Currently at my company I am working on a project for a German company. It seems that in april the Germans have quite a lot 'Feiertage'. During these Feiertage they are not allowed to work, if they do, they will get problems with their 'Gewerkschafte'. In the Netherlands, the software engineers don't have such a 'Gewerkschafte', we can work whenever we want. Do you German experience it as a problem having so many Feiertage while your clients or subcontractors don't? And how flexible are the Gewerkschafte?
During the Christmas-holiday, the people at our German client were not allowed to work. Though a deadline was there and we really needed their help. Our client did want to help, but wasn't allowed to work. It took a hard job to get around with the Gewerkschafte, but finally they could work.
A different thing. A lot of technicians of our company go to a different country to work for a client for half a year or more and I'm thinking of working for some time for a client in Germany. I was wondering how working in Germany differs from the Netherlands.