I like my work culture. Get stuff done whilst spending large parts of the day on the Caf. Clock off at 5 exactly. Always highlight the bits you've done which are "important" or have a wider impact than just you.
Southern Europeans don't work
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For context, I grew up in Greece but only ever worked in the UK (moved when I was 18, nearly 20 years ago).
My personal experience is probably very skewed. The Mediterranean people I work with (Spaniards, Greeks, Italians, Turks) are probably not a representation of the average in their countries as they were the ones who had a combination of ambition, motivation and work ethic to move away from home to work in a more structured and rewarding environment. As a result they tend to be slightly better than the average London-born/raised Brit, at least in my eyes. They also resent that negative stereotype of them for obvious reasons.
That's not to say there aren't cultural differences evident on the average resident of those countries. I'm probably stating the obvious here, but climate plays a big part in affecting societal work attitudes. Firstly the afternoon heat normally breaks the working day in two and brings about a heat-induced coma for people working outside. While the amazing weather doesn't really motivate you to sit indoors in an office. The second thing is the current state of those countries that people grow up in. High unemployment, low salaries, nepotism, corruption... they don't really encourage you to be a hard working employee as there's no high correlation between hard (or even structured/efficient) work and reward. Creates a vicious circle hard to break out of. Entrepreneurial Meds with their own businesses seem pretty hard working. Having a look at Turkish barbers and kebab shops in London, they are open all sorts of hours and working at a frenetic pace unmatched by anyone else. Put the people in the right environment and they tend to flourish.
Finally, I think pointing out the differences and even being critical of the working culture in the Med is totally fine. But a lot of these Daily Mail-style rags are only doing it as thinly veiled racism. Their target audience isn't usually the best representation of their own countries either, to put it politely.
My personal experience is probably very skewed. The Mediterranean people I work with (Spaniards, Greeks, Italians, Turks) are probably not a representation of the average in their countries as they were the ones who had a combination of ambition, motivation and work ethic to move away from home to work in a more structured and rewarding environment. As a result they tend to be slightly better than the average London-born/raised Brit, at least in my eyes. They also resent that negative stereotype of them for obvious reasons.
That's not to say there aren't cultural differences evident on the average resident of those countries. I'm probably stating the obvious here, but climate plays a big part in affecting societal work attitudes. Firstly the afternoon heat normally breaks the working day in two and brings about a heat-induced coma for people working outside. While the amazing weather doesn't really motivate you to sit indoors in an office. The second thing is the current state of those countries that people grow up in. High unemployment, low salaries, nepotism, corruption... they don't really encourage you to be a hard working employee as there's no high correlation between hard (or even structured/efficient) work and reward. Creates a vicious circle hard to break out of. Entrepreneurial Meds with their own businesses seem pretty hard working. Having a look at Turkish barbers and kebab shops in London, they are open all sorts of hours and working at a frenetic pace unmatched by anyone else. Put the people in the right environment and they tend to flourish.
Finally, I think pointing out the differences and even being critical of the working culture in the Med is totally fine. But a lot of these Daily Mail-style rags are only doing it as thinly veiled racism. Their target audience isn't usually the best representation of their own countries either, to put it politely.
I wouldn't disagree that they put the hours in, but what they do in those hours? Productivity is a big issue. People in my office will stay until 7-8pm with ease but things I'd expect to be done in a week will take 6 months, and trying to speed anything up can prompt a nasty backlash.
Quitaly will be the sequal to brexit if views like this remain unchecked
Hopefully CV19 is a time for Europe to pull together and im still hopeful that in a few years we can knock on the door and say "you know we are famous four our british sense of humour - cant believe you fell for the who brexit joke... anyway let us back please)
Hopefully CV19 is a time for Europe to pull together and im still hopeful that in a few years we can knock on the door and say "you know we are famous four our british sense of humour - cant believe you fell for the who brexit joke... anyway let us back please)
It's really different based on circumstances/opportunity. I hear a lot about lazy Pakistanis, but it's not really true. I can't say much about their office environment as i've not been exposed to it, but I see plenty of children working on the streets, My uncle has a grocery store that's open from 7am to 11pm, I know a young man who does a wedding service and he decorates stages, organises catering, does lighting at houses and he'll work day and night to make sure everything goes ok.
At the same time, i know plenty of people who have people working abroad sending money home, who sit around all day just smoking and drinking tea. There are loads of rich kids who just live off mum and dads fortunes playing instagram gangster. I don't think you can have overall stereotypes like this. At least not from my experience.
