Comment by durnygbur
5 years ago
I would love to work in European international corporation acknowledging and respecting different introvert/extrovert personality levels, countless languages, completely different approaches in handling problems and challenges determined by one's origin and upbringing, different needs in socializing, e.g. Nokia at its peak. I dislike the American corporate environment, their soulless "corporate culture" media materials. There is this one American school of "how to become successful" and that's it. Productivity of a generation of Europeans is getting wasted on following some motivational bollocks by people after dozen of plastic surgeries and living in Florida or California.
> I dislike the American corporate environment, their soulless "corporate culture" media materials. There is this one American school of "how to become successful" and that's it.
Ironically, a lot of people in the European country in which I live feel this way about domestic companies compared to the vibrancy of US corporate culture. Maybe you can elaborate on what you're referring to, preferably with less generalizing of a whole continent of corporate cultures as "European?"
Yeah but european companies dont exist, we re all different.
Im French for instance, and we certainly dont work like the german. For us it s all about the game, the gossips, the fightings. Everyone is the CEO and it s hard to remember we have a job to do end of the day.
In Germany I ve heard things are more...rule following.
I work in China now - it's way more result oriented.
The corporate culture BS we have it everywhere, it s part of the internal marketing we all have to do, and it s not really american: it s a way to try and adapt to a workforce that doesnt only focus on the result but also the way it s achieved. And ofc, it s a shortcut, because beyond the surface there s nothing.
TL;DR dont idealize europe, it s a big place.
This is so right. There is no European culture. Even neighboring countries with similar values (NL and DE) are wildly different with regard to workplace.
I The Netherlands, work stops on Friday around 16:0-ish. In Germany, I had regular meetings at 18:00 on Friday. I honestly thought they were joking.
In Norway the office is desolate after 13:00 on a Friday. Only the youngest and the ones without children stick around till 16:00, and not many of them either.
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Really really depends on the company. I've heard the saying from Siemens people (which in Germany are regarded more like public officials, less like employees): "Freitag um eins macht jeder seins". Meaning no serious work is to be done after Fr 1300.
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If we're talking IT, don't you have at least some amount of night owls? In most places I've worked there were people that preferred starting their work around 10h - 12h, so an office would be rarely be completely empty even in the evening.
It's not even really consistent within the US. Offices in (say) San Francisco, New York, and Atlanta will have very often different corporate cultures.