[Moto7451]

Yup, can second this. Working Students (which is not the same as hiring Interns) was one of the interesting things I’ve gotten to experience as an American working for the parent of a German multinational company that is a well known name brand in Germany.

I can see the culture shock here. Some German states have what amount to technical high schools. If these are Working Students from a mechanical/engineering type school it’s probably simply “different but not wrong.” For the working students they get to put Bosch on their resume and get paid ok for what would probably just count as course credits in the US.

My experience with working for my specific German company (a wildly thin skinned brand so I’ll leave them unnamed so I don’t get fired) is we generally over promise and under deliver at a high price. We seem to sell to large firms that then do the same based on what the local teams tell me. Brand is so powerful that bad deals just get renegotiated, and new contracts can be drawn up to replace the old ones. Even when they’re unhappy with us or we are unhappy with our own suppliers, we all renew each year so long as it’s a German business dealing with a German business. Breaking a contract without remuneration, even if you’re in the right, is seemingly a cultural business sin and that’s when words get sharp and the “take care of me and I’ll take care of you” yearly renewals go away.

Our contracts are wildly complicated and our legal team for Germany inserts poison pills that would hurt ourselves if we needed to shut down an unprofitable line of business. I’m not a lawyer, much less a German lawyer, so I don’t know if this is normal. One of the companies in my portfolio of products has a clauses that would cost the company 3x what the revenue of the product is in penalties. I don’t know why this is there but perhaps it’s part of this seeming social contract between firms.