Colorado Ski Girl

Hi Bob. Our true friendships aren't fake. We have a LOT of acquaintenances but few friends. I've heard that the French are the same way. It's just part of the culture. What you think of as artificial friendshipship is just our way of considering you an acquaintenance, not a true friend. That takes more time. A true friend sticks with you through thick and thin. It takes a while to be best pals and buds with people, but then again it depends on the person.
And thanks for the big hello!

Nutmegger

I'm sure they do -- I was just recounting that, from personal experience, it happened to me "at home," and not here, until I ran up against my fellow countrywomen!

Karrie72

Colorado ski girl...I find your advice on making friends completely bizarre...
I imagine if my topics of conversation revolved around how money I make or football, most people American or otherwise would class me as a rude bore.

Colorado Ski Girl

Well, do you have many American friends?

dlake02

Y'know, I really like your insight here - thank you for answering and I hope you don't feel like we're "beating up" on Americans.

This point I find especially difficult to deal with. I have always tended to think that I work for a "company" and that very word, company, means that I have not just co-workers, but companions working WITH me.

In other words, we are all in the same boat with the same goals. To be honest, the "Brit Pub" culture is a bit of a myth anyway - none of the companies I've worked for have EVER had a lunch/evening booze thing going on.

But, you are absolutely correct that the attitude here is one primarily of competition BETWEEN co-workers. That alone makes it very, very difficult to handle the big questions - such as "what is our joint strategy" or "are we doing the right thing ?" Trying to build constructive criticism is impossible because it is seen as a sign of personal weakness of failure.

The result of this work atmosphere is that work gets reduced to short-term directives built around cults of leaders rather than the collective thoughts of groups of people.

I see this in American corporates - we could probably all name the leaders of the big US Tech companies, but who is the CEO of BT, France Telecom, EADS, Airbus, BAT, Allianz, HSBC, etc without resorting to Wikipedia. We only ever hear about those people in Europe through exception - i.e. when they cock-it-up. The culture is very different.

The closest I can get in the UK is Virgin Group - but really, that is not an EU-domiciled business at all, and in fact most of the grunt is done by their partner companies, not Virgin Group at all.

Good for you. I have NO PROBLEM with this at all. But please remember that others are equally proud of their backgrounds and cultures and don't denigrate them or their values.

Last point - VERY interesting and may explain my wife's problems here. As I think we stated before, we lived in France for a while where (as long as you are good enough at the language and she IS) there is a highly self-deprecating sense-of-humour.

It's also not helped by the fact that we both have a degree of inverse snobbery to deal with - we both have quite "clipped" accents but live(d) in an area with a high-amount of "Estuary English"; we both went to grammar schools so we're aware that we are not like the majority of people we come across from the educational background either.

So, we use humour to deflate our egos and make sure that we are approachable and at-a-level with those we meet every day. We would both HATE to appear superior or aloof due to our accents or backgrounds and we work very hard on this.

Those self-same tricks that we use to make it obvious that we are the SAME as everyone else in the UK just fall flat here. We find ourselves wincing when someone is telling us "what they make" or "where they go on vacation." We just find it showy, brash and potentially upsetting to those that are in different circumstances.

But, now that you've explained it, I understand where we our problems are !!!!

Karrie72

Not too many truth be told but i have a small circle of funny, genuine expats who don't talk about money or sports thank God.

Colorado Ski Girl

I am only trying to help you. You can judge all you like. I can, however, tell you the favorite football and baseball teams of every coworker and friend that I work with as well as those of my neighbors and family members. I know which colleges they all went to. They also can recite this info about everyone back to us. And yes, football is America's pasttime. If you don't understand why, then I really can't help you here. It is what it is. Money is a topic of conversation. It is very common, in fact. Everyone talks about how much an item is at a store rather than which is the better one to buy. Cost is more important than the quality. How much we make is important. Just a fact. We compare and contrast. These are just ice breakers. You can move on to other topics afterwards, like world peace or what you thought of the latest J.J. Abrams movie. But as a whole, the first thing you'll be asked is 'what do you do for a living?'.

dlake02

AmerLisa:

You've missed my point entirely. I always start from the point that I know nothing and that I am probably wrong. That is a very common attitude in the UK - the "it'll never work, it'll all go Pete Tong."

Look at the Olympics - in the end, it was superb, but we assumed it was all going to be a Mucking Fess and talked about it at every point we could.

So, I am not judging whether it is right or wrong. I'm just stating for someone coming from a background, such as me, where I act as if I'm wrong and an idiot all the time and wait to be proved otherwise, this society is rather difficult to break in to.

AmerLisa

+1

I'm wondering if you do.... Why would you think you have all the answers in making American friends?

Colorado Ski Girl

You said expats, not American-born Americans. Didn't you want to know how to become friends with Americans, not expats? Sure - you should have a lot in common with your fellow countrymen and women. You're from the same culture. That wasn't the original question. Please, don't attack me. I am not attacking you.
If I l moved to Thailand and made friends with only American expats, then yes, we'd have the same thing to talk about and the same interests, at least to some degree. But what I would have to do to try to make friends with the native Thais would have to be respectful of their culture. not impose my own culture on them.

AmerLisa

There is NO rule book to making friends here or anywhere else. To generalize ANY culture is ridiculous! How you meet people can vary from region to region, or many other things.

Colorado Ski Girl

Actually, I've been to every state in this country many, many times as well as lived in 7 of them in all of the time zones. Yes - most Americans are competitive. Survival of the fittest. You are a West Coast person in Washington, isn't that correct? Do you think that everyone is like you? Perhaps you are easy going. Ever seen that in New York?

Sally Redux

You've hit the nail on the head with this huge problem my husband has at his workplace.

AmerLisa

dlake:

The last thing I get from your posts is someone that thinks they are wrong. You are far from complacent and judge harshly. But, in all fairness maybe you've been made to feel this way from your dealings with people in Silicon Valley. I would have thought you'd be around more diverse cultures though....

AmerLisa

I don't think anyone is like me. That's my point! I know (and I have lived other places as well!) that this country is very, very different and nothing can be generalized.