6 ms·

I vastly prefer honest negativity over dishonest positivity. An example of this is the behavior of service personnel in the US compared to my native country, ev

• Bayart 6y ago
  American in Europe : "Jesus, everyone here is so rude and cold." European in America : "Jesus, everyone here is so fake and annoying."
  • vbezhenar 6y ago
    I thought that was about Russians, not Europeans in general. In Russia it's considered a mental illness to smile without a good reason.
    • hnarn 6y ago
      While that's definitely a Russian "thing" it's by no means confined to Russia.
    • sneak 6y ago
      This is one of the reasons I get along so well with slavic and eastern european people. The dynamic range is higher, versus having to figure out the difference between smiling and mega-ultra-smiling (as in the USA).
    • odiroot 6y ago
      I think you could apply the same in Poland. Maybe not "mental illness" but being a bit "off", maybe drunk or drugged. We also associate smiling too much with snake oil salespeople.
    • stjohnswarts 6y ago
      Most Russians I've know on a one on one basis were pretty jovial and fun to hang out with. They did thing people were "fake" and "smiled too much" in America though. I told them the American take on reality was as legitimate as their more cynical attitude. It's all in learning about culture and why people are the way they are. Russians tended to be very straight forward and say what's on their mind, and Americans will hold it back. There are pluses for both positions.
    • Barrin92 6y ago
      It's a thing in Germany as well. I remember that one of the reasons customers gave why they didn't want to go to Walmart when it opened a few shops in Germany was because they were freaked out by the happy act that employees had to put on. The sort of always smiling, always laughing stereotypical American waiter or something would be perceived as juvenile, fake or not very bright over here.
  • lallysingh 6y ago
    How does a European in Canada feel?
    • alacombe 6y ago
      Depends what Canada, cities are full of thin-skinned pussies, country side folks are ballsy as can be, even the women.
  • bittercynic 6y ago
    American here. I think many of us are kind of socially unmoored, and actually don't know how to take a neutral tone, and get anxious when someone takes a neutral tone with us. Almost like we're so insecure that we need constant positive feedback/reassurance that we're in a friendly situation. I've been around this my whole life and haven't gotten used to it, but I do the overly friendly act when it seems that people are expecting it. It doesn't cost me anything, and it seems to help people leave an interaction feeling secure.
    • NoSorryCannot 6y ago
      Americans aren't socially unmoored. We come from a society where people smile as a matter of being polite. People everywhere have to learn social signals and ours happen to involve smiling as a matter of course. This thread is pretty irritating for being kind of clueless to the reality that every culture on earth is going to have trappings like this and the alleged stoicism of Russia and Germany are no exception. (Thinking someone is simple or mentally ill because they smile too much is already such a trapping.)
      • danielscrubs 6y ago
        I don’t think it has anything to do with smiling, go ahead and smile. At least with the russians I’ve spent time with, it just takes some time before people open up. Don’t ask a question and completely ignore the answer. Don’t give platitudes when they could spend some effort and saying what a team member did well. It’s the same in dating, don’t tell someone they are beautiful, go the extra mile. At least I think this is what people mean by “fake” but I’m not sure.
  • bzb6 6y ago
    Welcome to Costco, I love you.
  • bitcharmer 6y ago
    I couldn't agree more. I'm a slavic expat in UK. I recently raised an issue with how teachers at our kids' school are struggling with utilising technology in productive ways. I also offered taking a day off work to help them get better at things like google classroom and google docs. I was labelled rude solely by pointing out the deficiencies. It didn't really matter that I offered constructive way of resolving this. According to the brits, I was rude because I pointed out areas of improvement. WTF?
    • stjohnswarts 6y ago
      It's probably in the way you presented it. I'm sure there were positive things you could say about what they're doing. Then offer more help with topics you're an "expert" on without being patronizing. Nobody likes to be shit on. Start from neutral ground and call it improvements, not say "I don't like your shitty methods, here mine are better". No one will respond to that.
    • learnstats2 6y ago
      I guess that you haven't fully understood the complete problem space of everything that a teacher has to master in order to be effective, and everything that a school has to provide resources for (including other areas of training). Classroom teaching is not highly dependent on technology and low-tech solutions are often better. Your suggested solution asks teachers to give up a day of their time (unpaid?) for what you think is important, without listening to what teachers actually find difficult about their jobs. Even if what you are saying is right and genuinely helpful, it won't immediately look like a good solution to the teachers or to the administration.
    • arp242 6y ago
      The British way of pointing these things out is something along the lines of "Oh this is great, have you considered X?" Translated to English as you or I would understand it, it's more akin to "meh, it kinda sucks, X is better". Or something like that anyway; I never really figured out this whole thing in the time I lived there. Here's a chart to help you get started: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DL8gbEoX0AAcwAq?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DL8gbEoX0AAcwAq?format=jpg&name=...
