American corporate culture

Ubbquittious

I have never worked for an American megacorp but im sure there are people here with some good tales to tell.

Anyone witnessed the craic you see on TV with fellas being randomly told they are fired for sneezing in the presence of the owner or the more mundane stuff like people staying in till 10 o clock of a 9 to 5 job with no overtime paid in the hope of impressing the bossman? or perhaps some other ridiculous work practices?

I was tempted before to apply to some American companies but I always got the impression they were fierce pressure places altogether where everyone is trying to out-do the fella sitting beside him.

Signore Fancy Pants

Uuuummm yeah,

Ubbqittious, if you could go ahead and stop creating threads and get back to work

That would be greeeaaatttt.

Ipso

Ubbquittious wrote: »

I have never worked for an American megacorp but im sure there are people here with some good tales to tell.

Anyone witnessed the craic you see on TV with fellas being randomly told they are fired for sneezing in the presence of the owner or the more mundane stuff like people staying in till 10 o clock of a 9 to 5 job with no overtime paid in the hope of impressing the bossman? or perhaps some other ridiculous work practices?

I was tempted before to apply to some American companies but I always got the impression they were fierce pressure places altogether where everyone is trying to out-do the fella sitting beside him.

TV Reality, TV Reality TV Reality etc

CalamariFritti

There is a lot of patting each other on the back saying how hard they all work and how great they are. I'm sure some are....

mikemac2

Ubbquittious wrote: »

I have never worked for an American megacorp

I'll train you

Going forward OP when you start a thread please be advised to run your idea up the flagpole and touch base with your stakeholders (us!)

Signore Fancy Pants

mikemac2 wrote: »

I'll train you

Going forward OP when you start a thread please be advised to run your idea up the flagpole and touch base with your stakeholders (us!)

If he was thinking outside of the box, he should have reached out and spitballed it with other lateral thinkers.

That really would have been a guaranteed win win situation and a plain no brainer. People would have been amped to the max!

Trigger Happy

Ubbquittious wrote: »

I have never worked for an American megacorp but im sure there are people here with some good tales to tell.

Anyone witnessed the craic you see on TV with fellas being randomly told they are fired for sneezing in the presence of the owner or the more mundane stuff like people staying in till 10 o clock of a 9 to 5 job with no overtime paid in the hope of impressing the bossman? .

I worked in Japan for a few months and what you describe is a bit like their work culture. Start at 9 and leave when the boss leaves. And Tokyo is a massive city so people had a very long commute home after.
I also worked for American multinationals for a long time and I found them to be more cheesy than high pressured. But I believe that the new generation of companies, google and Facebook for eg, are high pressured.
Work for an Irish company now and loving it.

TheValeyard

Dale Doback wrote: »

Uuuummm yeah,

Ubbqittious, if you could go ahead and stop creating threads and get back to work

That would be greeeaaatttt.

I believe you have my stapler.

TheValeyard

CalamariFritti wrote: »

There is a lot of patting each other on the back saying how hard they all work and how great they are. I'm sure some are....

I believe you have my stapler.

TheValeyard

mikemac2 wrote: »

I'll train you

Going forward OP when you start a thread please be advised to run your idea up the flagpole and touch base with your stakeholders (us!)

I believe you have my stapler...

Signore Fancy Pants

Murray TheDemonic TalkingSkull wrote: »

I believe you have my stapler.

What are you going to do, burn the place down?

Birneybau

TheValeyard

Dale Doback wrote: »

What are you going to do, burn the place down?

And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...

sligojoek

Group hug, guys.

iebamm2580

Yeah i work for one, everybody trying to outdo eachother and stupid **** like learning how to say hello to people, luckily im in the union so dont have to deal with that ****.

Strumms

Ubbquittious wrote: »

I have never worked for an American megacorp but im sure there are people here with some good tales to tell

I was tempted before to apply to some American companies but I always got the impression they were fierce pressure places altogether where everyone is trying to out-do the fella sitting beside him.

