Sentience in a seed-pod

I had supper with Linda last night. Linda is a German friend of mine doing an internship at a film company here in Cape Town. So we got to talking about how she needs a reference letter to get a job in Germany. Now, here in SA, no-one cares about a letter of reference - you pretty much just put the name and phone number of your chosen referee on your CV and your prospective employer may phone this person to find out if you have a history of genocide and/or terrorist activities (hint: you should coach said referee to deny such activity).

But, in Germany, your reference letter is critical to your appointment. It tells the new guys a lot about you. In fact, it tells them more than you would think. This is because some oddball German law prohibits you from saying anything negative about someone in their letter. This strikes me as patently dishonest and generally a rubbish idea, but it's better than for example the idea of making sausages your national trademark food.

What happens in practice (apparently), is that your reference letter is carefully crafted to exacting standards using a cunning secret code which everyone knows. Here are a few examples (real meanings in blue), some of which are roughly translated from the German in a way that not even I can understand:

1. He is always punctual.
   He's never punctual.
2. For the interests of the staff he proved a comprehensive projecting ability.
   He's gay.
3. He conducted himself with large eagerness to his tasks and was successful.
   He was a complete failure.
   

Nut jobs - the lot of them!