Saturday, August 16, 2014

A German bestagers invitation (sad & hilarious)

We will explain "bestagers" below, you will see why we could not make sense of the word.

Tut, tut, the German government is fudging unemployment statistics, who would have thought.

The German economy has been doing better than many others, so much better that Germany has been called the economic engine of the Euro zone. Despite this, someone appears to have been unhappy with the already low unemployment numbers and went ahead to improve things.

It turns out that anyone 58 years or older who has been out of work for more than one year is not included in the unemployment rate. This group is about 150 000 strong and has been growing as ageism continues in the K-Land.

It is illegal to discriminate because of age, but, hey, you have to do it to remain competitive, right. How would I react if an employer told me "you are too old"?

I would write them a thank you note.

Yes, a letter expressing gratitude for either being:
1) so open that they merit my best wishes for the future
2) not smart enough to be my employer because they can't keep a secret

What happens if you are out of work long enough to be taken off the regular unemployment benefits roll and be stuck on the means tested benefits regime they call Hartz-IV?
Contrary to the thoughtful statement by the German vice-chancellor "like Hartz-IV, not working but making money", obtaining benefits and maintaining eligibility is equivalent to a couple of days a month, or more if you perform a job search as expected.

Which takes us to the word "bestagers". The official spelling is "best!agers" but because of the vagaries of website addresses and email usernames, it is regularly turned into bestagers and has its own German site bestagers. 

The Germans are using this term for unemployed folks age "50plus". The European Union, on the other hand, feels the appropriate age is 55, with a program of that name targeted at the Baltic region.

Possibly in an effort to try and convince themselves that bestagers is not an insult, the jobcenter of Darmstadt, south of Frankfurt, Germany, sends out invitations to interviews, such as this pretty example of helpful officials (in German).

Einladung (invitation) is rendered in bold type, after all it is an invitation.

The body of the letter has administrative details, such as dress code, address, time, a reminder to bring a print-out of the resume, etc.

Towards the end of the first page, it says "This is an invitation pursuant to paragraph 59, second book of the German social benefits code..."

Next we see a clarification of the invitation, saying "If you fail to follow this invitation without an important reason, your benefits will be cut by 10% for the duration of three months according to paragraph..."

That kind of invitation. 

In our blogging basement -- think of it as the poor man's version of the internet start-up garage -- we call this type of invitation a Tony Soprano Invite.

It fills us with joy to see that German officials have a sense of humor and are up to speed on modern PR and old fashioned wordsmithing. 
 
We found the letter on the website of a trade union initiative for the unemployed. The post about the 50plus "bestagers" program describes it as a chaperoned job interview, where several candidates are invited to an interview and a staffer from bestagers.darmstadt@jobcenter-ge.de takes good care of his charges, ensuring everything runs smoothly.

Here's one thing we failed to understand, though.

The Initiative's author is all upset about the fact that the group of eight or so jobseekers had to assemble at the loading ramp** and selection was done by skilled personnel who did not even look at the resumes.

** Antreten an der Laderampe

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