Old William

Or just plain DamnYankees

gardnma

When we "fought" some battles, the continentals/rebels/insurgents/terrorists would get cocky and not put in enough effort to give a good showing. This was just embarrasing as it made us look even worse.
On at least two occasions in Vermont we got sick of it and advanced instead of retreating and ended up winning a battle lost 230 years ago!

angelman

its an interesting topic the idea that being british may help or hinder you in your work over here in the US.
In my company in LA there are a lot of expats from all over europe, france germany and england. I have noticed that in my department at least I can think of no expats in a senior position (we only have three positions available). I am really trying to get promoted at the moment. I am finding it because of my personality. Sure I am not the smoothest operator but I am wondering if my typical british down to earth say it as it is, get the job done stop bullshitting attitude is getting me in trouble. I look around and notice no other english people getting promoted either.
I think people here find it hard to understand me, my way of being, my accent, the way I talk, I do mumble its true but I think the cultural differences definately play a part. Unless you have a very posh clear loud voice and are ultra british it seems to be more of a hinderance than a help. They value my work, my technical and creative skills a lot i have never had a complaints.. its just down to my personality and that my friends i cant really change too easily ..
oh well I guess I shall just dawdle along frustrated in the slow lane...

Old William

Well they didnt have the french to help them this time did they?

angelman

on the flip side when I worked for a company in london we 'imported' a bunch of americans to show us what to do in our new venture. It was a disaster. They really had no idea what they were doing but more importantly they anti american sentiment that built up was really sickening for me. I was good friends with some of them and they tried really hard to fit in. They were very down to earth kind of people. One of them later told me that it was the lonliest time of her life, it was one of the worst experiences she had ever had.. yet weirdly it was also one of the best. She loved england and europe. She would travel to a new country each weekend. She would go out in the evenings drinking with the best of them yet she only met incredibly outdate ill informed anti american attitude. The views of the majorty of british people about america and americans are pretty much as idiotic as the americans view of britain and europe. You find a typical english person who has the first clue as to where idaho is on the map and that state is bigger than many european countries! My english friend asked me if I was going to live in san francisco when I told her I was moving to LA. She thought that they were pretty much in the same place...


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Lord Lionheart

I have a Birmingham accent and still got promoted, so I think your excuse is very poor. I think you just suck at your job ( said in a very down to earth matter of fact British manner)

angelman

yeah youre probably right... not that i suck at my job.. just that i am a total pain in the neck.. always asking difficult questions like.. why is this like this.. wouldnt this be better.. have you thought about doing it this way.. dont you think this would make it faster, did you notice that error there, are you sure its supposed to be like that.. is that the best we can do?


hehe

BigDavyG

I agree, I don't think that the down to earth, low key approach helps much over here.

gardnma

Its probably because they don't understand a word you are saying....

gardnma

I just don't fu(kin care anymore.

There's this bloody woman who sits opposite me at work and starts conversations, then whenever I say anything, she says "...excuse me?"
Every-friggin-time.

Today she started talking to me and I just went off on the health care system and how Hillary was terrific in the hope that she will be afraid to talk to me again.

BigDavyG

To be fair being a Brit does help when dealing with awkward mo-fo's - you can get away with virtually anything...

gardnma

I regress into my old accent when I am really pissed off.

I've actually been in a professional engineering environment here and just let rip. No-one knew how to handle it. The looks were priceless.
I'm not really a hard case, but they didn't know the difference.
Probably thought I was going to burn the place down.

Now, that is fun.

Sally

as long as you don't do it outside a strip joint...

Moving?

I don't really like the false "niceness" there either... Nor do my US friends there either! We often make up conversations like :

"Hello sir, how are you doing today?"
"Terrible, just terrible. The dog got run over, the TV blew up, the plumbing started to leak, got a message that someone died," etc etc...
"Oh, that's great - that will be $34.47. Have a nice day now"

I know a couple of times the waiter has just hung around the table tooo long talking... Just let me eat will ya! Felt like asking if he wanted to join us!

...but, I understand that it's personal preference... just that mine is to not prefer!

I do like US buffets, but you do get tired of 'em after a while I think - and put on the lbs! For me, I found eating out a lot cheaper than buying food at (in MI) Meijer, which I found more expensive than Tesco. However, I rarely found the shelves empty - especially later in the day - in the US supermarkets. When I had a friend come to UK and took them to Tesco one night (I'm sure it's part of everyone's UK sightseeing tour ), it was embarrassing the number of empty shelves. They said it was like a large Aldi... I'm sure Tesco would be happy to hear that


Another question... is US customer service so amazingly better than UK? The only experience I've had is when I ordered something online in US and it came in a different colour... When I contacted them they said it was end of line so they couldn't guarantee the colour. Nothing said about it on the web but they wouldn't take it back - and not knowing my rights I left it at that... And that's another thing - delivery charges... They seem so high... Normally whenever I bought anything online, I paid at least as much, if not more for S&H

Anyway, interesting reading everyone's stories.

gardnma

50 cases of lead poisoning?