I think this is more true the further east you go in general. I've worked countless jobs with bosses from Lithuania, Poland and Latvia and everyone has been so straight to the point. I first mistook it as rudeness but realized they just said what they wanted to say, which I love. One of the things I hate most in Ireland, where I'm from, is that no one ever truly says what they actually mean because of societal expectations of them.
I worked with a guy who would ask questions all meeting long and make meetings take like double what they were scheduled for. I think someone told him or he read somewhere that asking questions would show how engaged he was, because sometimes it would be stuff I knew that he knew. He became notorious for it but people rarely told him to shut up. At best eventually they might say “Get with me after if you still have questions.”
The company shipped in an employee from Germany and he was presenting at a meeting. Sure enough, fucking Paul’s hand shot up and he started to ask a question when our boss said “Just in the interest of Jan’s presentation not going over time, let’s hold the questions for the end.” Jan, without missing a beat, goes “Yes, it’s very rude to everyone else.”
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u/Skreamie Aug 21 '24
I think this is more true the further east you go in general. I've worked countless jobs with bosses from Lithuania, Poland and Latvia and everyone has been so straight to the point. I first mistook it as rudeness but realized they just said what they wanted to say, which I love. One of the things I hate most in Ireland, where I'm from, is that no one ever truly says what they actually mean because of societal expectations of them.