[Closed] Anyone deal with differant nationalities on a regular basis..............??

Yes.

French
German
Dutch
Israeli

so far this week. None of whom seem capable of driving motorhomes without losing wing mirrors.

anything I say here will be construed as racist by Mr "thought crime police" TJ. But there are certain generalised traits of certain nationalities that certainly come to the fore when you are undertaking international business with them. Is all I will say.

stoner 😆

the 6 desks in my area,

Me (British)
Bob - english
Paul - S.Africa
Pritam - India
Jenny - China
Radhika - no idea, middle east/north africa?

The next 6,
english, Venezwela, spannish, austrailian, no idea, no idea

I could go on, but you get the idea.

I used to deal with a Spanish supplier of lift doors, I could never get over the "manjana" culture, fine if you live within it but not if you don't.

Loved dealing with the Turks, who were very professional, the Austrians Hmmmm a bit strange, Germans even more so, but the Italians, what can I say, never on time with deliveries but the best dress sense and wine.

There you go "national stereotypes are us"

Stoner hits the nail on the head there!

Try the Spanish if you want some fun and games! I'm constantly amazed that anything ever gets done in Spain, as they all seem to be [i]constantly[/i] having lunch!

I'm in the satellite trade too but on the broadcast side & get to talk to all sorts of nationalities

I the last hour I've spoken to New York, Adelaide, Frankfurt & Paris about a news feed they want
One of them was extremely rude - if TJ wants, he can have the first guess which one it was

🙂

In my office

Turkish
German
English
Spanish
English
Scots (moi)
English
Italian
Spanish
Spanish
French
Norwegian
English
Swiss

All decent, Turkish my favourite folk this year.

Mind you we get referred to as "monkey island"

Yep, French, Belgians, Dutch and Germans. All v nice people, but the working culture is quite different.

Whichever nationality TJ is I'm going generalise are a bunch of whining patronising supercilious choppers.

F*** it why should I have to self censor myself because of that overinflated self conscience TJ?

In order of difficulty/borderline illegality:

Nigerians (if its not nailed down, they'll have it away)
Russians (no you cant ask where the money has come from)
Middle-eastern (undeclared, cash in hand, off the books, my brother in Iraq etc etc)

I routinely deal with the following and have listed the opinions I have formed of them :-

Chinese : Will bodge a solution rather than resolve a problem. Worst two words you can hear = No Problem!
Russian : Stern and formal and like a drink....... a lot!
French : Decent folk, but its a bit like dealing with a nationalised industry contantly.
Belgian : No real issues, pretty relaxed about most things.
Dutch : Good fun, so laid back that there is chance of falling over.
Italian : Bit loud and a bit bombastic, but great people once you stand up to it.
South African : Dour and quite agressive, bit behind the times.

If thats racial stereotyping then so be it, but those are in generality the things I've routinely come up against.

Major nationalities in our office are German, English and Polish. World War 3 is usually about to break out, especially when you add in the fact that the easy way to get promoted is to be male and speak fluent German. Competence is not required...

Add in some Dutch, Sri Lankans and Madagascans, and there's a lot of potential for creative (and destructive!) misunderstandings.

Let me see...

In the office we have French, Italian, Polish, Chinese, Indian, Brits, Dutch and a Canadian, all of whom are very nice, highly professional and approachable.

Day to day I deal with Americans, Indians, Aussies and Kiwis to name but a few.

The yanks are, for the most part good people. Some of the guys in our other offices are a bit strange, but they are dependable and can do what they do well.

The Indians are, for the most part, highly professional and well motivated. Dealing with them is sometimes a pleasure, sometimes not, but that's the way of the world.

The aussies are a bit odd, but I think that's because they are such a long way away from us. Same with the Kiwis, although both sorts are very good to go out drinking with and the ones I know are good at their jobs.

I know a couple of South Africans, and they are another bunch of hard workers. They just play harder than most afterwards.

I think I spend most of my time either taking the pi$$ out of my US colleague or the French guy I work with. The fact that he takes the pi$$ right back shows that people are wrong when they thing they have no sense of humour.

