On television, when people go to the gym they wear super cute outfits. In the US, I think what characters on TV wear could be seen (to some degree) in real life gyms. Not sure if TV is reflecting life or if life is reflecting TV.
But recently I realized, in the UK, it's definitely the latter. I have seen a whole host of things that I am not sure about, and have certainly not seen on TV in the workout in the gym context.
The first one that comes to mind is indescribable, but I will try: it was a one piece halter outfit. It had a deep hole in the front and back and a tie that met under the breast bone. It was something akin to a cat woman outfit. Maybe they showed Batman on TV here recently. I have seen the wearer twice, both times in different but similar ensembles. So that was one.
Something I see all of the time is people wearing polo shirts (some with and some without popped collars). It was one of those experiences where you see one and then you realize, they are all around you. I just could not figure out why you would preppy up to go sweat. Who does that? I have seen fancy workout clothes and makeup in real life, but not this. Not even on TV. Then, one day, Andy came up with a brilliant explanation: in England, the major sports heroes all wear collared shirts when they play their respective games. Football, cricket, rugby, etc. It's weird now that I think about it. I now chuckle to myself a little when I see people wearing them and I down right belly laughed when a dude teaching a total body conditioning class busted out in a bright pink one. So, this one is definitely TV related. I was wrong.
I have also seen a bunch of Brits wearing American specific apparel like a 'Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky' T shirt, a Nationals cap, several NFL football jerseys, and a lot of UT shirts. Now, I cannot imagine that the guy wearing the KY T shirt had any idea where the state is (I am yet to meet a Brit who does) and I know the dude in the Nationals cap was clueless (I said aloud, 'Nationals, sweet' to no response). I could probably argue that the NFL jersey-wearers knew the teams and possibly the people wearing burnt orange would have said Hook Em back to me, but then again, maybe it's all about the telly they watch.
Can't wait until my next sighting. I will for sure go to tvguide.co.uk to figure out the inspiration.
Monday, 19 May 2008
Friday, 9 May 2008
The Office: UK v. US
For once, I am not making a cultural reference. Perhaps you expected that I was currently watching the Office on Slingbox or surfthechannel.com? Or when it comes on the actual television here (which incidentally they call 'The Office: An American Workplace')? But no. I'm not really a huge fan of the show even though I think that Steve Carell is comic genius (as evidence, I submit his Golden Globe 2006 speech his wife Nancy 'wrote' and that should be enough), his Michael Scott character makes me want to crawl out of my skin with awkwardness and discomfort that not even John Krasinski's charming Jim Halpert character could make me become an avid watcher of the show. The show is a hit in the US and it's a hit here in the UK even though they had the original Office with Ricky Gervais and that dude who played Gareth, Mackenzie Crook, who is in a new movie, Three and Out, for which there is a ginormous poster of in all tube stations in London. But what was my point? Ah, yes, this posting is not about pop culture, not really.
No, no, the title of this posting is actually referring to how I am about to compare working in the UK and working in the US. Be warned, the following discussion could possibly a) give you a sense of the differences in general work environs in each country, b) help you figure out which country your office is in, c) convince you that your office is better than the alternative, d) make you angry that you don't live and work somewhere else, and/or e) inspire you to drink a cup of tea.
When I reflect on my experience in my new office in London, several major differences spring to mind (not including the fact that I don't always know the vocab for various office supplies).
1. Cube Farms Are Illegal in London. Ok, this may be a total lie, but I am yet to see anyone sitting in cubes which is why I think they may be banned. True, at Mathematica we didn't have cubes, we had our very own offices with doors that closed so that you could listen to your music as loud as you want so what do I know of cubes? But I'm just saying, in London it's all about the open floor plan. Some places as dividers but they are not the same as cubes. With the open floor plan you have greater collaboration and team work and you actually get to talk to your coworkers (and assuming you like yours, like I do, that's kind of fun!). The downside is, less opportunity to check gmail (shame!), no chance to catch 30 winks, and zero door space to litter with ridiculous post it notes (where is my creative outlet?). I'm not saying I want a cube though. Let's just be clear about that.
