[Munich-pm] <Rant> Warning to long haired programmers in Munich

Richard Foley richard.foley at rfi.net
Wed Jul 18 02:28:12 PDT 2012


Robin, 

>From your posting:

> The drugs officer was a man, probably going on 40, tanned wearing a t-shirt
> and jeans, with an arm full of friendship bracelets.  He sat diagonally on
> his desk, and asked me in a friendly tone what I was doing here, addressing
> me with the informal “Du“.  I looked at him, waited a couple of seconds, and
> asked “Du?!”.  He was a bit perplexed, and asked if I would rather Du or Sie
> (formal).  I responded “Bleiben wir bitte bei’m Sie” (let’s stay formal).
> During the following conversation he kept on slipping into the informal Du,
> and I had to correct him.  I really don’t know what good-cop-bad-cop game he
> was trying to play, but it was really childish. 
>
It might not have been simply good-cop, bad-cop. There's another side here, and
that is of the Police Officer dealing with the Suspected Criminal. So he's
talking down to you on purpose. He could also be trying to be friendly, and
trying to catch you out with something unexpected while you chat with an
easy-going type, before locking you up, as you suspect. Either, or both, might
be true. I'd lean towards the former though, as I recall when I was dealing
with a Bavarian judge for being pulled up about my naked hiking, (erroneous
charges eventually dismissed by the way), that the judge always said "Du" to
me, even when I addressed him respectfully as "Sie". I felt at the time it was
certainly a way of establishing hierarchy, but didn't think addressing the
judge familiarly would gain me any brownie points...

    ;-)

-- 
Ciao

Richard Foley

http://www.rfi.net/books.html

On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 09:20:02PM +0200, Robin Clarke wrote:
> Being long haired is a bulls-eye for the police in Bavaria.  As is common
> knowledge, all the best programmers carry long hair (with some exceptions -
> Steve ;-P).  Unfortunately it seems that travelling with long hair in Bavaria
> is dangerous.  Please warn any programmers planning on coming to/through Munich
> airport to beware.  Perhaps wrapping their hair in a turban and applying fake
> tan to their face may be a good disguise for safety these days.
> 
> http://www.robinclarke.net/archives/harassment-by-munich-police
> 
> </Rant>
> 
> --
> Best winds,
> -Robin-
> ~:)
> 
> # My Github repository with mostly perl code
> # https://github.com/robin13
> 



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