Place I used to work had/has the following;

Indian
Zimbabwean
South African
Polish
Latvian
Russian
Hungarian
Slovakian
Czech
Malaysian
Chinese
Welsh
Irish (north & south)
Thai
Kenyan
Ugandan
Scottish
British (English)
Phillipino
Australian

Where TF do you lot work to have such a variety of nationalities?!

I didn't think I dealt with many on a weekly basis, until I listed them. Usually communicate over telephone, email, skype/msn.

American, Canadian, S.African, Chinese, Indian, Zealon?(New Zealand), Australian, Arabian, Israeli, Chilian, Brazilian, most European countries, and a few other countries dotted around.

I find with each country you get some that you like, and others that are a bunch of ****s.

The one that stands out for me is the Chinese.. We'd been dealing with a company in China for a couple of months, so we decided to invite them over. The MD and manager came over, the MD was 60ish, couldn't speak any English, the Manager was about 30 and his English was perfect.
Cut a long story short... Old guy hadn't shown a smile all day. When we walked into the bar after eating and saw the Karaoke... Well his face lit up, and this old chinese man was like a kid in a sweet shop.. Up he went singing all the songs, in English. Had a great time, best time I've had with a Client (no its not, the Canadian's took me to a strip club, that was the best :D). I swear it was like a scene from a film.

I deal with a range of nationalities on a regular basis, this week Malaysian, Chinese and German.

I have worked for French, American and Iraqi companies, I have especially learnt to never, ever use English phrases like "run of the mill", "it gets my goat", "hard cheese" etc. as having to explain what it means is like pulling teeth at times.

Polish, English, Welsh, Irish, SA, Aussie, ****stani, Indian, Sri lankan, Bangladeshi, Egiptian. Others come less often, maybe weekly.

We have a guy from Epsom in here, can hardly understand a word he says. Should be made to learn the language before he comes oop north. 😆

We do, however, deal globally and on the whole most folks are pretty decent if treated properly. Think we have encountered most of the above and it just makes us chuckle.

umm there is a bit oof unwarrantied TJ bashing here - i cant see him actually posting either unless i am being a bit blind.

A tad off i would say.
Kinda like internet bullying really - the man has views on things, if you don't like them then fine. He will happily discuss anything in the pub and never once lose his temper and i always willing to listen to others opinions.

Just sticking up for him seeing as he is not here.

ha some of these traits are so very true still where thought of as lager louts. And TJ seems like a decent enough chap and seems to think before he speaks.

Still alot of these traits are just because they are from another country nothing wrong with the way either nation does it.

take this

Chinese : Will bodge a solution rather than resolve a problem. Worst two words you can hear = No Problem!

"I used to deal with a Spanish supplier of lift doors, I could never get over the "manjana" culture"
I think you mean Rasta supplier.
😉

Chinese, Never understand...never listen...
Czechs, usually as above...
Spanish, nice people...
Americans.. always so damn cheerful...

and I work with a few Polish... good fun. Nice people.. except Mondays when weekends Vodka is still in their systems...

i would like to work with a load of eastern european women................................................. 😉

markd - Member
umm there is a bit oof unwarrantied TJ bashing here

I agree, there's no warranty on that bashing, but it is entirely warranted....! 😉

I worked for a couple of years with 32 different nationalities on the same site. Challenging and interesting to see so many stereotypes confirmed.

I work in the European IT department of a big multinational.

We look after UK (4 sites), France (up to 8 sites, although they do have some IT people of their own), Czech Republic, Poland; some dealings with Ireland; Hungary coming soon. Ukraine & Romania maybe later. Israel & Turkey have their own people.

we get our corporate stuff from Tampa, FL. They look after USA, Canada, Mexico, Chile

In 9 years I have been to all our UK sites, and once to Normandy.

