Cultural differences

[gorkabear]

These days I'm working with a team of 4 programmers in Lisbon, plus a trainee here in Barcelona. While this is quite cool because I am, indeed, learning some Portuguese, it's the second time in my life I'm "directing" people

Comments

[scream4noreason]

I wonder if a Portuguese person has a little chip on thier shoulder about being told what to do by a Spanish person?

Everywhere I have ever been there are these kind of differences.

I'm from Sydney, so in Melbourne, where I live now, no matter what I say is held a certain way because of where I'm from. Also here they care what side of the river you are living before they can determine whether or not you are a worthwhile person.

[gorkabear]

Yes, probably it must be also something of the like... Portuguese people don't like Spanish people, and although I don't consider myself Spanish, I can't ask for them to distinguish the difference!

[anonymous]

Spanish/Catalan people wouldn't be offended by being spoken to like that - the culture is very direct. People from many western countries (and maybe Portugal) would more likely be offended... it's just how we speak to each other. I doubt an Indian programmer would react badly, because culturally they tend to be quite modest, and if that wasn't the case, then it probably owing to the fact that they don't have the luxury of complaining and potentially losing a contract.

[gorkabear]

Hum
My personal experience is that Indian people reacted like you say when attacked, very humbly (some of my colleagues, esp. britons were real assholes in that). But in a context like the one I'm speaking, when they're peers and we just found something that had to be changed, they were really cool and with a "let's fix it" attitude, very close to ours. That's it

[pbehr]

I worked for IBM in the 1960's (yes, I'm that old LOL ) and ended up with a World Trade assignment in Paris. It was fascinating to see cultural differences in operation.

Fast forward forty years, I´m now spending significant time in Spain with my new partner. Cultural differences are still fascinating and fun.

Hope you don´t mind my adding you as a "friend".

Let me know if you do. :-)

[gorkabear]

Not at all... A real pleasure! Welcome!

[gorkabear]

Welcome!
You'll be glad to know that mainframes are still alive and well :)
We must be in version 9 of DB2 and other modern CICS incarnations, but seriously, I lose track of that

[pbehr]

I started before mainframes. On the 1401, there was NO operating system. Each program was loaded in on its own. Only one ran at a time. The programs were written in near machine language. A "big" 1401 (about the size of a package of 8 refrigerators) had 16,000 bytes of memory. We did have fun though. LOL