BMW and Work

I’ll give a brief rundown of how my first week went at BMW. Everyone was up to speed until Tuesday evening when I last posted, so here’s the latest…

On Wednesday, we actually began work and learning. Learning consists of three parts… engineering, culture, and language…

Engineering:

The lab I work in uses a number of means/methods to do their testing. These are basically photography, lasers, and sensors. Using these methods, they can do dynamic testing (cars move/shake) or static testing (cars don’t move). On Wednesday, Micah and I learned the art of photography. To simplify, the idea is to photograph a car before and after forces are placed on it. After comparing the photos, you get an idea of how the car was affected. On Thursday, we saw how a car is analyzed using a scanning laser. On Friday, we worked on placing accelerometers (sensors) on a car and recording results in a dynamic test. Much of the details are beyond me, but I will certainly be learning a lot this year. The tests we use compliment my recent two quarters of class very well.

Culture:

I heard a few things about German work culture before arriving here. Some of the work-culture we studied in class was accurate, and some not so much. Here’s a bit of the culture…

Interaction - BMW has departments that work separately (as in most companies) but they do so within a “get it done as simply and efficiently as possible” schema. This fits the mold I anticipated. There is less red tape baring our department from helping another if they need a test run or a helping hand.

Chain of Command - The hierarchy operates in much the same way. We have a boss/supervisor, but he really doesn’t need to be bogged down by unimportant details. For example, in past companies, I have had flex time just like here. Show up when you want and leave when you want as long as people generally know when you’ll be here and that you get in your hours. The difference here is that I don’t have to record the exact task I accomplish at each interval of the day and how long it took me. In fact, there is no formal recording system. It is very honor system based, which I appreciate very much. SO… at the end of the day, the boss doesn’t see or deal with a work log. He sees results or he doesn’t. People stay or are dismissed based on what they do and not so much how long they hang around the workplace.

Hours – Work 35 a week, and you are gold. No need to sweat so much in a week.

Social Time – This was more of a surprise to me. The day tends to be much more social than I anticipated. I was banking on strict, no-nonsense German work. I have found that the department I am in is very relaxed. The entire day is social time really… as long as work gets done. Most don’t arrive in the office until after 8:00am. At 1:00pm we take lunch. Lunch consists of the feast prepared by one of 12 different food stations. Pasta, Wurst, Bavarian, Pizza, Sea Food, Asian, Steaks, and Greens are the main stations that come to mind. Lunch is BIG. At 2:00pm everyone breaks from lunch to grab a cappuccino (fancy right?). There are at least 20 cappuccino/coffee machines in the Café portion of the cafeteria. After coffee, it’s back to work for another 2 hours before quitting time. I’m cool with this structure.

Fridays – I experienced my first German/Bavarian company Friday. Okay… so every company I’ve worked for in the US has a typically Friday routine… jeans, doughnuts, more social time, and perhaps an early leave. Here was a little different. At 9:00am every Friday, our department does a Weisswurst breakfast. This is Bavarian through and through. Bavaria is known for their Weisswurst. Tradition says it is to be eaten before noon. On Fridays, someone in the department will prepare the weisswurst and perhaps couple of other varieties or wurst. Someone else will bring in large soft pretzels. Every individual is responsible for bringing in his or her own beer of choice. Beer at 9am! What?! It’s 5 o’clock somewhere indeed. I about fell over when I heard we were going to have beer for breakfast! After breakfast, we hit up the labs for a couple hours. At 11 o’clock we took a short 10 minute break for coffee and Kuchen (cake). At 1pm it was lunch. We were out before 4pm.

Colleagues – The co-workers here are very cool. Most are in their early 30s and single. A couple of them are married though. They are all VERY helpful. They will answer any question and will stop what they are doing to help. On Thursday, they invited us to a Biergarten for “Starkbierzeit”. This is a special time in the spring, during lent, where the German brewers brew a special dark beer. It begins on St. Joseph’s feast day (March 19^th) and lasts until Easter. The idea was that the Germans needed a “filling” beer to aid in the fast during lent. We all had a liter of the strong dark beer on Thursday and just enjoyed the company and fresh air for about 5 hours. This isn’t a weekly thing, but every once in a while, they will get together for such a night.

Language:

Every day is a crash course in German language. It is MUCH more difficult to listen to fellow Germans converse in the work environment. I struggle just to pick out words most of the time, especially when someone is speaking “Bayerisch” (the southern Germany dialect). I am getting better though. By September, I should have a pretty keen ear.