Friedrich Merz came for me

20 Feb, 2026

Some weeks back, Friedrich Merz, Chancellor of Germany, came for me. He went on a tirade against people like me, those who have chosen a life that belongs a little bit more to us and a little bit less to our employers': the part-time workers.

Some of us work 35 hours, maybe some 32, hell, some even drop down to the 20s and seem to do ok. But according to our benevolent leader: "[w]ith a four-day week and an exaggerated work-life balance, prosperity cannot be maintained", to which I say, "hogswash", which I'm rather sure I've never said in earnest before.

An old colleague in an old company of mine told me about his shift from 40 hours to 32 one day when I asked him if he was coming in to the office that Friday. "No, I only work four days a week", to which I questioned how that came about, so he informed me of a legal mechanism here in Germany called (fyi: links to a pdf download) "Brückenteilzeit". This translates to "bridging part-time", which is the right of all employees to be granted a temporary change in their working hours to part-time for a certain amount of months or years, if the company cannot prove they 100% need them 40 hours a week and if the employee is out of probation.

I was gob-smacked. Can I do this? Is it worth it? What are you doing of your day off? Aren't you bored? What did the boss say?

To which to the best of my recollection, he answered:

Yes. Yes. Whatever I want. No. "I don't think we're going to reach our goals with this attitude."

I was convinced, but it would take a few years before that became a reality. Nevertheless, the seed was firmly planted, and let me tell you, if I'm anything in this life; I'm a farmer.

That job was one that I quickly left behind, maybe because we weren't reaching our goals with these dang part-timers everywhere, and landed happily in my current role at 40 hours a week. By this stage it'd been a good few years of full-time work, interspersed with travel and bigger breaks, but if anything can grind us down, it sure is our dear lady capitalism, especially when you don't tend to revel in it's excess.

That being said, I was and still am happy working there, but I was ready to start watering my dormant plan. I casually dropped the idea a few times to my boss during review periods, just laying the groundwork, until the time was just right. I think it was just after I'd gotten the raise needed to be comfortably back to where I started in the role in salary-terms.

We agreed, I finished up a few months of full-time, and in July '24, I began living Friday's just for me. I remember feeling stressed for the very first day off, like I was stealing something, or grievously harming someone else. Then it began to get easier, but it took time to really find my groove.

I started with focusing on projects, building programs, really trying to lay out an eight-hour plan for my day where I could feel productive. The guilt was really real. I spoke to the same former colleague who got me on this path and I asked him what he thought I should do, based on his experience, to which he told me, "I can give you homework if you want." Point taken, I started to relax.

What was a Friday filled with attempted productivity gave way to sloth. I've never been one to laze about, but I did try reading more on the couch, gaming, just embracing the art of leisure, something that honestly is not that easy for me. I'm absolutely not god's gift of productivity, dear lord no, but I really can't sit in front of a tv watching a series for more than 40 minutes before my boredom is cracking open the top of my skull, standing up and having a quick stretch, before walking right out the door and into incoming traffic just to make the tediousness stop. I wasn't going to reach my goals with this attitude.

This didn't suit me that much, but I had experienced both ends of the spectrum and a plan was beginning to formulate. What took time was figuring out what I wanted to do, like really do with my time. I hadn't taken this on just to flounder around and I wanted to use it to find out more about myself.

What this evolved into was targeting the things I like doing and doing them consistently. I'm so sorry that it came to this: this damn consistency always being the one thing that sounds like hard-work (kind of is) and for some reason is the only thing that really works to get results. This is not going to turn into a self-help seminar, I promise.

I like writing as you probably guessed. Maybe you don't know, but I love coffee and have been trying to find my groove in that realm with coffee-roasting and making coffee-related apps (coming soon!). I love running. So what naturally happened is that my Fridays became a refuge for all my hobbies, in a fairly loose order, often starting here and then spiralling out into whichever hobby collided first with my energy as the day rolled by. I've been productive and my app is almost ready to be released. I've started hitting big goals in my running training. I've been writing here surprisingly consistently for a few months now and I'm loving this expression of myself.