At the same time, i know plenty of people who have people working abroad sending money home, who sit around all day just smoking and drinking tea. There are loads of rich kids who just live off mum and dads fortunes playing instagram gangster. I don't think you can have overall stereotypes like this. At least not from my experience.
Well, if you followed a little bit of what happened in Greece, exactly what you suggested happened. Here is an example. If that cover says it, so be it. Prove them wrong by action, if you feel it is a wrongful accusation.
From my very anecdotal evidence of having a few friends dotted around Europe, and myself living in Switzerland, it seems that the Swiss work fewer hours than the Spanish. But in those fewer hours they have less 'down time', so not really any half an hour coffee breaks or lunch breaks that last the guts of two hours. But in return, they generally leave when they're scheduled to.
But in Spain you may be in the office from 9am to 9pm, but that could include a 90 minute lunch break and a few long coffee breaks.
Again, all completely anecdotal and I'm not generalising. My ideal would be a mix of the two - the Swiss diligence in working only the hours you're contracted for, and the relaxed attitude of the Spanish to it all.
But in Spain you may be in the office from 9am to 9pm, but that could include a 90 minute lunch break and a few long coffee breaks.
Again, all completely anecdotal and I'm not generalising. My ideal would be a mix of the two - the Swiss diligence in working only the hours you're contracted for, and the relaxed attitude of the Spanish to it all.
My entire aim in life is to retire as early as possible and live my life in relative peace and quiet. I think the entire nature of work is strange and to be avoided. Having said that, I work in a stressful job and I do everything that is required of me but I'd much rather be doing almost anything else than work. I admire countries that have a more relaxed cultural attitude to work - that is more in line with my own feelings on the matter. Those who view work as something that defines them or adopt a 'work till you drop' attitude are very confusing to me.
Well said on the last part, there's always more to it than just simple laziness and it's thinly veiled racism, a form of which comes from even left leaning people who wouldn't even touch the Daily Mail. There's a strange dissonance from those who support European integration but lambaste Southern Europe. I think this will contribute to the undoing of the EU if it remains unchecked.
Would you agree that Pakistani's tend to prefer to work for themselves and in that type of environment they thrive whereas office type jobs and having to follow orders etc is abit counter-culture?
I mostly agree, but I can also understand why cultures value hardworking people. If you just sit on your ass, then you are essentially a burden for others. You still need food and shelter etc. If you don't do anything, then you are essentially 100% dependent on others for your survival. The more you produce, the better the life for those around you(at least in theory). Of course not everyone can work, and thus it is right to help them out. But if you can work and choose not to(or works very inefficiently), then it makes sense that people get annoyed. There's a collectivist principle at play here. If everyone stopped working or started working very inefficiently, then society would collapse.
There is a balance, though. You work for a living, not the other way around. Sacrificing everything to your work should never be encouraged.
In Provence, we have about a hundred different words equivalent to the famous Spanish Manana but none of them quite convey the same degree of urgency.
I have no truck with this whole "work ethic" narrative, most of all when it's used to explain differences in wealth. There are plenty of people all over the world who work incredibly hard, but are barely able to make ends meet. Including in Southern Europe.
The idea that the rewards you receive is closely related to how hard you work is an ideology that falsely declares distinct conditions for a universal societal principle. Which they aren't. It's not always made explicit, but it's central to this whole discourse.
Bottom line, focussing on individual or collective "work ethic" is usually a way to not talk about working conditions. Or outright nationalist/racist crap, like the cover of that Dutch magazine.
The idea that the rewards you receive is closely related to how hard you work is an ideology that falsely declares distinct conditions for a universal societal principle. Which they aren't. It's not always made explicit, but it's central to this whole discourse.
Bottom line, focussing on individual or collective "work ethic" is usually a way to not talk about working conditions. Or outright nationalist/racist crap, like the cover of that Dutch magazine.
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Of course - I understand that in order for me to get to the point that I no longer need to work I have to work to earn money and then be smart with how I use that money for a sustained period of time for me to get there. Unfortunately you do generally need to work to get cash and it's a complete pain in the ass. I'm not a lazy person (well I am a bit) but I do work full-time in a pretty stressful job at a higher level than I'm comfortable with because I know I need to have a certain level of income to achieve what I want to achieve (no more work). The only thing keeping me in work is the thought of not having to do it.