Until recently I worked with a huge amount of nationalities

...unfortunately for them I was removing them

In my office we have a few nationalities:
German: correct, thoughtful, very competent, surprising sense of humour
Italian: shrug a lot when asked difficult questions, not very interested in detail
Polish: can be a bit like having an argument with a room full of people (when there's only one of them)
French: shrug a lot
Danish: mad as a fish
Norwegian: prepared to deal with anything
Spanish: not prepared to say that they don't understand what you asked them to do, usually bugger off before you've realised what a complete mess they've made of things
Portugese: not prepared to say that they don't understand what you've asked them to do, but once you've realised that and get them to admit it then things go so much better
Welsh: hard working, tendency towards getting a bit chippy
Indian: either very competent and hard working, or very, very lazy
Kiwi: if they're good then you will never tire of being told exactly quite how good they are
Australian: apparently quite hard working, but soon you'll discover that they really know better than you when you find that they've not done what you've asked them to do because they know better than you
Saffa's: if they've just come over here then you'll surprised to be told one day that there's "lots of furriners in Lundun, yah?"

I'm american.. I^m married to a brit... and I work for the UN... (in a Japanese section ) how many nationalities you want?

[i]Chinese : Will bodge a solution rather than resolve a problem. Worst two words you can hear = No Problem![/i]

Very true!

Same answer to every question. Sometimes there's a killer pause that you've got to listen for though.

Q - Will the tooling be ready on time?

A - No problem.
or
A - No.... Problem!!!!

Australians in London -
"If I was back home, I'd be on the beach...."
"If I was back home, the weather would be better..."
"If I was back home, I'd....."
etc etc etc, ad infinitum

Well, if it's that much better "back home", might I suggest you f*** off back there? After all, we don't need you to work in our bars any more, the Poles are far better at it than you lot ever were!

😉

Yes personally :-
Kuwaiti,
Saudi,
UAE,
Indian,
Turkmenistani,
Azerbaijani,
Israeli,
Qatari,
Greek (theme of the week)
French,
Dutch,
Kazakhs,
Norweigans,
Indonesians,
Chinese,
Irish,
Jordanian
Egyptians

etc etc etc

And do you know the most bemusing of my customers are, you know the ones that you feel most culturally different from, indeed the ones that you'll never truly get or understand............................

Americans

I Kid you not !

no kiddin?

No, no please dont misread or get me wrong, I travel a lot and meet most of the people from the nationalities I mentioned above personally and not via Email or on the phone, I am very fond and respectful of all my American friends, but there is no doubt (from both sides, not just from my British perspective, that whilst we get on famously, we really are very different) thats what makes for a bloody good night out !

Travelled with Williams on the race team for a couple of years and we have a varying amount of european workers at the factory (my boss is french and in his case all french stereotypes applicable!) Having spent time in alot of places we are all very very similar when you get out with the locals from anywhere in humour I mean, except the rest of the world is decidedly more racist than the UK IMO!! The Spanish and Chinese are terrible! I found it highly amusing that we are so sensored with our opinions yet most cultures don't give a rats ass and just tell it how it is. My mother in law is Chinese Malay and her rants about "bloody imagrants" are brilliant (she clearly isn't a imigrant in her opinion)

On a daily basis in my job:

Polish
Iranian
Iraqi
Lithuanian
Romanian
****stani
Indian
Turkish

(Oh,& not forgetting English,Welsh,Scots,& Irish!)

Out of all the above,only one nationality is a right pain in the @rse to deal with.

on a daily basis for me.

Indian
American
Canadian
South African

Less often we talk to quite a few Israeli's (the paranoid bastards make quite a lot of world leading security products), some Australians and some Spanish.

Rarely we deal with some French and I always try to speak as much French as I can, I'm very rusty and don't get there enough to practise as much as I'd like and I'm always keen to talk in French but they always speak such good English it always reverts to that. Perhaps they get bored with my continual attempts to converse at the same level as a 5 year old french child.

edit: oh, we also deal with germans but they're ordered to only talk in english so despite my attempts to enage them at a 3 year old german child level, they formally ignore it and talk to me in english. The job description says english so ve vill talk in english.

Lots of schools are now dropping German as a language as there's simply no need for it. An increasing number of Germans are now adopting the Dutch approach of conversing in English amongst themselves.

mcboo - Member

Whichever nationality TJ is I'm going generalise are a bunch of whining patronising supercilious choppers.

