6 ms·
I spent a year working in Melbourne, Australia a decade ago. I loved pretty much everything about the experience, except one thing: the "she'll be right, mate"
by tpmx 4y ago
I spent a year working in Melbourne, Australia a decade ago. I loved pretty much everything about the experience, except one thing: the "she'll be right, mate" attitude. I saw a fair bit of complacency. Strange experience.
- drfuchs 4y agoWould you please provide a translation for us Americans? Thanks.
- diatone 4y agoIf your house has a gas leak but it’s not too strong, she’ll be right. If your bathroom faucet is leaking but it’s a drop an hour, she’ll be right. If it’s bushfire season and you haven’t prepared for your house getting burned down, but it hasn’t happened in the last five years, she’ll be right. Cynically, it’s shirking responsibility. Optimistically, it’s playing the odds.
- bigDinosaur 4y agoI've never known anyone to leave a gas leak, and everyone I know would also get a leaking tap fixed (or do it themselves). I think you're exaggerating this aspect of Australian culture quite a bit.
- PickledHotdog 4y agoI think the exaggeration was for humorous effect
- bigDinosaur 4y agoFair enough, it's more for an international audience who might take it as a totally serious assessment of Australian culture (if they care!). Can't keep the reputation of being too relaxed forever.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ehnto 4y ago"She'll be right" is just "It will be alright, don't worry about it." Often used when some issue is raised and no one thinks it's important. "This bridge has cracks in it..." "She'll be right!" It isn't really an issue in the workplace though, depends on the company but most everywhere I have worked cared very deeply.
- _s 4y agoShe’ll be alright = It will be fine, don’t stress. Doing the bare minimum, with not a lot of TLC. It makes for excellent work environments if you derive your joy and fulfilment from activities outside of work, but can be immensely frustrating if you want to deliver on quality (or expect quality delivered).
- actionablefiber 4y agoBasically means, "it's good enough," or "don't worry about it." It's also well-known as 差不多 (cha bu duo) in the Chinese-speaking world.
- bottled_poe 4y agoForgetaboutit
- jkingsbery 4y agoNot really the same thing: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuhgeddaboudit https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuhgeddaboud...
- pansa2 4y ago“She’ll be right”, meaning “it’ll be OK” describes one of the ways in which life in Australia and New Zealand differs from, say, the UK. It manifests in two ways: - “It’ll be OK, don’t worry about it”, which leads to a more relaxed, less bureaucratic way of life. - On the other hand, “it’ll do, don’t bother fixing/improving it”, which leads to things like New Zealand’s appalling housing quality.
- jay_kyburz 4y agoWhen somebody is fretting about something, usually unimportant, you can say, "Don't worry, it will be all right"
- smackeyacky 4y agoHere's my favourite example. We were renovating an old 1920s house and wanted to replicate the timber/wood/plaster look on a wall that needed replacing. The timber was cut to a certain profile. Went to the local builder supplies and asked about getting some timber cut to the profile of my sample. The guy behind the desk says: "Whaddya wanna do that for? Just chuck a bit of gyppie up mate, she'll be right!" Translation: Cover the wall with gyprock (sheet rock for Americans). Don't worry about making it look the same. It's an attitude, an instruction and a lifestyle rolled into one thing. I got the timber cut somewhere else.
- plugger 4y agoIt's demonstrably worse imho out here on the west coast, the "she'll be right mate" mentality is rife here. Used to drive me crazy when I as a sysadmin. Get something barely running? Welp, great work, pats on the back, time to go home! I'd always want to test and tune things to ensure things could perform under load only to be told that "she'll be right". And she was, until things saw load and predictably crashed and people would run around like headless chooks blaming the network. Very pleased to no longer be doing that work.
- disposedtrolley 4y agoWhat kind of company were you working for? I've lived and worked in Melbourne my whole life and complacency is not a cultural attitude of the location, but of specific companies.
- tpmx 4y agoI saw the complacency in daily life, not at work (which was mostly remote to another part of the world anyway.)
- jamesfinlayson 4y agoAgreed - I work in Australia and I've worked with a lot of complacent people but a lot of very good people too. I thought the complacent people was just Sturgeon's Law applied to people who work in technology.
- ehnto 4y agoCould you expand on situations you experienced it where it felt like a strange approach? Being an Australian who worked in America for a bit, I felt like there was a facade of exceptionalism that was in fact just the same "she'll be right" attitude in different words. Everything was always "the best thing ever" or an "awesome job" even when it really wasn't. Different term but same outcome.
- tpmx 4y agoI'm Scandinavian. I do share your feeling about american superlatives. It's hard for me to mention concrete examples now (it's been a while), but I felt a general lack of wanting things to be better which felt really weird.
- stephen_g 4y agoAs an Australian I can relate to the "general lack of wanting things to be better". I feel like 80% of what I've done in my work life (still living and working in Australia) has been trying to convince people to care about doing things better! I feel like may be a bit of a generational thing around here? Seemed to be a lot of older managers and engineers who were very set in their ways, but it does seem a bit less so for younger people. Of course there are exceptions, happily I now finally work with more people who want to improve things and do things really well than I have for years and a couple of them are in that older generation.
- WatchDog 4y agoMelbournian that has worked in the US a little bit, and had similar experiences. Mundane releases and improvements were presented with huge enthusiasm and fanfare.
- hsbauauvhabzb 4y agoWait this kind of mediocrity isn’t common across IT elsewhere? What country are you from? I’d love to move there!
- bGl2YW5j 4y agoThe thing that non-Australians don't understand about this is that we spend our energy worrying about things that actually matter. What you may perceive as complacency, is ofttimes actually the observer being uptight when they don't need to be. As an Australian, I struggle at times with Europeans et al who attach so much importance and stress to such insignificant things. Hence, she'll be right mate.
- jimmux 4y agoTrue much of the time, but we can take it too far. For example, we should be very worried about the state of the Great Barrier Reef, but too many of us act like nothing is happening.
- PickledHotdog 4y agoWe "she'll be righted" the reef for so long that it's now "ah she's cactus. Ah well. No worries."
- PickledHotdog 4y agoThis is a good point. I don't think "she'll be right" is hemmed in in complacency, it's just an acknowledgement that there are more important things to worry about. Uptight foreigners (usually American or European) are incensed by the attitude. And to be honest, there are far worse corporate behaviours and attitudes in Australia than "she'll be right"
- jnash 4y agoThat was my experience as well working in the US (Washington D.C.) I think it is a problem you will find anywhere.