This article tells about a peculiarity I haven’t
encountered outside of Germany. It
shows the high level of trust Germans have in social order. Farmers sell their products on the field or in sheds next to streets where you just take what you want and are
trusted to leave the right amount of money. There will be nobody charging you. Untipically for Germany there will be nobody to control you. This is a quite common way of selling flowers
(selbst schneiden,
selbst zahlen) and produce such as potatoes, honey, eggs or pumpkins.
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| Credit: http://tinyurl.com/6q3v26k |
The idea is simple: you cut the flowers you want and pay
the respective price. There is a box and a price list, that’s all you need. In
some places templates allow you to measure for example flowers and then pay according
to size.
Farmers even
provide knifes and place them next
to the cash box (you can see this on the picture). I show this regularly to
visiting friends and we always have the feeling that the money, flowers and the
knifes wouldn’t make it for longer than a few days in many other countries.
In some places
farmers decided
to leave the box open so you can just help yourself when you need some change.
I love this kind of shopping and am sometimes surprised to find some 30 odd
Euros in these boxes. Farmers seem not to be afraid that some drunk or youth
might take advantage of their faith in people.
In Munich you will encounter
this business model even in the city
centre. There it works with newspapers. You find baskets for each of the common
newspapers and you just grab one and put a coin in the respective box.
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| Credit: http://tinyurl.com/7mjap56 |
So, are all
Germans so honest/nice/stupid/well-educated/trustworthy/not clever enough to
pay? According to German newspaper FAZ over 80% of customers pay honestly the proposed
full price in that sort of business (http://bit.ly/OnmE00).
Munich’s newspaper boxes seem to be an exception though. This sort of concept had
to be abandoned in cities like Berlin or Frankfurt.
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