That will be the English then as proven on this thread. Nowt the English like so much as a good whinge if they think anyone is interfering in their god given right to sneer at others.

Some of you guys so miss the point it simply is not true.

I think the phrase is "doth protest too much"

hahahahaha 'LOLZ'

[i]Lots of schools are now dropping German as a language as there's simply no need for it. An increasing number of Germans are now adopting the Dutch approach of conversing in English amongst themselves. [/i]

I think that's shocking. German is a great language and a lot like English. It should be adopted as the international language for getting things done.

i work in an international airport so meet allsorts

do you work in the sweet shop?

Mrs Mugsy est francaise.

I get to deal with her now and again.

[url= http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/companies-resort-to-employing-the-welsh-200907161909/ ]The Welsh[/url]

tails - Member

Chinese : Will bodge a solution rather than resolve a problem. Worst two words you can hear = No Problem!
you wouldn't call the olympic stadium a bodge, but they often build seats etc on the spot in a slap dash method or they will say add a cushion to a broken stool tie it with string bring it back to life.

Hmmm, I wouldn't mind betting that if you look behind the facade you would find agreat deal of bodging. A good example being a company that I've dealt with a great deal over the years in Shanghai. Went to their new head office building, which was a fabulous bespoke marble clad 30's art deco style edifice. When you went into the foyer it was impressive and very stylish. Into the lift, up onto the floor for the department I was dealing with, and so far so good, then walk into the general office and there is the department working sitting on tea chests and desks made out of planks over crates. Style over substance. Seen it 100's of times. Another example of what I mean being a door closer that I bought years ago. Had an oil leak problem, so we went back to them, and it was "no problem"..... next lot arrived and the same happened, so more heated exchanges, and it was "no problem" again and the process was repeated. When eventually out of frustration I had one in half with an angle grinder to investigate for myself, I found the source of the "no problem" problem. Their solution had been to add another oil seal to the main spindle evey time we had complained, so there it was 5 oil seals one after another and the thing was stil leaking. A flight to China later I got to the bottom of it. They were assembling the thing, spray painting it then baking it in an oven to cure the paint faster, so the oil inside was expanding and bursting the seals which in the meantime were perishing in the heat.... No Problem! I can repeat similar stories ad nauseum.

Anyway, one nationality I left out in my previous post. The Brits. Who seem to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Constant problem is price cutting negotiations followed immediately by complaints of "why haven't we got the rolls royce version?" type of thing. Very rarely do you find a situation where folk give a detailed specification of what they want prior to getting to price.

Germans are an ace bunch of people. I spent six months working in Bavaria at Uni and still think it's one of the best, friendliest places in the world. Good food, excellent beer, nice riding.

I just wish that my German was up to making a decent fist of talking to the locals without sounding like an idiot. For some reason I kept mixing up my A-level French with the German I learned out there, so sounding like a special child every time I got into a conversation with a local. And yes, the conversation then went back to English, which they spoke perfectly.

Years later, me and the mrs went to Berlin for a week and I was stunned to find that people were exactly the same in the north or Germany. The food was just as good and the beer just as nice. All that after I was told by my mates in Erlangen that the north was a barren wasteland filled with people that didn't care about each other.

Remind me to heckle them next time I see them.

I'd like to add Canadians to my list too. Quite possibly the nicest people on earth. Shame that their domestic wine is a bit ropey and their beer is a bit "American" (generally). I can forgive them that for having such a nice country though.

samuri - Member

do you work in the sweet shop?

I wish! lol

Countries represented on my team at the moment:

* Spain
* Cuba
* Mexico
* Columbia
* Venezuela

No, the lengua franca is not English 🙂

Somebody on here mentioned the Spanish and the 'manyana' culture - you ought to try living in Cornwall, with the 'dreckly' culture - its even worse.

We use a lot of aussie and saffer local crew. Fantastically hard grafters and always seem to have a good craic, unlike the odd english guy who gets employed who usually skives off for a fag/coffee/dump and whinges the rest of the stime.