European Company Ignorance - Page 2

Aggie09Derek

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In reply to ATM9000 • 6:10a, 2/4/23

AG

What country if you don't mind me asking?

ATM9000

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In reply to Aggie09Derek • 7:51a, 2/4/23

AG

UK… work with people from all over the continent. To really boil down the differences between Europe and the US is they are a bit more socialist than us.

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Alexhereandnow

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8:27a, 2/4/23

I worked for Shell right after college. The European roots gave us flexible maternity/paternity leave. Dads could take up to 8 weeks off paid and moms got 16 weeks paid. This is a relatively new benefit they extended to the US, from my understanding.

Two funny things that stick out, aside from what has already been said on this thread:

1. Brits love the word "keen." I'm from a small town in east Texas and had not heard the word used seriously until I started working there. There was a bit of imposter syndrome when I first got on those global calls straight out of college. Certainly felt myself trying to "talk on their level" and not be the dumb American. This was mostly being early in my career and having no global experience previously. Later I learned people respected you for just being yourself…and it was easier.

2. The Dutch I worked with considered debate a sport. Meetings would extend as we went round and round on some minor issue. It was fun for them and not taken personally. Just spirited debate.

Overall, worked there ~7 years and loved the experience. I thought the European roots built in a lot of flexibility in the culture and taught me a lot about work / life separation.

ATM9000

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In reply to Alexhereandnow • 12:14p, 2/4/23

AG

Alexhereandnow said:
The Dutch I worked with considered debate a sport. Meetings would extend as we went round and round on some minor issue. It was fun for them and not taken personally. Just spirited debate.

I think this is a very European trait. Deep debates on semantics and you don't leave the room until it is settled. There's more value put on honesty here. Different than keeping your word… more about being forward with things in the business that just bother you. That's what I mean by sincerity. You'll passionately debate it until it is settled then… it is settled. Early on my boss would do this with some minute detail that bugged him and my attitude would be who gives a **** we will figure it out later. But something like that Europeans find a bit dismissive so you are better off addressing it and settling it right then.

Be honest, squash beefs quickly and don't be sensitive and take things personally… that's how you get Europeans to respect you. They hate even little things lingering for days because leaving the office with no worries is really important here.

Ol_Ag_02

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In reply to fightingfarmer09 • 7:35p, 2/4/23

AG

fightingfarmer09 said:
YouBet said:
fightingfarmer09 said:
evestor1 said:
I work for a European company. I often laugh at the different attitude and demeanor of our people overseas. Few examples:

1. Email Americans at 3am CST and say "I need this by 9am today" for items that take three days to produce. When you say "i need a few days" they respond with "Please complete asap, but i do not need it for 5 days." We do this at least twice per month.

2. Tell Americans that they do not get holidays off and should take PTO. Neglecting that their benefits package is 40 PTO days and USA is 15 PTO + 7 Holiday.

3. All video calls have presentations ... our USA video calls have zero presentations within internal meetings.

4. Ask about getting individual raises and bonuses on company-wide state of union calls. I am talking a few hundred people and "Oliver wants to know when he will be getting an increase in salary." or "When do i get my Christmas Bonus" - only 10% of the company is eligible for incentive pay...and they allow public questioning over it. Happens on all company wide calls...never upsets the managment.

What do your foreign companies and co-workers do that make you confused.

My favorite is in the EU (particularly Germans) will hound you to death about a critical project which they will insist that you work insanely fast to meet a crazy deadline. Then once it's complete and needs to ship (requiring their approval) they have disappeared on some 2-3 week vacation without notifying you. So the rush project now sits for a month.

South Americans will filibuster themselves stretching a 30 min call into 3 hours.

Indians…not worth the perma ban.

Commas instead of decimals.

F the metric system.
Kindly share your opinion so that I can proceed with my next opinion.

We are owned by an Indian based company.

Common company arguments involve pay because they believe we should be able to hire anyone we want for about $5-6/hr and anything more than that is robbery. Leads to major moral problems.

Our legal teams will spend months arguing with venders about contracts trying to get pointless concessions to the point where the vender will just walk away.

Constant WhatsApp messages about how unsafe, dirty and terrible America is despite wanting to go to the mall to shop on every business trip here.

Going to stop there.

I manage a mostly Indian (Tamil Nadu) department. My biggest beef with executive Indian site leadership and HR is their insistence that we do our very best to underpay at every single available option.

