GERMANS ARE REALLY REALLY FAST
I did some research about Germans and Germany before I moved there, and it says Germans are really efficient in dealing things. I was actually curious about that, and when I moved there, I found this kind of efficiency could be seen not only at workplaces, but also in grocery stores, mail offices, restaurants, etc..
For example, in German grocery stores like Kaufland, I always saw cashiers quickly scanning and swinging the items to the other side so fast while Germans packing their things so fast as well. They didn’t seem to have enough time to arrange their stuff in the shopping bag properly. I’ve never seen Germans packing things one by one so slowly at the checkout, instead, all I saw was they quickly threw the items into the bag or the shopping cart, and then arranged the items outside of the line after the checkout. This drag-and-drop style of checking out items was really overwhelming to me at first. In Canada, it is completely the opposite, the line is slow, customers are picky about placing items, some Canadians even pick up a chat with the cashier during middle of the checkout. I think if you really did that in Germany, those Germans at the back would really gonna kick your butt off!
Same thing in mail office and phone carrier shops, people working there all seemed so anxious and gathered all the information so swiftly, which made them look like they were up for something else right after. Sometimes it made me feel anxious too, haha.