Something here is working, yet don't forget that that Merz has decided I'm a fuckwit for doing this, something I've danced around a bit. Alrighty, Freddy, it's time.

The cost of living in Berlin has skyrocketed. Rent is through the roof ¹, kebabs are at an all time high ², more and more people are flocking here ³, inflation was rising fast and thankfully has cooled a bit, yet the cost of goods is still up ⁴. At least real wage growth is creeping back up ⁵.

We live in a very cheap apartment that benefits wildly from Germany's renter-advantaged (in certain scenarios) landscape. We don't suffer from rising rent, we have an old contract, we are locked in. Our apartment is 63sqm, with just enough for two people to live comfortably. I'd love another room, but c'est la vie. Our costs are essentially fixed in that regard and while food costs more and more, we are frugal and get by very simply.

We both looked at our expenses and our lives and decided to make the switch because economically it wasn't that big of a hit, just 20% reduced savings, and the quality-of-life would go up, because we know that we're essentially locked in here with what we have. We would gain an entire day just to do what we wanted.

The way costs have changed means that there's no drive to move to a nicer apartment, to think about bigger fancier things, because the costs far outweigh the potential benefits. If we said let's go get a bigger apartment, then we'd be up for about 40% more per sqm, meaning we'd both probably need to work full-time again to make it make sense, but for what? More stress? The calculus doesn't align.

Merz wants people to work more because otherwise "prosperity cannot be maintained". Prosperity for who, exactly? I feel prosperous right now in my economic stasis. The only reason to go back to full-time would result in me having a net loss in my life, economically and mentally.

This endless cycle of pushing people to accumulate has come to a grinding halt because of lack of potential mobility. For more and more, we are given the chance for less and less, so don't be surprised when we throw up our hands and say, "fuck it, I'll just keep the life I have now and won't bother looking for more." I don't want kids, but if I did, then there's no way in hell they could be raised in this apartment with one bedroom. What should we do then? Find another place to live? We wouldn't be able to afford it and even worse, now you've got more kids to take care of who need social support. This doesn't make sense.

What does make sense is people like me, those on their older unlimited contracts never moving, never offering up their bigger spaces for families in desperate need of one extra room at a reasonable rate. Now take those families and start charging them more for food and chipping away at their earnings with little earnings growth, and you get a despondent populace.

Berlin is in a tough spot. It was a city of the weirdos doing stuff on the cheap, attracting artists and creatives that made this city so much fun to explore. These days are coming to an end as there's just no way to support this lifestyle of creation here, unless you were grandfathered in years ago. The push to go part-time I think maybe was an attempt to keep some of the anti-establishment mindset alive, at least from my perspective, but it was from a look at ourselves and saying, "what we have now is enough, what we have is perhaps as much as it will ever be when shaking out all the costs, and that's fine." Is that a lifestyle choice, I guess so, but when you feel like there's not exactly a way up the ladder behind all the people syphoning the profits to the top, then what the hell are we meant to do. We take what we're given.

I like working, I work really hard most of the time, and often end the week around 37-38 hours anyway, because I like it. And even better, is that I feel refreshed after three days to recalibrate where I don't need to join the entire city on a Saturday at the supermarket because the shops are closed on Sunday so we can all praise Jesus.

Make everyone feel prosperous and we will want to contribute. Take away our chance to prosper, remove our mobility, hell, make every time I get a carton of milk just that much more frustrating, then don't be surprised when we reject what is(n't) on offer and start living just enough to feel like we have some modicum of control again. We aren't dumb, we aren't cattle, we are real people just trying to find a way that makes sense, one where we can breathe.

On that note, it's 9:07 Friday morning and I'm going for a run in the sunshine. I hope I can see more of you out there soon.

#2026 #life #work