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Between the yes and the first day
A German Zusage usually arrives by telephone and is then repeated in writing, and the period between it and your first day has a short list of things that have to happen. Doing them in the wrong order is the main way it goes wrong. First, do not resign anywhere until the signed contract is back in your hands. A verbal offer is binding in principle and unenforceable in practice, and the notice period you owe your current employer (lesson 59) means the sequence matters: sign, then give notice, then agree the start date if it is still movable. Then the paperwork the new employer will ask for, and it is more than an Anglophone expects. Your Sozialversicherungsnummer, the social insurance number, which you get automatically the first time you are employed in Germany. Your Steuer-Identifikationsnummer, the tax ID, which arrives by post after you register your address. Proof of health insurance, since membership is compulsory and the employer pays half — lesson 69. Bank details for the salary. For some roles a Führungszeugnis, a certificate of good conduct from the Bürgeramt, and in food or medical work an Einstellungsuntersuchung, a pre-employment medical. None of this is unusual and all of it takes longer than you think, which is the argument for starting it the week the Zusage comes. Two conventions around the offer itself. Asking for a few days to read the contract is normal and expected — Könnte ich mir das bis Montag ansehen? — and nobody reads it as hesitation. And if you decide to decline, decline in writing, briefly and without elaborate reasons: Vielen Dank für Ihr Angebot, das ich leider nicht annehmen kann. Germany is a country of small professional worlds and the person you turn down may be interviewing you again in four years. Finally, the thing this lesson's last line is really about. Confirming a verbal agreement in writing on the same day is not distrust here, it is competence. It creates the record everyone will later refer to, it protects both sides equally, and it takes three sentences. Lesson 64 covers what those three sentences look like inside a company.