Ah! Thought you were mentioning Naxos in Sicily! Turns out there's twoNaxos is nice for cruising around on a motorbikeBut there's dozens if not hundreds of beautiful Greek islands, I just picked the one I visited most recently
Aye, I'll toast to that. I feel we work very efficiantly, but also sometimes a bit stressful. A big social security-net here in Denmark and high taxes is probably an indirect effect or how we are able to do this. I've worked in the states too, and I found they work way more but get the same pay, and are further down the hierarchy, while the ones in the top gets the real money. Its basically a structural thing, where the majority / middle / working class dont have a lot of rights, because they're not in charge.
I can only speak for Denmark, but I think having a good amount of hours of spare-time, also makes you able to work very efficiantly for a 'short' amount of time, because you're more fresh and rested.
The flipside to me is that we could sometimes work more / get really skillful at our craft, but some people dont because they're lazy / not forced.
Another flipside is that we drink so much, and it's almost a bit hard to socialize / meet new people without alcohol. But in general I feel we try to be very efficient.
I do something similar. I stayed behind to play Pokemon Go on Wednesday and did raids from the empty classroom. I then printed a load of homework pages I made last year and left them in the printer. He was really happy yesterday at how much I had done.I didn't know @marukomu was a YouTuber
The Southern Europeans do work less. What's wrong with that? Clearly its a better balance.. We're the feckwits.
That's really funny.
Not from my experience. In fact I'd argue certain London-based companies take advantage of Southern European's willingness to work extra hours.
I think many people would prefer to be thier own boss, but i wouldn't describe it as counter culture. IMO it's a sub-culture developed amongst British Pakistani's. Our elders were working class people who worked in manufacturing. When those industries got shipped out/closed down they were forced into self employment. Most didn't have the skills to re-train for office based work and the service sector was limited back then too.
I think the most common two jobs amongst our people are Taxi drivers and takeaway owners/staff. You don't need much qualifications to do, if you put in the hours you make plenty of money in both (apart from takeaway staff) so these routes became popular. They pay more than minimum wage.
Amongst the youngster though it's created a business minded ness. We see the most successful and wealthy amongst us are those who have their own businesses, even small businesses. Why slog for 10-15 years to make 60-70k a year eventually if you can make that sort of money in 3-4 years time as the successful owner of a small business. My mate owns a dixy chicken. He borrowed money to buy a share 9 years ago. He now owns it outright, has 2 other takeaways and has bought 2 houses in that time. He's making a shit ton more money than i am, even though i'm in the higher tax bracket.
So in my minds it's less about not working for someone, and more about doing what makes more money. His fried chicken money is just as good as my office based money.
Yep well put - would agree with all that.
I think we work, but we waste time at work, and as you say we are less efficient, also the hours are different. One of the things that cost me the most to work in England and Ireland was getting up so early and not being able to go home to eat and sleep(obviously there are many kinds of jobs where that's not possible).
Then at five o'clock everything was closed.
I remember working with several Spaniards, and several boys from Bangladesh/India. We were paid by hours and most of the Spanish were delighted when they reduced us to 30/35 hours, however, we were all surprised by the spirit of work of the people of Bangladesh/India.
They left that job and then went to another, and on top of that they studied . That was another of the things that caught my attention in England. Lads with money,18/19 years old working part time to pay their expenses and studies. You will not see that in Spain
Then at five o'clock everything was closed.
I remember working with several Spaniards, and several boys from Bangladesh/India. We were paid by hours and most of the Spanish were delighted when they reduced us to 30/35 hours, however, we were all surprised by the spirit of work of the people of Bangladesh/India.
They left that job and then went to another, and on top of that they studied . That was another of the things that caught my attention in England. Lads with money,18/19 years old working part time to pay their expenses and studies. You will not see that in Spain
Born close from Barcelona. lived in 8 countries (7 working). No one ever worked harder than me and most of my coworkers that I ever had back home. I am living in Canada and every job (restaurant, landscaping and now as sales) that I did I think Canadians are pretty lazy
SOuthern countries don't work? Agree. but Imagine if year after year the northern countries pouches the best of the country, All the free primary/ secondary education invested, all the almost free post-secondary education invested completely lost. Thousands of millions. Just a small example in UK pre-Brexit, how many doctors and nurses were in UK
Imagine in cities like Barcelona the northern europeans paying shitloads of money for a condo and gentrifications because or Airbnb. What are the savings that a country can raise to invest afterwards?