It was my experience, but rather then that’s how it was, now that I’ve left I can say it was probably designed that way or at least management behavior was encouraged this way.

In my old place they tried the old divide and conquer trick, to some extent it worked and staff felt they were in competition with each other for everything from shifts, promotions, assignments and workloads etc... when staff were in disagreement with management there wasn’t enough trust, comraderie or faith in each other to stand properly together. A manager or team leader would often come into our shared workspace for example, bigging me or whoever up while being critical of my colleagues with them not present , it began to happen too regularly for it to be a coincidence which I soon realized.

Lorelli!

Strumms wrote: »

It was my experience, but rather then that’s how it was, now that I’ve left I can say it was probably designed that way or at least management behavior was encouraged this way. .

Thats my experience too. I was in a large department with those cubicles and no one talked to each other. I sat beside this fella for two years and if he wanted to ask or tell me something simple he'd still pm me

It's like whatever way they manage, they create a fake competitiveness between the employees, not a natural competitiveness but forced which isolates them from each other. Like you couldn't relate even just to vent to a co-worker. If you said to someone 'jaysis i don't want to be here til 10 again tonight and back at 8', youd get a response 'oh I love getting stuck into the work and we might get free pizza! yay'

The employees are definitely not happy go lucky Disney-like slaves but there just seems to be an isolation and no comradery between the staff. The real morale was low and they had quite a large turnover.

The Satanist

I stormed the boardroom with my AR-15 and took them all out

pumpkin4life

There's a special place in hell for Scrum.

What a pile of bumwank.

pumpkin4life

Dale Doback wrote: »

Uuuummm yeah,

Ubbqittious, if you could go ahead and stop creating threads and get back to work

That would be greeeaaatttt.

Boy, that Dale Doback guy is a straight shooter with upper management written all over him!

piplip87

I'm in one at the minute and I have handed in my notice with no backup plan as of yet.

We received an email to say that 40 people.from our career level on the project have been promoted in the last 12 months. We discovered that there was only about 12 openings so they people the promoted left ASAP.

We have massive turnover and due to this holidays are not been granted for the summer. We can only afford to have 1 person on each shift out at any one time.

We have all the fancy **** too xboxes, Massage Chairs, Phycologists on site but if you avail of any of these you are questioned about what code you used while using it and God forbid you use the wrong one, time will have to be made up.

As for the promotions and moving to other projects KPI metrics and interviews don't matter. It's all about diversity. Which I suspect is why so many of the promoted leave.

If your not LGBT, Muslim or Black or are not open boarders, #meto #ibelieveher Guardian reading drone you will not go far at all.

As for arselickers it's encouraged.

Although the majority of the people I work with are there getting paid to look at sick, pornographic or funny **** on the internet all day. So the craic can be good too

pumpkin4life

piplip87 wrote: »

I'm in one at the minute and I have handed in my notice with no backup plan as of yet.

We received an email to say that 40 people.from our career level on the project have been promoted in the last 12 months. We discovered that there was only about 12 openings so they people the promoted left ASAP.

We have massive turnover and due to this holidays are not been granted for the summer. We can only afford to have 1 person on each shift out at any one time.

We have all the fancy **** too xboxes, Massage Chairs, Phycologists on site but if you avail of any of these you are questioned about what code you used while using it and God forbid you use the wrong one, time will have to be made up.

As for the promotions and moving to other projects KPI metrics and interviews don't matter. It's all about diversity. Which I suspect is why so many of the promoted leave.

If your not LGBT, Muslim or Black or are not open boarders, #meto #ibelieveher Guardian reading drone you will not go far at all.

As for arselickers it's encouraged.

Although the majority of the people I work with are there getting paid to look at sick, pornographic or funny **** on the internet all day. So the craic can be good too

I used to work in a place that always had a giant fridge full of craft beers.

Guess how many were drunk?

None. No one wanted to be the alco at work, not even on a Friday evening.