2. Anyone Care for a Drink? I am in no way exaggerating when I say that I am offered a cup of tea or coffee at least 5 times a day. There is an unwritten law that says when you want a drink you need to offer your colleagues one. If you are going to the kitchen to get yourself something the obligatory 'Anyone care for a drink?' must be asked. It's possible you could get knifed (remember, it's England, they don't do guns here) if you decide you are the only thirsty one in the room and go turn on the kettle without extending an invitation for others to hand you their cups. After a while you pretty much know how everyone takes their tea or coffee and since it's the UK, you know for sure that everyone is having milk with their tea, that's a non-issue. Whether they take it strong, very strong, with sugar, without caffeine, etc. that's the tricky part. And while sometimes it's difficult to carry them all back at once without a tray, it's actually a very nice gesture that makes me truly enjoy my work day just a bit more. It's downright hospitable! Just the kind of thing a transplanted southern girl longs for (since no one seems to be willing to make eye contact or flash a smile on the street!). This is not the type of thing that happens in the US, and even on the off chance that it did, it would never happen every single day, every single time someone goes to the kitchen. I imagine that if a Brit were to go work in a typical American office (in a city not located in the south where this may well happen regularly) they would be shocked by the lack of consideration when it comes to making sure coworkers have had their morning, midmorning, afternoon, late afternoon tea.
3. Well, If You Are Happy To... In England, there is a regular discussion of happiness, whether the asker of the question knows it or not. I am pretty sure it's just a saying that people use without thinking about it, like 'how are you?' You don't really want anyone to respond with 'Well, I have had a crappy day if you must know' and then proceed to tell you all of the things that have gone wrong the last couple of hours. No, what you are really saying (not asking) is 'Whether or not everything is ok, please say fine, good, great, spectacular, to what I am about to pretend to ask you.' In the UK, particularly in the workplace, you are not asked if you can or will do something. You are asked if you are happy to do something. This is actually a brilliant strategy for getting the answer you want. If you ask someone if the can or will do something they have an opportunity to say they are too busy but when you ask someone if they are happy to do that something the options are more narrow-- No. I am absolutely loathed to that! is just not an answer you can give. We are not talking about ability here, we are talking about how you feel about doing the task... and really, no one wants to hear about (nor do you want to talk about) your emotions at work. It's simply inappropriate. So, happy or not, you are almost forced to say yes, that you are more than happy to do! Thinking about similar approaches in the US, the only equivalent I every came across was while working in DC. It was employed by one of my very favorite people who also happened to be very senior (which gave him credibility and the opportunity to do this). If he sent you an emailing asking you to do something, he never put a question mark at the end of the request. For example, "Sarah, can you call our subcontractor and make sure that they are planning to send us an invoice for the work they have done." The first time you get an email like this you assume he made a typo, after all, the . and the ? are next to each other on the keyboard. But after a while you realize that he is telling you do something, not asking. It's subtle. It's effective. And, frankly, it's pretty genius! I called him out on it once and he laughed a deep hearty laugh but continued with the periods.
4. The Shape of the Work Week. My first job out of college was in Boston where the work week is 37.5 hours long. But Boston, apparently, is not the real world. In almost all other parts of the US, you work 40 hours a week at the very minimum. And let's be honest, when do you work the minimum? In London, the official work week is 35 hours long. Your day begins at 9:30 am and likely ends around 5:30 pm if you have taken an hour lunch. Those are the basic rules. Of course there are exceptions like if you are working on deadline etc, but generally speaking 7 hours per day of work, 5 days a week. And I thought I liked working in Boston!!
