One of the advantages of working in a multi-nationality environment is that you get to meet people from far more diverse backgrounds than working with only locals. Unfortunately, not all the foreign co-workers are nice to work with and some are openly hostile and aloof. I worked for two years in such an environment and although it was a generally great experience, one particular person spoilt the fun for a while.
We were a multi disciplinary team – financial auditors, quantity surveyors and engineers – and our work was coordinated by a British national. His opinion of us was that we were a bunch of bumpkin, idle locals who had to be talked down to. This view of his came to the fore one day when an engineer subcontracted to the project we were on gave us a detailed account of our supervisor’s rating of each of us. We all had our own personal deficiencies; my defect was that I was always half asleep and that my output was low. There was only one thing to do at this point and that was to bring my output down to my supervisor’s level of what he thought it was. What’s the point of working hard when your manager sincerely believes you’re a slacker?
The day that we were informed that he was to be replaced was a day of jubilation. His replacement was also British but was a totally different person and within a few weeks, our level of efficiency and output went back to what it was before the previous manager darkened our office life.
POST A COMMENTBonusOnus(04/30/2008)
Dude, your (former) boss is British. They look down on everybody. :)
SouthernProgrammer(05/01/2008)
I can't believe I read this! The reason being is we hired a 'British National' two years ago as a project manager who has thrown chaos into the group. The guy is nice enough and is reasonably intelligent but the problem is he thinks he knows EVERYTHING and will not back down from his ideas! Just recently, a co-worker and I were assigned to him to come up with a solution for a system that would be used world wide and had to be 100% fault tolerant. My co-worker and I are used to that and we came up with a reasonably priced solution based upon the customers requirements. The British national immediately shot down our idea and presented his own design based on another project he did. My co-worker and I called in our manager as a mediator and began going over the customers requirements and seeing if the 'British nationals' solution would work. After an hour, we had proven that his idea would NOT work and that ours would. Rather than take our idea, the British National abruptly ended the meeting and said "I will use a 3rd party consulting company to implement MY idea" and stormed out! My co-worker, boss and I looked at each other with open mouths and our boss finally said "He just can't admit he was wrong, but this time his job is on the line so we will just let him hang himself!"
This isn't the first altercation I had with this guy, I truly believe he thinks I am a 'bumpkin' due to my strong Southern Accent and laid back ways. I often imagine myself kicking him hard in the hindquarters while he says in his thick British accent "Owch!"
Cleverminded(05/02/2008)
I worked for a British man who was married to an American. He too had a problem with admitting he was wrong or did not know something. He would often brag about how is country was so superior to ours in education etc. I finally told him that we "Americans" kicked British ass once and retarded, fat, lazy Americans came to the Brits rescue in WWII. Most Brits think of Americans as problem children. The British are colonial snobs that have bad teeth and are very insecure about themselves. I say this knowing that I have an English and Irish ancestors who were probably Tory's and wealthy land owners. Thank God that one of my ancestors liked a little bit of spice and married outside of that culture.
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