A fridge full of beers going to waste. Shame.

It's not the people we work with anymore, its coworkers

thunderdog

Have you considered taking this offline and picking some low hanging fruit?

dotsman

pumpkin4life wrote: »

There's a special place in hell for Scrum.

What a pile of bumwank.

Agile too much for you? Don't worry, there are still plenty of companies out there where they are happy to pay $hitloads of money for a $hite delivery of a redundant system years after they needed it.;)

md23040

I worked for an insurance company in the States onboarding large MNC’s and the Implementation manager within the client company was agreeing the insurance plan that applied across all 50 States to cover 25,000+ workers.

She totally bulked at the statutory rights of 6 weeks for standard maternity and 8 weeks for caseran, and thought it totally crazy for the company to pay this and was adamdant 2 weeks as sufficient.

We are so lucky living in Europe and having so many rights. America is so dog eat dog and people are all out for themselves in many areas and the culture as a result very ominous.

Manic Moran

We certainly availed ourselves of the beer on beer Fridays.

The two things which I find infuriating about many office cultures here are (1) stifling of initiative. Sometimes it seems that nobody is willing to take the responsibility of a decision. (2) Corporate buzzwords. For the love of god, speak in plain English. Or at least, American. You are not talking about a marginal positive decrease in per unit consumer liability, you are talking about a price cut. And stop bloody leveraging things.... As an aside, I am also not a fan of having meetings in which I explain what I would be doing if I were not in a meeting to explain what I would be doing. But i’m Not sure how unique to the US that last one is.

iebamm2580

We were told not to assume anybody s gender in meetings, they pay well so i get over all this ****, i do shift so dont have to engage in most of the bull****.

Ohmeha

Manic Moran wrote: »

(2) Corporate buzzwords. For the love of god, speak in plain English. Or at least, American. You are not talking about a marginal positive decrease in per unit consumer liability, you are talking about a price cut.

Going by two Irish companies I've worked for the american corporate buzzword nonsense has now firmly zombied into our working culture

Fanny Wank

Ohmeha wrote: »

Going by two Irish companies I've worked for the american corporate buzzword nonsense has now firmly zombied into our working culture

Yes it has in my experience

bee06

I’ve worked in three. There is an element of certain people working crazy hours to make an impression. There’s a guy on my team who would be sending emails at midnight. I leave at 5.00 everyday and the laptop doesn’t get turned on at home. He’s super ambitious and is working to get a promotion. I have a baby at home so we different priorities.

Despite the bull it’s a good place to work. My team and manager are brilliant and the benefits are great. Or maybe I’m just institutionalised after working my whole career in multinationals!

TheValeyard

I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven, I told Bill that if Sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she's filing then I should be able to listen to the radio while I'm collating so I don't see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven.

Pinch Flat

We should wrap our arms around this thread

TheValeyard

Mr. Lumbergh told me to talk to payroll and then payroll told me to talk to Mr. Lumbergh and I still haven't received my paycheck and he took my stapler and he never brought it back and then they moved my desk to storage room B and there was garbage on it...

Mike9832

bee06 wrote: »

I’ve worked in three. There is an element of certain people working crazy hours to make an impression. There’s a guy on my team who would be sending emails at midnight. I leave at 5.00 everyday and the laptop doesn’t get turned on at home. He’s super ambitious and is working to get a promotion. I have a baby at home so we different priorities.

Despite the bull it’s a good place to work. My team and manager are brilliant and the benefits are great. Or maybe I’m just institutionalised after working my whole career in multinationals!

Emailing outside working hours is expected pretty much from anyone in a supervisory role, everyone in my place does it

Wanderer2010

Do you think or know of anyone who uses these buzz words in multi-nationals- do they speak the same outside of work? As in "lets touch base" with a friend or "going forward" etc? Never heard anyone talk like that outside the office but that's just my experience.