5. Holiday vs. Vacation. In my head these words are synonymous, but maybe they aren't. In the US, average vacation days = 10. In the UK, minimum holiday = 25 days. In many cases companies in the US think that giving employees unmarked days lumped together is more generous than allocating the number of days you are 'allowed' to be sick and take a vacation separately. I can kind of see the logic here, if you give people enough days to realistically take time off to relax and also factor in the likelihood of their getting sick in that year. So, usually, when a company gives combined 'annual time off' it ends up being about 15 or so days. I would assume the thinking is 5 days for people to get sick and 10 days for them to take vacation. If you are someone with a weak immune system, you may not get any vacation days at all but if you are healthy then you get to have all 15 for traveling the world, or hibernating in your house, or whatever. Well, regardless of how the days are allocated, 2 weeks out of 52 is not enough to recharge your batteries! In the UK, you get a minimum of 25 days holiday (more depending on the employer) and if you are sick, well, you are sick. If you are ill for an extended period of time then a doctor's note will be required but generally, if you feel poorly and need to stay home to recover and/or not spread your germs to coworkers then that's what you do. If you give limited days then people end up judging on their own if they are sick enough to warrant staying home and in the case of people who horde their vacation days (that would be me!) you end up going to work sick and being a menace to public health. sorry, about that.
Conclusions? Well, because I value vacation time, shorter work days, sleeping an extra half hour, being 'happy to' do things, and drinking tea, I am very much enjoying working in London. That said, I miss my office on the B hallway terribly! I could ply my door with a million post it notes and it was right next to the supply closet where I knew the names of all the office equipment!
No, no, the title of this posting is actually referring to how I am about to compare working in the UK and working in the US. Be warned, the following discussion could possibly a) give you a sense of the differences in general work environs in each country, b) help you figure out which country your office is in, c) convince you that your office is better than the alternative, d) make you angry that you don't live and work somewhere else, and/or e) inspire you to drink a cup of tea.
When I reflect on my experience in my new office in London, several major differences spring to mind (not including the fact that I don't always know the vocab for various office supplies).
1. Cube Farms Are Illegal in London. Ok, this may be a total lie, but I am yet to see anyone sitting in cubes which is why I think they may be banned. True, at Mathematica we didn't have cubes, we had our very own offices with doors that closed so that you could listen to your music as loud as you want so what do I know of cubes? But I'm just saying, in London it's all about the open floor plan. Some places as dividers but they are not the same as cubes. With the open floor plan you have greater collaboration and team work and you actually get to talk to your coworkers (and assuming you like yours, like I do, that's kind of fun!). The downside is, less opportunity to check gmail (shame!), no chance to catch 30 winks, and zero door space to litter with ridiculous post it notes (where is my creative outlet?). I'm not saying I want a cube though. Let's just be clear about that.
2. Anyone Care for a Drink? I am in no way exaggerating when I say that I am offered a cup of tea or coffee at least 5 times a day. There is an unwritten law that says when you want a drink you need to offer your colleagues one. If you are going to the kitchen to get yourself something the obligatory 'Anyone care for a drink?' must be asked. It's possible you could get knifed (remember, it's England, they don't do guns here) if you decide you are the only thirsty one in the room and go turn on the kettle without extending an invitation for others to hand you their cups. After a while you pretty much know how everyone takes their tea or coffee and since it's the UK, you know for sure that everyone is having milk with their tea, that's a non-issue. Whether they take it strong, very strong, with sugar, without caffeine, etc. that's the tricky part. And while sometimes it's difficult to carry them all back at once without a tray, it's actually a very nice gesture that makes me truly enjoy my work day just a bit more. It's downright hospitable! Just the kind of thing a transplanted southern girl longs for (since no one seems to be willing to make eye contact or flash a smile on the street!). This is not the type of thing that happens in the US, and even on the off chance that it did, it would never happen every single day, every single time someone goes to the kitchen. I imagine that if a Brit were to go work in a typical American office (in a city not located in the south where this may well happen regularly) they would be shocked by the lack of consideration when it comes to making sure coworkers have had their morning, midmorning, afternoon, late afternoon tea.
