Exactly

Recently I have started to notice a really funny thing about german culture. It has not occured to me before and I guess it's just another slight difference between German culture and the Australian/Anglo Irish/English culture that I am used to...

I have noticed it lately in meetings with the use of the word, 'Genau', Germans love this word, it is used on the telphone, when talking to each other, in meetings, by itself. It's a sentence, it's a statement! No you are starting to wonder, what can this word possibly mean? Well if you are not entirely familiar with the German language then it translates to exactly 'Exact'. Exactly.

Usually germans love using this word to create an impression that everything is running to exact specifications, exact dimensions and exactly on time exactly. Well to tell you the truth exactly, not everything is running exactly to exact specifications, exact dimensions and exactly on time exactly. In actual fact this is far from the truth. It seems to me they just like reassuring themselves that this is happening.

I have one example, In a recent meeting with colleagues about a problem, something was going wrong. But at the end of the meeting, we did not really come closer to a solution. However amazingly at the end, everyone was saying, well, all is on track, everything is exactly exact, everything is fine and amazing. This liturally goes on for 13.3 seconds exactly.