I’ve participated in a few employment-related threads on the board lately and there seem to be recurring themes of dissatisfaction with employers, recruitment processes, workplace protocols and ethics, etc.
All this has me seriously wondering what the reason is for the difference between what I read, and my own experience of workplaces in the UK. Of course, I’d rather be rockpooling on a beach somewhere, but given that I have to work to pay the bills and buy the frivolous shit with which I fill up my life, I am generally, usually not discontent with my workplaces.
And on those rare couple of occasions when I have been significantly discontent, I have sought and found alternative employment - not exactly easily, but it’s all worked OK.
It also seems like most of my colleagues and peers are having a reasonably similar time of it - with only a very few notable exceptions of all kinds.
So what’s the deal? Are workplaces in the USA a vastly different sort of place? Have I just been lucky? Has there been some kind of selection bias on the board? Is there something wrong with me?
I suspect there is probably a selection bias in that people are much more likely to talk about their workplace when things are going badly, than when things are fine.
I’ve worked in both places, but I don’t think they’re that different when set against the enormous variation within the US and within the UK (regional and by field and type of employer). I think the two cultures are dramatically different when it comes to how the unemployed are treated, though, and that must have an effect.
I spent a couple of weeks at an office in England, and I’m regular communication with our offices in England and frequent contact with some of our customers there. I don’t detect any noticeable difference. It’s still a pretty small sampling though. If there’s anything it’s probably just the cultural differences we notice outside the workplace. I work in IT, and it’s a cosmos of it’s own in terms of employment and office dynamics, the rest of the work world may show a lot of differences.
No, not exactly easy, I’m just taken aback by the vibe I’m getting from the SDMB, which appears to be that the whole system is unfairly and unbeatably stacked against you; that it’s right, proper and normal to hate your boss, your workplace, your colleagues, etc.
Do you go on any UK messageboards? I think you’d find similar posts there. I do. People go online to moan far more than to say everything’s going great.
It’s likely selection bias; few people are going to fire up threads or bother to post in threads when their bosses are great, their demands are reasonable, and their assessments and rewards are fair, just and generous.
Flip all those around, and people will bitch until they’re blue in the face.
I dont think there are any UK message boards with an equivalent membership cross section to here, so that might not be a valid comparison to here anyway.
Point is: The negative skew in this topic seems more pronounced than other topics on the SDMB. I’m trying to understand whether thats just my perception, whether it’s a reflection of av genuine difference in attitudes and experience internationally, or if it’s just selection bias.
If the latter, is similar selection bias manifest in other topucs, and if not, why not?
The TV show a The Office is originally a UK production and so far as I know it was extremely popular. So I don’t think it can possibly be true that UKers cannot relate to the subject of idiot, asshole bosses.
It’s possible that SDMBers are more likely to work in the technology sector, which is particularly infested with comically useless faddish management styles (See current pit thread about Open Plan offices which are a current useless/terrible fad in the US).
Or perhaps you are a bit of a Pollyanna yourself. Hard to say.
I’ve only worked in the UK, so I can’t respond to the OP as requested, just wanted to chime in to say my perception is very similar to his. I’ve never actually had to change jobs having started my proper career, but I get the impression it wouldn’t be too hard to do so should I wish to. I also enjoy my working environment and have a great boss.
I’ve always put it down to me just being lucky compared with the average.
Mangetout, I’m still not sure what your perceived difference is supposed to be. It sounds like you think your countrymen don’t think their jobs suck as much as Americans do. My buddy Dave would change your mind about. He’s in England, do you know him? It might be all his contact with Americans, but he fills me in weekly on his complaints about the local management, and how he is unfairly paid less than others.
Also I’m curious how many people in the UK work in a huge corporate environment? In the 2008 census, about a third of US workers (39 million) work for a company with more than 5,000 employees. Most of those (33 million) work for companies with more than 10,000 employees.
It’s hard for me to find comparable stats for the UK, but I did see that 60% of UK businesses are sole proprietorships; I suspect (but I’m not sure) that most of these are small employers. My experience is that large employers are invariably more stupid and frustrating than small ones.
I think you’ll probably find most people work for large companies or the public sector (which in itself makes up 20% of employment) in the UK. The vast majority of the sole propertiership companies will either be sole operators or family businesses which won’t employ anyone else though will often provide work for self-employed contractors (as would be the norm for unskilled and skilled manual labourers for example).
I’m not saying it’s all sunshine and lollipops for everyone in the UK, neither that everyone in the USA is miserable and oppressed, it just seem like the balance between those two extremes seems like it might be different on average between the two.
Could it be a cultural difference about whether work is a good thing to bitch about? Is work considered a suitable topic for generic conversation in the UK? In the US complaining about work is a great universalizer. To quote Drew Carey: “Oh you hate your job? There’s a support group for that… It’s called “everybody” and they meet at the bar.”
Certainly folks in the UK get more of a break from work. USA vacation rates can be as low as nil, and the usual in my area is 10-14 days (which includes sick days) plus 8-9 annual holidays.
My cousins in NI report a 35 hour work week as well, which is just unimaginable to me. I don’t know anyone in the US who works less than 50 hours per week, even though the official work week is 40 hours.