3. Well, If You Are Happy To... In England, there is a regular discussion of happiness, whether the asker of the question knows it or not. I am pretty sure it's just a saying that people use without thinking about it, like 'how are you?' You don't really want anyone to respond with 'Well, I have had a crappy day if you must know' and then proceed to tell you all of the things that have gone wrong the last couple of hours. No, what you are really saying (not asking) is 'Whether or not everything is ok, please say fine, good, great, spectacular, to what I am about to pretend to ask you.' In the UK, particularly in the workplace, you are not asked if you can or will do something. You are asked if you are happy to do something. This is actually a brilliant strategy for getting the answer you want. If you ask someone if the can or will do something they have an opportunity to say they are too busy but when you ask someone if they are happy to do that something the options are more narrow-- No. I am absolutely loathed to that! is just not an answer you can give. We are not talking about ability here, we are talking about how you feel about doing the task... and really, no one wants to hear about (nor do you want to talk about) your emotions at work. It's simply inappropriate. So, happy or not, you are almost forced to say yes, that you are more than happy to do! Thinking about similar approaches in the US, the only equivalent I every came across was while working in DC. It was employed by one of my very favorite people who also happened to be very senior (which gave him credibility and the opportunity to do this). If he sent you an emailing asking you to do something, he never put a question mark at the end of the request. For example, "Sarah, can you call our subcontractor and make sure that they are planning to send us an invoice for the work they have done." The first time you get an email like this you assume he made a typo, after all, the . and the ? are next to each other on the keyboard. But after a while you realize that he is telling you do something, not asking. It's subtle. It's effective. And, frankly, it's pretty genius! I called him out on it once and he laughed a deep hearty laugh but continued with the periods.
4. The Shape of the Work Week. My first job out of college was in Boston where the work week is 37.5 hours long. But Boston, apparently, is not the real world. In almost all other parts of the US, you work 40 hours a week at the very minimum. And let's be honest, when do you work the minimum? In London, the official work week is 35 hours long. Your day begins at 9:30 am and likely ends around 5:30 pm if you have taken an hour lunch. Those are the basic rules. Of course there are exceptions like if you are working on deadline etc, but generally speaking 7 hours per day of work, 5 days a week. And I thought I liked working in Boston!!
5. Holiday vs. Vacation. In my head these words are synonymous, but maybe they aren't. In the US, average vacation days = 10. In the UK, minimum holiday = 25 days. In many cases companies in the US think that giving employees unmarked days lumped together is more generous than allocating the number of days you are 'allowed' to be sick and take a vacation separately. I can kind of see the logic here, if you give people enough days to realistically take time off to relax and also factor in the likelihood of their getting sick in that year. So, usually, when a company gives combined 'annual time off' it ends up being about 15 or so days. I would assume the thinking is 5 days for people to get sick and 10 days for them to take vacation. If you are someone with a weak immune system, you may not get any vacation days at all but if you are healthy then you get to have all 15 for traveling the world, or hibernating in your house, or whatever. Well, regardless of how the days are allocated, 2 weeks out of 52 is not enough to recharge your batteries! In the UK, you get a minimum of 25 days holiday (more depending on the employer) and if you are sick, well, you are sick. If you are ill for an extended period of time then a doctor's note will be required but generally, if you feel poorly and need to stay home to recover and/or not spread your germs to coworkers then that's what you do. If you give limited days then people end up judging on their own if they are sick enough to warrant staying home and in the case of people who horde their vacation days (that would be me!) you end up going to work sick and being a menace to public health. sorry, about that.
Conclusions? Well, because I value vacation time, shorter work days, sleeping an extra half hour, being 'happy to' do things, and drinking tea, I am very much enjoying working in London. That said, I miss my office on the B hallway terribly! I could ply my door with a million post it notes and it was right next to the supply closet where I knew the names of all the office equipment!
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