Do you know Fridays?
Well, of course you know Fridays. What I mean is do you know this phenomenon of decreasing productivity as people are mentally getting ready for the weekend.
Well… in the former East Germany, they had a nice expression for it:
“Freitag nach eins macht jeder seins.”
It translates to “Friday after 1 (pm), everyone does their own thing.” and it basically expresses that you shouldn’t expect any actual work to be done. In fact, most government offices do close on Friday at 12 to do paperwork. Or just have a coffee.
Seriously, people normally don’t stop working in Germany after 1 pm on Fridays. We have capitalism now, after all. Everyone is super motivated to grind.
But it’s definitely a fun expression to use if you have German coworkers or a German boss.