and lazy

German @Arbeitsagentur (job center) employee tells young worker he is arrogant and lazy.

That sour kraut working in a safe government job had a bad day, so we figured we should memorialize the dedicated employee. Few things are more uplifting and motivating to the job seeker than this sort of compassionate assistance.

Here is the story of the young man.

After finishing school, he went straight into a vocational training program, successfully completed it and continued in the same company as a regular employee. He got a little bored and switched to a more demanding company, crisscrossing Germany to troubleshoot their heavy equipment at big construction sites. On the weekends, he works on a big family farm for the fun of it.
The cheapest machines he brought back to life cost around a million euros, not counting the odd 50 euro waterpump repaired during breaks.
Having worked for eight years straight, he decided to go back to school on a one-year program to become a "master craftsman", which you need if you want to have a career beyond age 30 and which you need to open your own company in this field.

He took some of his savings, paid the tuition of about 12 000 dollars, enrolled and did the first part of the program. After the end of the first part, there is a break of just over two months before school continues.

School being out, his official status for two months changes to "unemployed", which means that his eight years of work qualify him for unemployment benefits. The twist is, he has to prove he is looking for work and has to take "acceptable" work if someone wants to hire him. The friendly farmer, having benefited from the enthusiasm of free labor, offers to give him a "mini job" as a farm hand at about 600 dollars a month for the two months.
Armed with the offer, the young man shows up at a mandatory meeting at the Arbeitsagentur. They promptly reject the mini-job because they would have to make up the difference between the mini-job and his unemployment entitlement to the tune of about 900 dollars a month.

Instead, they offer him a full time temp job as an unqualified helper at just over 10 bucks an hour. He would earn less in this job than with the 600 mini-job plus the 900.

He asks if they have better offers, and they come back with two temp company openings at about 20 dollars per hour. One thing you might want to know about German temp companies is they are not as temp as in the US. In most sectors, "temp" in Germany means a commitment of a year or more. Why? Because German industry wants to have their cake (30-50% off on labor) and eat it it too (a stable, reliable workforce).

He talks to company 1, and they like what they hear but decline to hire him when he tells them school resumes in June. Same scenario with company 2.

The job center is not pleased. The advisor tells the young man he should take one of these jobs and arrange for his education differently, just take it up again later.

When he tells the advisor that school has priority and reminds her that he has already completed the first part of almost 4 months, the advisor says: "You are arrogant and lazy."

The young man told us he will take the offer of the mini-job and not bother with the sour krauts any longer.

And yes, we know him well enough to trust his story, and no, we don't know if the job center folks have the same nonexisting quotas as the Brits.

One more thing: Given the German effort to register and regulate, isn't it kind of funny that at a time of a dearth of qualified workers, nobody thinks of sending a welcome letter to freshly minted immigrants along the line of "hey, welcome, you know there is work to be had here".