Imagine countries like Netherlands or Ireland not stealing thousands of millions because of being a tax heaven.
Yes, Spain has awful politicians (reflection of the society) but northern countries still resources from us, via human capital, money, etc.. And Spain does it to other countries outside the EU also
Is the food chain. Northern countries are on top and will tell that southern european countries don't work. We will say the same from countries below the food chain. If the southern countries would not be in the EU and only a handful of the countries would be in, the one on top would criticize the one at the bottom
And that is why the EU will never work and is a fecking sham, When everything goes dandy, we are european, when everything goes south (pun intended), Im am dutch, you are spanish, I am german, you are greek, etc...
P.S.: I wait for you in Magaluf you little feckers, lets see if Spain works for you after we clean your puke and nasty condoms at the beach
SOuthern countries don't work? Agree. but Imagine if year after year the northern countries pouches the best of the country, All the free primary/ secondary education invested, all the almost free post-secondary education invested completely lost. Thousands of millions. Just a small example in UK pre-Brexit, how many doctors and nurses were in UK
Imagine in cities like Barcelona the northern europeans paying shitloads of money for a condo and gentrifications because or Airbnb. What are the savings that a country can raise to invest afterwards?
Imagine countries like Netherlands or Ireland not stealing thousands of millions because of being a tax heaven.
Yes, Spain has awful politicians (reflection of the society) but northern countries still resources from us, via human capital, money, etc.. And Spain does it to other countries outside the EU also
Is the food chain. Northern countries are on top and will tell that southern european countries don't work. We will say the same from countries below the food chain. If the southern countries would not be in the EU and only a handful of the countries would be in, the one on top would criticize the one at the bottom
And that is why the EU will never work and is a fecking sham, When everything goes dandy, we are european, when everything goes south (pun intended), Im am dutch, you are spanish, I am german, you are greek, etc...
P.S.: I wait for you in Magaluf you little feckers, lets see if Spain works for you after we clean your puke and nasty condoms at the beach
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Yeah, this idea many have that if you're not spending all your time working then you're not doing what you "should" be doing or you're not as good as someone else is ridiculous IMO.
I have a feeling that Barcelona/Catalunya is more like an outlier. Actually, my last boss (to whom I am returning cause she is awesome) was from Barcelona and she works incredibly hard. The hardest worker in the team was also from Barcelona. In my research community (Computer Vision), Catalunya has a very large representation (bigger than the rest of Spain, probably bigger than the entire Italy). Dunno if they decided for whatever reasons to be this much on computer vision, or they’re just good.
I don't think there is much point judging anyone from a certain country that is working in a different country. As said before, they are a completely different type of person.
I’m not a south european fans, but life lessons given by a little country like that, which based all their gdp for being a tax haven for corporation ffs
Having lived in Spain, I experienced the same there. Getting a sandwich would take literally 30 minutes with a short queue because they’d be so slow and stopping to chat constantly without a care in the world for the people queuing.
Getting served drinks would often take forever too.
It’s not laziness, just a lack of urgency built in to the culture. For the most part I have to admire it but it can be annoying at times, although it’s deffo a first world problem.
Some Dutch people are just mad that we pay so much to the EU which in turn goes to less well of countries in the south of Europe. They're anti EU and want NEXIT, because we're a rich country and if the EU means paying a bit of tax to help those that have less we're a socialist, globalist, marxist, communist, evil leftist shitehole and I wish Trump would be our president too.
The magazine cover from Elsevier should not be taken too seriously though.
The magazine cover from Elsevier should not be taken too seriously though.
That's harsh mate, we're also the world's leading exporter of XTC.
Jesus, I didn't realise takeaways could be that profitable. Surely that can't be the average experience of a takeaway owner?
I don't know how prevalent this was in your area, but when I was in high school there were definitely quite a few Pakistanis who wanted to work for themselves so they wouldn't be working for "the white man"
Not all takeaways are as profitable as my mates. Credit to him, he's a great businessman, he's made his money in clever side investments too when he could. The latest one he's opened is his own brand he's hoping to franchise.
I'm not sure what it's like in more deprived areas where prices are lower, but most busy takeaways have pretty well off owners. I live in Derby and its clear as day that some must be money laundering fronts - terrible food, no customers, been open for years. Others have mixed success but in our community some of the wealthier people are in the takeaway/restaurant trade.