[Closed] Working with Americans

If Americans get so little holiday, how do they spend so much time doing cool 'lifestyle' activities and driving around in RVs!?

For all this, they never seemed to get any more than us done. In fact, given the hours they worked, considerably less.

When I worked for a few weeks in our San Francisco office, this was exactly the situation. They'd be in the office from 7am til 9pm, and could often be heard slagging off the lazy UK staff who 'only did 8 hours'. The difference of course was that in SF, they'd go to Starbucks at least twice during the day, go to one of the many pop up restaurants or street food stalls for lunch, and generally swan around the office all day chatting up the girls.

I work for a huge American corporation here in the UK.

+1 for the Corporate culture being like a crazy death cult - the corporate video messages put out by the leadership are met with muted apathy and sarcasm in the UK, but with cheering and grown men high fiving each other in the US.
They also attend weekend 'cook outs' and family events where they get the change to talk to the leadership outside work. Very odd.

+1 for them working long hours but not actually achieving any more than we do.

+1 for everyone in the USA being VP of something or other, they do love a job title out there.

Ah yes, corporate cynicism. Alive and well in any UK branch of a US company. It's just not the done thing, dontchaknow.

> According to the Bureau Of Labor Statistics, at one years service 75% of full-time workers in the US get between 5 and 14 paid vacation days a year, with a mean of 10 days.

Yes, but as I said 'vacation' and 'family days' are usually two different entitlements.

Granted I'm not sure how the US Family Day entitlements work or how many they get.

But in the UK the entitlement is 4 weeks "Parental Leave" per child per year (totally a maximum of 18 weeks before their 18th birthday). That's unpaid leave and additional to the normal statutory 28 days paid vacation.

https://www.gov.uk/parental-leave/entitlement

the corporate video messages put out by the leadership are met with muted apathy and sarcasm in the UK, but with cheering and grown men high fiving each other in the US.

I found that really, really weird. Actually surreal. Like I'd dissapeared into some alternative universe. The first time I witnessed some vile Gordon Gekko-a-like giving it the big motivational speech to the department, and the 'mericans responded with whoops and high fives, I burst out laughing as I thought they were taking the piss. I don't know who was then more horrified. Them - at me clearly finding this absolutely hilarious, or me, when I realised that this was for real. 😯

I didn't stay there long. I genuinelly felt that, in the words of Mozza, it was corroding my soul

what I hate most that as buyers they tend to seek huge amounts of info, engage in very lengthy discussions with no intention to actually buy....

Must be quite a few using the classifieds on here and pretending to be British then.

Try working for Canadians

This.

I even started to question my own sanity at the length of time it took to not get anything done. Or the lack of ownership of any particular problem that occurred.

I was bollocked once for sending an email detailing what was needed, when and using what. Needless to say it wasn't done

Absolute bunch of racist workshy corporate bollocks ****ers

Binners, my experience was the same, every missive was greeted as if it was the dead sea scrolls, every presentation was an excuse for a bit of a back slap and hollerin'

The belief that their corp was the best, served their best interests, was to be revered was tangible, and the biggest difference between the UK and US staff.

(that and the swearing)

Having worked for a big American corp for nearly 8 years, I think it's more the corp culture rather than the nationality.

Also, they are very good at blowing their own trumpets and saying the right things publicly whilst doing **** all and slagging the company off behind closed doors.

The 7am to 8pm thing is presenteeism, the minions copying leadership and being scared of getting sacked and losing benefits like Health Insurance.

That being said, I have got to know some good people who do like a beer or 8. But they are fro Baaaaaastan, which makes them "Irish" and therefore borderline alcoholic.

If Americans get so little holiday, how do they spend so much time doing cool 'lifestyle' activities and driving around in RVs!?

They don't. Everything is done as a sprint, nobody takes more than a week off at a time and the average RV is used for 2 weeks per year (I actually looked this up a few months ago).

An American couple I know went to a Caribbean island earlier this year for their 20th anniversary. They were in a non-American hotel and were the only people not there for 2 weeks. They now understand my issues with the American work/life imbalance.