New book: work should not be fun!

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Dave quoted:
> 
> Germans told: work is not fun
>  From Roger Boyes in Berlin
> 
> A YOUNG media entrepreneur is igniting an office revolution 
> in Germany 
> with her bestselling suggestions for bringing Prussian 
> discipline back 
> to the workplace.
> 
> With the German economy in a desperate state, employers are 
> snapping up 
> her book, which banishes table football games, flirting at 
> the sandwich 
> trolley, private e-mailing, idle gossip and English business 
> jargon. The 
> return of the German work ethic has been ordained by Judith Mair, 30, 
> who for three years has been successfully applying the 
> principles in her 
> Cologne-based web design and advertising company.

It may sound draconian, but the Frau seems to be up to something.
Mixing personal with professional in the workplace has usually
disastrous results.  Sexual harassment is but one example.  Nepotism and
old-boy-networks is another.  A professionally-run no-frills agency is a
much better place to work that a folksy place where people divulge their
personal stuff to their co-workers.  In the former, you know what to
expect and what is expected of you, while the latter usually ends in a
personal boundary violations and back-stabbing.

Wojtek