Yesterday, Gavin blogged this guy on the subject of long holidays in Europe. Apparently, Americans don't want long holidays. They don't envy us our long holidays.
I find this very difficult to believe. The reason for this is simple. If two parties have different approaches to life, and they are both happy with their own approach, neither should be griping about the other. I personally, don't care if the average American wants to work many more days than I do. I really don't. But I do care if they criticise me because I have a different lifestyle.
I'm not convinced that the American way is necessarily better or more efficient due to personal experience - I do really like having tiny simple projects which involved one person on my side (me) delayed by three weeks while on the other side of the Atlantic, they are trying to find out 1) who is working on the project 2) who is responsible for what 3) where we stand with testing 4) who is the project leader 5) who owns the project and 6) does it work at all. At one stage I had five different people from a company in the States emailing me over this, and they didn't talk to each other at all. The work involved a little more testing on their side, but not to the extent that they needed five times as many people working on it as we did.
I believe a lot of people work longer hours to look good. I've past experience of that too.
I really need to simmer down because ultimately, this doesn't really matter. I don't work in America, I don't want to work in America. I can just about cope with the fact that trouble shooting a problem with them is almost unbearable, because they don't know their network but they expect me to know their network. Meanwhile, I'll just calculate how many days annual leave I'll need to use for my exams, cos I don't get exam or study leave for this Masters relevant to my job I am doing part time.
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Aarrgghhh
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In book related news I am once more zombified because last night I decided I would read Grass for his Pillow the follow-up to Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. It, too, was wonderful. I don't know how much book three is going to cost me, certainly more than 3.99E, but I will have to buy it and it'll go up on the shelves alongside the Sabriel books by Garth Nix.
What surprises me about these two books is they are set in a fictional mediaeval Japan and frankly, historical Japan is not a subject that I have found particularly interesting in the past. I have a terrific book somewhere by Yukio Mishima called The Sound of Waves which I really liked when I read it (but someone I lent it to couldn't see the merit in it) and that is pretty much my main contact with Japan. I have never even driven a Japanese car. Mind you, for reasons too ridiculous to go into, I have an album of Korean pop-music, by Chage and Aska. Which I didn't buy for myself. There's some stuff on my MP3 player, kindly provided by Creative
I'm looking forward to the third installment (it has made a big change from software engineering theory and informations system practice and above all else, database design and management the latter for which I am not talented at all.
I've read a load of books this Christmas, and am about to start the last one, Long way Round by Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman. The Amazon reviews are largely positive, with a few exceptions. That said I tend to cast a little bit of salt in the direction of the Amazon reviews as I have, on occasion (usually about controversial books saying received archaeology is conning us all and aliens really did teach us everything we know...for some reason these garner a lot of five star reviews). Anyway, for anyone interested in the new generation's Michael Palins, the book is available in Hughes & Hughes Dublin Airport Departure level, large format paperback, for 10.95E. God I love bookshop sales.
Oh yesssss. I did finish How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World by Francis Wheen...and I'm not convinced he explained it lucidly. I'll probably have to read it again, the conclusions in particular, because I don't remember seeing any conclusions. Mind you, he provided a link to Richard Thompson in his list of internet links...so he can't be all bad.
posted by Winds and Breezes @ 11:39 AM
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