You say you're disagreeing, but it sounds like you're agreeing. >"There are certainly some Finnish manners, like the tendency to get straight to the point, whi

You say you're disagreeing, but it sounds like you're agreeing. >"There are certainly some Finnish manners, like the tendency to get straight to the point, which one could intepret as rude at times but that obviously wouldn't be the case with Finns communicating with Finns." The issue is communicating with the rest of the tech community. I can personally attest that West Coast Americans, which comprises a very large percentage of the tech community, are extremely sensitive to anything that could possibly be perceived as non-positive. I'm from the Northeastern US, where directness in speech is valued and isn't construed as being rude. If something sucks, you can say "that sucks" without everybody getting bent out of shape. In SF, I've had several misunderstandings with co-workers where they assumed I wasn't happy about something because, even though I said "that's fantastic!" I didn't say it enthusiastically enough. As silly as it sounds, this has led to real problems for me in the office where people are genuinely hurt and are unlikely to work with me in the future. This is just the long winded way of me saying: for a non-west coast american talking to a west coast american, yes, it's difficult to be polite and courteous to their expected standard.