Pero_Bueno

They really are the most soul destroying pits of hell to work in, full of sociopathic snakes that would poison their own Ma for an extra $1 in salary.

slimey scummy c*nts.

r93kaey5p2izun

I worked on a project over a couple of years with a big American tech company, but I was not working for them. I found them very pleasant to work with but they were more interested in appearances than the substance of the work so it was all very superficial. It was all about congratulating each other over fairly small accomplishments, and what surprised me the most was that the higher ups from across Europe and the US were flying in for events that to me seemed pretty unimportant in the context of one of the biggest companies in the world. They also seemed to be quite disorganised and everything was left til the last minute which made working with them difficult. Their employees seemed very busy but happy and they had a lot of opportunities for promotion and for travel from what I saw.

B0jangles

I remember being set to an all-day management training seminar for which senior execs from the US came over to the office in Dublin to attend (presumably to demonstrate how forward-thinking, inclusive and non-hierarchical the company was*)

(*it wasn't any of these things).

Anyway, we were all given a little training pack with an actual honest to god flashcard in it with BELOW THE LINE printed on one side and ABOVE THE LINE on the other. The idea is that BTL thinking is the sneaky, responsibility-dodging politicking everyone does all the time, and ATL thinking is talking like a pro-active, positive-thinking, responsibility-taking escapee from a marketing photoshoot AKA the fakey stuff you say to conceal what you're actually up to.

The seminar turned into a thing where they went around the table and everyone had to give an example of both kinds of thinking and it was honestly hilarious how you could tell that the 'bad' stuff was stuff everyone had either done themselves or seen someone else do, and the 'good' stuff was the guff you wheel out in interviews. When it was my turn, I said something about 'blaming problems in a project on the person who's just left the company' and you could absolutely tell that 90% of the people there had used that in the past and definitely would use it in the future. They were all nodding along, like, 'yep, that's a classic'

It sounds funny now, but my god, that was the longest 7 hours I think I've ever spent.

edit: Just remembered another one where we were told to stop referring to 'problems' as 'problems' and call them 'challenges' instead. Because that makes them less of a problem you see.

Franz Von Peppercorn

B0jangles wrote: »

I remember being set to an all-day management training seminar for which senior execs from the US came over to the office in Dublin to attend (presumably to demonstrate how forward-thinking, inclusive and non-hierarchical the company was*)

(*it wasn't any of these things).

Anyway, we were all given a little training pack with an actual honest to god flashcard in it with BELOW THE LINE printed on one side and ABOVE THE LINE on the other. The idea is that BTL thinking is the sneaky, responsibility-dodging politicking everyone does all the time, and ATL thinking is talking like a pro-active, positive-thinking, responsibility-taking escapee from a marketing photoshoot AKA the fakey stuff you say to conceal what you're actually up to.

The seminar turned into a thing where they went around the table and everyone had to give an example of both kinds of thinking and it was honestly hilarious how you could tell that the 'bad' stuff was stuff everyone had either done themselves or seen someone else do, and the 'good' stuff was the guff you wheel out in interviews. When it was my turn, I said something about 'blaming problems in a project on the person who's just left the company' and you could absolutely tell that 90% of the people there had used that in the past and definitely would use it in the future. They were all nodding along, like, 'yep, that's a classic'

It sounds funny now, but my god, that was the longest 7 hours I think I've ever spent.

edit: Just remembered another one where we were told to stop referring to 'problems' as 'problems' and call them 'challenges' instead. Because that makes them less of a problem you see.

I hate this go around the room malarkey in seminars etc. It’s lazy bollocks designed to waste time. Also if we know the answers why are we there.

B0jangles

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

I hate this go around the room malarkey in seminars etc. It’s lazy bollocks designed to waste time. Also if we know the answers why are we there.

Builds a sense of shared ownership and responsibility for the new business paradigm we're constructing here today.


