As a child, my parents would dispense nuggets of important wisdom through various sayings. One of their favourites was “I want never gets”, which was offered up any time I forgot to politely ask for something. Should I request something with the polite “Could I…?”, but forgot to include a “please”, the response would be “What’s the magic word?”. Other times my parents would bestow folksy wisdom like “shy bairns get nowt”, which meant that if I didn’t bother to ask, I more than likely wouldn’t get what I wanted. Even if we applied all these important lessons, asking what might be for pudding for instance, my parents would laugh and reply “Two jumps at the cupboard door”. Let’s be honest, we weren’t dealing with deep pools of Confucian knowledge, but it does explain how British children learn the dark arts of British politeness.

One of the few useful sayings that my parents would proffer was “patience is a virtue”. I always liked the idea that waiting was a noble act, and I’ve carried that idea with me throughout my life. Now, I often say it to our two year old daughter, despite my wife’s exaggerated eye rolls. My attempts to indoctrinate our infant child in the mysteries of British culture may appear futile to her, but you have to start somewhere. I’m not deluded though, I know it will take many years for this lesson to sink in, if it ever does, but since we live in Germany, I’m determined to lay the groundwork.

I have two reasons for teaching patience as early as possible. First, I know at some point my daughter will spend time with her British grandparents, and it seems cruel not to prepare her. Secondly, and more importantly, for some in Germany, patience is less virtue and more unacceptable hindrance. A simple trip to the supermarket can tell you everything about the basic levels of German patience. Even relatively quiet days, customers queueing for a checkout will quickly become frustrated. Should an extra checkout be opened, shoppers will actively jostle each other for the right to go first. On busy days, the tutting, huffing, and puffing from frustrated customers becomes an impromptu A Capella performance. Even when being served by the shop assistant, the frustration can continue to build from the people behind. This is expressed through death stares as you pack your shopping quickly, for fear that someone has an aneurism.

However, the occasional discomfort felt from irritated shoppers is insignificant compared to driving in Germany. Get in a car, and you will see the full force of German impatience. Taking a second too long at a traffic light will be met by a chorus of angry car horns pointing out that the light has been green for more than a millisecond. Out on the open road, you’ll frequently come across people who believe their time is far more important than the general safety of other road users. Whether you’re a German or not, we all have horror stories of drivers risking life and limb to get where they’re going 10 seconds faster. Driving centimetres from the car in-front is just accepted here, while using the hard shoulder as an extra secret lane is far more common than was explained during my driving lessons.

Perhaps there’s an argument all this impatience is actually efficiency in disguise, that all the jostling and terrible driving stems from a deep-rooted desire to get things done in the most streamlined way possible. I’m not buying it though. More often than not, these acts of impatience are motivated by a sense of deep entitlement. Germany isn’t alone in having selfish people, but they do seem more prepared to make themselves known to the rest of us. Just last weekend, I went to meet my wife at our favourite ice cream shop, only to walk directly into an argument between the people queuing and an angry woman who had assumed that the queuers for ice cream were lined up for the good of their health. When she attempted to skip the entire line, she was shocked to discover that not everyone understood how truly special she was.

Queuing is peculiarly irksome for these people. For the minority of overly entitled Germans, it’s hell on earth, and such an imposition, choosing to skip the queue seems like a genuinely logical solution. Queue jumping requires an unhealthy lack of patience, an overly healthy sense of importance, and a total lack of shame. I’ve seen all types attempt to avoid queues, and frequently they follow the same playbook; blunt force arrogance. Walking passed a queue at a bar and waving a note in the face of the bar staff is just one example of this strategy.

In Britain, skipping a queue can lead to some serious physical aggression, especially if you’re queueing at a bar. You’re unlikely to see the same levels of aggression here in Germany, but you can often rely on the collective sense of rules, order, and fairness in these moments. Sometimes rules are enforced by an official source, such as a barman shrugging dispassionately and telling would-be queue jumpers to wait their turn. In those times when an official source of order is unavailable, it will fall to the others to enforce the rules. This happened only a few weeks ago, while waiting in an admittedly very long queue for a bar at a music festival. When a line jumper walked by and pushed me out the way, the entire queue erupted in shouts of “HALLO!”, the traditional German exclamation when someone in the vicinity is taking liberties. When my fellow queuers and I remonstrated with the individual, mixing Geordie with some frankly obscene German vernacular, the queue jumper decided he wasn’t quite as thirsty as he thought.

Although Germans may not know that “patience is a virtue” it doesn’t mean that all Germans are as ignorant as the examples I’ve mentioned, but it also doesn’t mean they are entirely patient either. No one I’ve ever spoken to here likes to wait for any length of time, even for things they really want. Perhaps it’s just that waiting is for the weak. Despite the performative impatience of certain parts of German society, you can still rely on the general decency of Germans to come to the fore in these moments. It does seem adherence to rules trumps impatience, but only outside of the Autobahn of course.

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