Tag: Life choices

Lajla and her brother Dan

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

Lajla’s father believed that investing in the education of girls was not worth it, because in any case they marry and stay at home. Boys should learn a trade, because that is always needed everywhere.

Dan was not a hero at school, but that didn’t worry the father at all. The main thing was that he could knuckle down and help around the house. Lajla was a model student and brought home only the best marks, but that was also all the same to the father. The main thing was that she helped her mother and was a master cook, baker, seamstress and of all household tasks.

In the final school year the teacher had invited the father. The father went to the school. The suggestion that Lajla be sent to high school, was absolute nonsense for the father. He then would have to finance Lajla for the next 8 to 10 years and why make such a fuss, when she would in any case no longer need it. The suggestion that Dan should repeat the last year made the father even more angry.

Finally the teacher and the father agreed that Lajla would find a commercial apprenticeship (the father thought that that would be something useful, if she were to marry into a family business) and Dan started an apprenticeship as a mechanic.

Today Lajla manages a business with almost 120 employees and that for years and extremely successfully. Despite completing his apprenticeship, Dan has somehow not quite made it. The father is proud of Lajla, but deep in his heart he feels sad that it is not Dan, rather than Lajla, who is successful. After all Lajla has married and no longer bears his surname.

Lajla puts in even more effort and is still a bit more successful. She also does it to gain recognition from her father, which never happens. And Dan is frustrated, because it seems to him that for his sister everything is effortless and, regardless of his efforts (but he doesn’t really try), in any case he has no chance in a world, where the women now take precedence.

Image source: Rainer Sturm / pixelio.de

Lavrin and the story of lifelong fraud

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

Lavrin didn’t care much about rules. Where he thought he wouldn’t be caught, he simply ignored them.

He never paid social security contributions for his cleaner and when he became self-employed, he deducted all her wages as business related costs, although she chiefly cleaned his home and cooked for him. He always drove his car too fast, but never fast enough for him to lose his driving licence. He fixed the cruise control so that on the autobahn he never exceeded 139 km/h and in town he never drove above 65 km/h.

When he bought clothes in Milan, with scrupulous precision he cut off all the clothing labels. He claimed refund of the Italian VAT, but he never declared the import for customs and VAT in Switzerland (although his purchases had a value of well over the 300 francs). Read More »

Marta, the entrepreneuse

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

I have known Marta as long as I can remember. We went to kindergarden together and both suffered under the strict regime of the time. After lunch we had to lie down and sleep. Marta and I could never sleep. The teacher covered our faces with a sheet. I hated it and struggled against it. Marta also didn’t want to sleep but she did not resist. She said, that didn’t help, and she could use the time better to think about how she get hold of the two red marbles of our sleeping fellow student, Jacob. Read More »

The right choice of a profession

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

I don’t know how one chooses the right profession. I was lucky and have found my profession. I am an entrepreneur with heart and soul. I love motivating people so that we can achieve common goals. It’s fun to attract exceptional talents and to share in their development and at the same time to learn from them.Read More »

What’s important in life

Michaela Merz1 Comment

I was flying home and arrived at the airport a little too early. As it was midday, I went into the airport canteen, which is also open to visitors. I placed my small case by a free table and went to fetch my beloved cucumber salad. When I came back, an old man was seated at my table and wanted to start his lunch.

We greeted each other, wished each other an enjoyable meal and began eating. One word led to another and soon we were deep in an interesting conversation. I asked him, if I were a powerful fairy and he could have a wish, what would be his wish.Read More »

What is the moral of this story?

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

422772_web_r_k_b_by_uli-carthauser_pixelio-deLisa was clever. Perhaps not the best in her class, but always close to the top. She was small and thin. In her puberty she was not an object of desire for her male fellow students. That gnawed at her self-confidence. The few, not to say the only one, who had showed any interest her, she didn’t like at all and those she liked had no eyes for her.Read More »

Wadu has a problem

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

405672_web_r_k_b_by_manfred-schimmel_pixelio-deUntil yesterday the world was still in order. But today his girlfriend came to him and said that she wanted a child. Wadu likes children, but he doesn’t want any of his own. That’s what they agreed 6 years ago when they moved in together.
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