  • deanCommie 6y ago
    Canadian here. Our culture tends to pick and choose from the best of either the American or the European approach. We don't always get it right, and the combination/middle ground isn't necessarily better than either of the alternatives, but I do feel like we have some general insight and sympathy to both the European and the American philosophies. I've also lived as an ex-pat in Europe for 4 years working closely with both Europeans and AMericans. In this regard, I think the American approach is superior. 1) Europeans are overly sensitive about "micro-friendliness". I've heard people complain that the cashier at the grocery store asks "How are you doing?". "They don't really care, why do they ask!" I've had to explain that no, they don't care, but that moment of friendliness is still a pleasant one, and over the course of the day, all those moments add up to a generally positive contribution to one's existence. Americans do take faux-friendliness over the top (especially if it's only reserved for the local in-group, see: southern "hospitality"), but I think the Europeans need to lighten up a bit. 2) While I don't need my waitresses to be so friendly to the point that they seem like they're flirting with you, the European waitstaff at restaurants are far from neutral, and are actively disinterested in your hospitality experience. This doesn't apply to fancy high-end restaurants, of course. But just a general casual lunch or dinner you're just not going to get the same quality of service as you do in North America. While I abhor tipping, I can't help but think that it does create some positive incentives in staff here.
    • Bayart 6y ago
      >But just a general casual lunch or dinner you're just not going to get the same quality of service as you do in North America. That's just circling back to North America and Continental Europe having diametrically opposed notions of what good service means and what social interactions are desirable. At the risk of sounding like a prick, a good staff member here is someone who makes themselves completely invisible from customers while keeping the shop running smoothly. Having a waiter trying to build a rapport with me because ultimately I have to be the one paying them instead of their boss is infuriating, and the intrusion of a third party into my table-size privacy bubble is extremely unwelcome.
      • deanCommie 6y ago
  • elboru 6y ago
    How do Europeans feel in Latin America? As a Latin American, I studied aboard in the US for a year, and I felt Americans were way colder than us. I wouldn’t say we’re fake about our warmness. But maybe Europeans could associate that with being fake?
    • standardUser 6y ago
      As an America, I absolutely adore how friendly people are in the parts of Latin American I've been to. Is it fake or forced? It doesn't feel like it to me, but I barely speak the language, so I'm probably missing tons of subtext.
    • cambalache 6y ago
      Americans are "colder" in the among-peers relationships, but they are extra-sweet-hyper-annoying "warm" when they need to treat you as a client. We latinos are closer to they way southern-Europeans are.
• heimatau 6y ago
  > I vastly prefer honest negativity over dishonest positivity. As scripture says, 'Faithful are the wounds of a friend'. Sometimes the best thing we need is a little vinegar that is in our actual/tangible/observable best interest.
• pdimitar 6y ago
  One of the hardest cultural shocks for me to this day is when an American off-handedly asks me "how are you?" at the beginning of a meet and how shocked they seem when I go on to elaborate on how I am feeling -- even it takes me 10-15s they seem to need time to get themselves together because it seems as though I did something outrageous. Not bashing, let's be clear on that. But this keeps catching me off-guard, every time. Have to work on finally overcoming it. It seems it's an American tradition to say "hi, how are you?" and not just "hello" (namely, it's not a question but a greeting).
  • macintux 6y ago
    Even as an American, it took me a little too long to realize that wasn't actually a question. I don't know when it started becoming a common greeting, but it's certainly within my adult years.
    • pdimitar 6y ago
      Interesting, so it's a relatively new phenomena then.
      • macintux 6y ago
        I’d say either I was completely oblivious, or it’s within the past 3 decades. Both are possible.
  • twizilla 6y ago
    I used to have problems with "Hi, how are you?" too. I found that it can be useful to consider "Hi, how are you?" as a friendly game of catch. At the basic level you can reply "'Sall right, how _you_ doin'?" You've caught the ball and tossed it back. Even if you are walking in different directions down the hall this will work... or even looking up and saying "hey" is acknowledging the ball in the air. In an "office" this probably would work fine, but I have always been either self-employed or worked in small businesses. So I don't know if this would work on the 24th floor. In day to day life... I imagine the person at the check out counter has a repetitive job that can be quite dreary if all they are doing is punching buttons all day without any engagement... asking the same questions: "Did you find everything?" "Do you have any coupons?" "How are you doing today?" So when I can I try to catch the ball, paint it a different color and toss it back. It's a two part process How are you doing? #1 catch the ball: "I made it this far, I'm gonna keep going." #2 toss it back: "How are you keeping up?" You can have dozens of responses for for each part... mix & match... Silliness can get you bonus points. It's just a game. You will discover ways in which a few words can make it so that you're having a bit more fun, the checkout person (or server, or phone support person, or...) can also get a few giggles while grinding through their, perhaps miserable, job... hey, everybody wins.
• mkr-hn 6y ago
  >> "An example of this is the behavior of service personnel in the US compared to my native country, every time I go there I almost want to tell them to tone down the niceness, but of course there's no point because I realize I'm the odd one out." This is usually mandated somewhere up the chain. They don't have a choice if they want to keep their jobs.