:pac:

Rootsblower

Just reading this thread and laughing at the stories. I don’t work in an office environment and one thing I can’t understand is people staying in work after hours for free,it’s madness,and if there is so much work that the number of people in the office can’t do it means either the staff are crap and management are crap for not doing anything about it or your understaffed.

Reminds me of the old saying “A willing horse is easily flogged”

Dick phelan

I guess each to their own, personally i don't ever see myself having a high level job because being honest i don't want to put in crazy hours at the office. Personally I think life is too short to waste so much time working Don't get me wrong when i'm at work I will put in the effort and i'm not lazy. But Once my scheduled work time is over i'm out of there and you won't see or here from me again until Monday. I know this means others will be promoted and i won't be but honestly i'd rather be able to knock off after 8 hours. I'm very much in the camp of work to live and not live to work. People desperate to get promoted so they can earn more money, what's the bloody point of more money if you barely have time to enjoy it.

People say ""Ah when i retire tho". Ye and what if god forbid you never make it that far. My father had the same principal did his work but rarely worked mad hours. And honestly I'm much happier to be able to look back at my childhood and remember all the times after work he took us off to the beach or had a puck around or whatever, i'd much rather have those memories then have had more stuff we didn't really need.

BelovedAunt

I'm in a German one myself so it's not quite as bad as the American ones. Still though, every time I hear "reach out" I die a little.

The most concerning thing however is how dead inside the majority of lifers in the place seem. It's a good company so they should be happy but I the majority are miserable.

bee06

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Do you think or know of anyone who uses these buzz words in multi-nationals- do they speak the same outside of work? As in "lets touch base" with a friend or "going forward" etc? Never heard anyone talk like that outside the office but that's just my experience.

I have on occasion used certain buzz words outside of work. Not some as ridiculous as touch base but I have said going forward. My husband really takes the piss when I do it.

Ash.J.Williams

Ubbquittious wrote: »

I have never worked for an American megacorp but im sure there are people here with some good tales to tell.

Anyone witnessed the craic you see on TV with fellas being randomly told they are fired for sneezing in the presence of the owner or the more mundane stuff like people staying in till 10 o clock of a 9 to 5 job with no overtime paid in the hope of impressing the bossman? or perhaps some other ridiculous work practices?

I was tempted before to apply to some American companies but I always got the impression they were fierce pressure places altogether where everyone is trying to out-do the fella sitting beside him.

I work for a huge American multinational and the Irish management stand out as backstabbing slydogs

mookishboy

We work shift where i am. 12hr shifts on 3 4 rotation. Most of us get the work done. But when the 9-5ers are in mon-fri its a different story. Corporate **** in a cup. Proactive bull**** metrics. good catches. Blah blah blah. Money is ok but the people in there are devoid of any reality. Institutionalized folk wandering around like zombies hoping for redundancy for 25 years ! fek that

Crock Rock

Annual leave:
Between 21 and 30-something in Europe depending on where you are.
USA, single figure amount.

Protection of job:
Fired for mundane things in America.
A bit more protection in Europe (especially for teachers in Ireland, they are unfireable).

Rest periods:
Good lunch breaks and time off between shifts here.
Not so much in America.

Nazi Germany had better workers' rights than USA has now.

Roger Hassenforder

B0jangles wrote: »

edit: Just remembered another one where we were told to stop referring to 'problems' as 'problems' and call them 'challenges' instead. Because that makes them less of a problem you see.

Thats so negative man
A challenge is aactually an oppurtunity!

kowloon

mookishboy wrote: »

We work shift where i am. 12hr shifts on 3 4 rotation. Most of us get the work done. But when the 9-5ers are in mon-fri its a different story. Corporate **** in a cup. Proactive bull**** metrics. good catches. Blah blah blah. Money is ok but the people in there are devoid of any reality. Institutionalized folk wandering around like zombies hoping for redundancy for 25 years ! fek that

Intel?

Franz Von Peppercorn

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

I work for a huge American multinational and the Irish management stand out as backstabbing slydogs

Absolutely. Americans are fairly honest. To be fair.