It’s Election Time!

This is election season in Germany, at least for local politics.  Some German states had their elections a couple of weeks ago.  Berlin’s election is a couple of Sundays from now.  (Yes, Sundays, so everyone can have the time to vote.)

Politics may be all the same, but elections in Germany are so vastly different from at home in the United States.

In the U.S., you basically have the Republicans and Democrats battling it out.

Rally with Pirate Party and other minority parties at Brandenburg Gate.

Here in Germany, you have the “main” parties, the SDP (Social Democrats) CDU/SDU (Christian Democratic Union/Social Democratic Union), but those parties generally can’t get things done unless they form coalitions with the smaller, minority parties.  Those include the Greens, the party with an environmental focus.

Whew!  Social studies lesson over.

What’s interesting is what I stumbled across the other day in Berlin:  A rally with several of the minority parties TOGETHER.  The Greens, the Pirate Party (yes, Pirate Party — they’re pro free and open internet) and more.

Can you imagine if the Republicans and the Democrats decided to rally together because they agreed on an issue??  It seems so crazy in U.S. terms.  But I think it’s great.  Coalitions at their best.

Did Somebody Say Mittagessen?

Do you remember the beginning of “The Flintstones,” when the boss pulls the tail of the bird, which sounds the horn to signal work is over?  And Fred Flintstone slides down the tale of his work dinosaur as he yells “Yabba dabba doo!!” and hightails it out of there?

That is what lunchtime is like in the German newsroom.  Or at least at the one I’m working at in Hamburg.

At home, around 12:30 in the afternoon, you can generally find editors and reporters around.  They often eat at their desks, plugging along.  (Yes, legally, they are supposed to take a break.  But no one really does.  I’m guilty of it myself.)

But in this German newsroom, it’s like a mass exodus around noon or 12:30pm.  The newsroom empties out.  Completely. It’s elbow-to-elbow at the cafeteria.  The line for food stretches to the door.  The air is filled with excited chatter from the crammed tables.

It’s what the Germans call “Mittagessen.”  Or as Americans call it, “lunch.”

One German reporter jokingly told me that this is the one time of day that they can stop and talk to each other and bounce ideas off each other.  (And have someone’s full attention because you’ve got them cornered at the lunch table.)

He has a point.

Taking an hour out of the middle of the day breaks up the workday.  It gives your brain a rest so it can be more creative later, when you’re cranking out that story on deadline.

It really makes sense.  It’s one part of German life that I wish more American journalists would take up.  And if we do, I promise I won’t yell “Yabba dabba doo” when it’s time to head to lunch.  But I most certainly will be thinking that in my head!

Waiting for the Butterfly

Germany is my cocoon.  Sort of.

I am doing the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship in Germany.  It is a two-month fellowship designed to allow journalists from the United States and Germany to work in each others’ countries.

I get asked quite a bit, “Um, what exactly IS a fellowship?”  I think people have this vision in their minds of people sitting around a campfire, singing “Kumbaya” and making peace signs with two fingers.  Yes, that’s fellowship.  But that’s not the kind of fellowship I’m doing.

A journalism fellowship generally gives you a chance to learn something new to help with your reporting.  Some fellowships call in experts on a certain topic so you can learn new info to help you find new stories.  But others allow for travel so you can see your job through a different lens.

That’s what the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship is.  You work for a host news outlet, but you also work on your own stories, acting as a short-term foreign correspondent.

But it seems that more often that not, people who do travel fellowships are at a point in their careers or their lives where they need a bit of time to gather their thoughts and gather their energy to move on to bigger and greater things.  The fellowship sort of acts as a cocoon for an emerging butterfly.

The fellowship doesn’t become so much about the work that you are doing, even though it is very interesting and really adds to your understanding of the world.  (And as a result, creates a better, more well-rounded reporter.)  But the fellowship becomes more about your interaction with the people in your host country.  What they say and what you learn from them about life in general becomes the most important part of the experience.

Talking to people about work-life balance or dating or even an unhappy workplace nets advice and insight that you would have never gotten without the fellowship experience.  It gives you a chance to be that little kid, asking questions about everything.  It gives you the silk you need to weave your cocoon and grow.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever have gotten was during a fellowship in Austria last year.  A co-worker during my fellowship told me that if you don’t like your work environment or situation, you need to take the initiative yourself to change it — that YOU have the power.  Want to see your co-workers more?  Invite them over for dinner.  Want to bond as a reporting team and your work won’t create the opportunities to do that?  Create them yourself.  (Maybe organize an outing to a local county fair or whatever.)

I don’t think that co-worker even realized the impact she had.  But those words sunk into my cocoon.  I felt empowered for the first time in years.  Those words (and the words and advice of others during that same trip) gave me the energy to make changes to create life I wanted, even if the changes were baby steps or if the decisions would be tough.

Those words and that Austrian cocoon are what propelled me into the baby butterfly who quit her job and flew into the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship in Germany a year later, ready to spin another cocoon and move on to something even greater.

It’s another cocoon and another opportunity to fly.