Technical jargon: What does "extra mile" actually mean?

Saving money is the order of the day everywhere. That's why going the extra mile is booming right now and is demanded of everyone: service providers, employees and managers. It means doing more than the agreed amount without being compensated extra. Like much of business lingo, the origin of the extra mile lies in an unspeakable dialectization of an English idiom; in this case, "to go that extra mile". Thus it joins the family of "am Änd vom Tag" (at the end of the day) or "isch fair" (fair enough). But with the extra mile, the situation is - historically - even more complex.

Doing more for less

The prefix "extra" may be self-explanatory, but who knows in this country how long a "mile" is, especially since there is a nautical (1852.0 meters), an Anglo-American (1609.34 meters) and over 100 historical miles (between 500 and 11299 meters)? In Europe alone, before the conversion to the metric system in the mid-19th century, there were about 60 definitions of a mile, with lengths ranging from 1.5 to 11 kilometers. Those who go the extra mile usually cry out for milestones, set by those who demand them. Milestones in front of which people then stand at a loss because they don't know where they actually are in the process, or they simply move them nonchalantly afterwards. Because one thing is certain: for non-Anglo-Saxons, every mile is always much longer than they feel, because Central Europeans are calibrated for metrics.

Anyone who demands an extra mile or is asked to go the extra mile should be aware that this cannot be specified in this country and that the scope for interpreting the performance to be rendered may therefore be much greater. Perhaps this is why the request for and provision of the extra mile is so inflationary, because no one actually knows what it is exactly and both sides are simply satisfied to have done something extraordinary.