Why Germans work fewer hours but produce more (opens in new tab)

Toronto, Canada. I worked as a dev in a fairly big software company which made B2B software. There was a dev who would literally do nothing for half the time. Their productivity was extremely low. They would only work enough to appear to management that they are busy, but ultimately had the rest of the department pick up their slack. Of course, management didn't have a clue about what competent dev work ought to look like and were themselves incompetent, like most management is. This person worked at the company for years before being let go. I think this problem stems from management not being able to relate to the work. I worked at a web dev firm which would contract me out to a partner company to design websites. I would literally have no boss, or anyone tell me what to do. Try as I might, I couldn't get clear-cut work assigned to me from management, who were not devs and thus could not relate. There was poor organization. I would waste time worrying that I'm not being productive. I hated the experience for all those reasons. My girlfriend works at a hospital and tells me about coworkers who work for 10% of the day. They have been working there for over a decade. A lot of people are hard working, but most are not. I think given the opportunity, most would slack off, this is inherent human nature.