American Work ethic

Axe_meister

Having worked with an american company now for the fourth time in the last 20 years (either onsite in the states or supporting/consulting the company remotely), my opinion of American work ethic is totally at odds with what we are led to believe. i.e. the whole "American Dream, you work you can achieve anything", we work such long hours, have so little holiday, etc.

My observations are. 

Generally very little planning aptitude, yet expect everything to have been done yesterday.

A vast amount of talk but little action, so they are forced to work long hours to get anything done.

Very bad at setting expectations, but very quick to criticise if the undefined expectations have not been met.

Very narrow minded and don't look at the big picture.

Maybe a bit of a rant. But my current customer is doing my head in. Trying to plan our work in without consulting us at all, asking the impossible, without giving us any background on what they are trying to achieve and then get surprised when we sent ask them for a PO for the additional high cost resources/hardware we need to bring in at short notice.

PolarityMan

they're world class at workplace jargon though

Jalapeno

You forgot the reaction to stellar effort and outstanding delivery ....  "It would have been better if you ....."

Paul_C

http://clientsfromhell.net/

mudslide73

Paul_C said:

http://clientsfromhell.net/

Some brilliant stuff on there.

guitarfishbay

Paul_C said:

http://clientsfromhell.net/

CLIENT: I’m not too sure about the blue…

ME: Actually, that’s green.

CLIENT: Who’s the client?

ME: You.

CLIENT: And what color is it?

ME: …blue?

CLIENT: Right. Now let me see what other shades of blue we have.

We settled on pine-tree ”blue.”

)

Sambostar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy3rjQGc6lA

 

carlos

I work at a giant multinational that's originally from the USA so lots of American colleagues. In general, whatever comes from their side of the pond will be overpriced, mis-specced and late. They do spend godawful hours at work but am not sure what they actually do when they are there.

Roland

An American client told me that he started work at 6:30 in the morning, and finished 12 hours later. It transpired that he rolled up between 6:30 and 7:00, OK 6:55, put his jacket over the back of his chair, and went out for breakfast. The rest of the day followed the same pattern, with lunchtime shopping, internet research in his cubicle and conversations around other people's cubicles.  Presence time and visibility seemed to be major considerations.

It was a Dutch colleague who, leaving the office at 18:00, looked at a group of Americans starting a meeting and said "They don't seem to be able to get their work done in normal hours. Do you think we should help them?"

I guess it's a cultural thing.