For example. Hiring some mid-level person asking for 20 lakh, company salary range is 23 lakh minimum. HR says give them 20 because they'll be happy, I say give them 23 because it's the minimum and your own local HR group has determined that's the going market minimum for that job. They argue that we can save 3 lakh but yet they can't seem to get it through their heads that trying to save 3 lakh is stupid when they can quit in six months because they'll turn around and get 23 at every other company. Or at best get really pissed off when they find out what all their counterparts are making more (since they all like to talk money).

Drives me nuts.

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Sean Mercer

Joined: Oct 28, 2016

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In reply to Ol_Ag_02 • 2:10p, 2/9/23

Ol_Ag_02 said:
fightingfarmer09 said:
YouBet said:
fightingfarmer09 said:
evestor1 said:
I work for a European company. I often laugh at the different attitude and demeanor of our people overseas. Few examples:

1. Email Americans at 3am CST and say "I need this by 9am today" for items that take three days to produce. When you say "i need a few days" they respond with "Please complete asap, but i do not need it for 5 days." We do this at least twice per month.

2. Tell Americans that they do not get holidays off and should take PTO. Neglecting that their benefits package is 40 PTO days and USA is 15 PTO + 7 Holiday.

3. All video calls have presentations ... our USA video calls have zero presentations within internal meetings.

4. Ask about getting individual raises and bonuses on company-wide state of union calls. I am talking a few hundred people and "Oliver wants to know when he will be getting an increase in salary." or "When do i get my Christmas Bonus" - only 10% of the company is eligible for incentive pay...and they allow public questioning over it. Happens on all company wide calls...never upsets the managment.

What do your foreign companies and co-workers do that make you confused.

My favorite is in the EU (particularly Germans) will hound you to death about a critical project which they will insist that you work insanely fast to meet a crazy deadline. Then once it's complete and needs to ship (requiring their approval) they have disappeared on some 2-3 week vacation without notifying you. So the rush project now sits for a month.

South Americans will filibuster themselves stretching a 30 min call into 3 hours.

Indians…not worth the perma ban.

Commas instead of decimals.

F the metric system.
Kindly share your opinion so that I can proceed with my next opinion.

We are owned by an Indian based company.

Common company arguments involve pay because they believe we should be able to hire anyone we want for about $5-6/hr and anything more than that is robbery. Leads to major moral problems.

Our legal teams will spend months arguing with venders about contracts trying to get pointless concessions to the point where the vender will just walk away.

Constant WhatsApp messages about how unsafe, dirty and terrible America is despite wanting to go to the mall to shop on every business trip here.

Going to stop there.

I manage a mostly Indian (Tamil Nadu) department. My biggest beef with executive Indian site leadership and HR is their insistence that we do our very best to underpay at every single available option.

For example. Hiring some mid-level person asking for 20 lakh, company salary range is 23 lakh minimum. HR says give them 20 because they'll be happy, I say give them 23 because it's the minimum and your own local HR group has determined that's the going market minimum for that job. They argue that we can save 3 lakh but yet they can't seem to get it through their heads that trying to save 3 lakh is stupid when they can quit in six months because they'll turn around and get 23 at every other company. Or at best get really pissed off when they find out what all their counterparts are making more (since they all like to talk money).

Drives me nuts.

I believe anyone who has worked retail where negotiations take place (cars, real estate) will agree that the "average" Indian consumer is not happy unless he/she has screwed over the other party.

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JuanDurfel

Joined: Jan 21, 2016

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In reply to evestor1 • 2:59p, 2/9/23

AG

evestor1 said:
2. Tell Americans that they do not get holidays off and should take PTO. Neglecting that their benefits package is 40 PTO days and USA is 15 PTO + 7 Holiday.

That's not true of my German counterparts at my company. I swear they are on Holiday like every other week.

Every time we ask them about timeline.. they're like.. it will have to wait, we are on Holiday next week for the [Number] Anniversary of [Proper Noun] [Verb].

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In reply to Win At Life • 2:03p, 2/11/23

Apache

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6:11p, 2/15/23

AG

Quote:
I believe anyone who has worked retail where negotiations take place (cars, real estate) will agree that the "average" Indian consumer is not happy unless he/she has screwed over the other party.

It is definitely a cultural thing. Men from India die inside if they don't feel they have negotiated the price down at least somewhat. I always start about 15% high & let them have the "win"

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