One factor IS paramount: Don’t be creepy. That means leaving a buffer zone if one is available.
It’s not. Not in a three unit setup. If there are 5 it’s weird to be directly adjacent. If there are 20, a single-unit buffer is not far enough. The entire country is not as rigid about this as you suggest—context matters.
Is that what that thing is?
What I find kind of creepy, although I think the guys who do it are more clueless than creepy, are the ones who pick the middle urinal when all three are empty, forcing you to stand next to him.
Actually yeah -
It’s not a hard and fast, but if there is a single person sitting alone, and it’s a reasonable size bench, I will sit down beside the other single occupant so a couple can then use the empty bench. There’s nothing more annoying than seeing 5 park benches, each occupied by a single person and when a couple comes along they have nowhere to sit together…
- note - it is very fluid and flexible - but sometimes do spare a thought for others if resources are scarce.
Returning to the original topic…
Immigrants need to know that professional services or tradesmen can cost MUCH more than back home. Doctors, dentists, plumbers, carpenters, and others work relatively cheaply as compared to non-professionals. And it is even more so as compared to the value of certain goods.
In part this can explain the throw-away culture that has developed in the US. A house call for an appliance repairman in the States may start at $100 plus parts to try to repair a $400 clothes dryer - maybe better to just replace it. The dryer costs the same in Colombia but the repairman visit is about $10 plus parts - better to fix it.
Convention in the UK is actually down for on, up for off. I actually think the opposite standard in the US makes more sense, because down for off means a falling object striking the switch will turn it off (and that’s generally a safer transition to have happen by accident)
There IS no standard for light switches in the US, or if there is it’s certainly not universally observed. Sometimes you’ll have a setup where more than one switch can control the same light (this might happen if there is more than one door to a room, or in a hallway). In that case, flipping either switch either way will change the state of the light (if it’s on, it will switch off, or vice versa), so which switch position corresponds to which state can change.
Some light switches in the US, particularly in newer buildings, look like the one in Angry Badger’s link. I’ve lived in apartments with switches like that.
There’s a chicken-or-the-egg question here. It might be that new appliances are cheap, so repairmen have to charge a lot per visit to have a workable business model. Either way, you’re often better off replacing a malfunctioning appliance than you are repairing it.
In AUS, as in most countries, Rocker Switches have replaced Toggle Switches. And, we do have hallways/stairs/kitchens/rooms/etc with multiple-switch circuits.
However, regardless of what kind of switch you use, in the USA it is generally mounted the other way up than it would be in Britain or Aus. Based on my last visit to the West Coast, this continues to be the case.
It used to be the case that American light switches were mounted lower than Australian light switches, but I don’t think that’s true any more…
And Australian Cutlery used to be bigger than American Silverware, but I don’t think that’s true much anymore either.
That’s not a knife. . .
I see you’ve played Knifey Spoony before.
There most definitely is a standard for US light switches! It may or may not be a legal requirement, depending on local bui;ding codes, but it is a practical one. Install a light switch with up being off, and the customer will demand you come back and fix it. At your own expense!
And the other situation you mention is with 3-way switches. But even with them, there is a conventional standard – when both switches are up, the light will be on. But that’s less strictly observed, because either switch can change it, and so people don’t notice it so much.
Another item I am helping a friend with…
The expectation of what should be included in a résumé or C.V. appears to vary between countries, not to mention industries.
In Colombia it is standard to provide your cedula number on your C.V. (Cedula is the national ID card number which is also used as your passport number. Equivalent to including US Social Security number on a résumé.)
Thai resumes contain all sorts of personal information including age, body statistics and even a photograph. When I tell Thais not to include all that stuff on resumes for the US, they look at me like I’m from Mars.
Similar in China. And the result is obvious: the company is full of young, pretty people without much experience. I got actual resistance from HR when I wanted to hire a qualified, older guy that had all of the relevant experience I needed. :smack:
*If you do something that is negligent or erroneous, don’t try to cover it up. Own up to it and make amends. Generally I find Americans tend to be more respectful of someone who owns their mistakes and makes amends as opposed to someone
who tries to lie their way to fake innocence.
*Don’t lie to the cops.
Unless you’re in Phoenix, then running red lights is a requirement.
Cabs really are mobile offices. A smart cabbie will also let you pick the station. The happier you make passengers, the better the tips.
As for snow and ice and cold, I’m not very familiar with them and had some quick crash courses in adulthood. I think of November as perfect weather and forget that in most of the US it’s getting bitterly cold by then. I tried to go out hiking in Chicago in November. The second I stepped off the plane that idea went away.
Does “body statistics” mean things like height & weight?
Actually, in a conversation with a bunch of international grad students (India, Mexico, Turkey and China), the biggest difference they could see as far as corruption goes is that when there were government bribes to be made in their home countries, it was almost always something fairly small to the minor functionary who served as gatekeeper, in order to get something mundane done. For example, if your car needed an inspection, you pretty much had to bribe the inspector to get it done at all, and then you had an automatic pass.
They thought it was totally amazing that in the US, government functionaries do their everyday jobs without bribery. I explained that in general, if there are bribes to be made, they’re almost always in the context of getting something out of the ordinary done, not just to initiate business as usual. I think they thought there was no bribery, and I explained that it’s not unheard of to slip the car inspector some cash to get a pass result on a car that you know otherwise wouldn’t pass.
Yes. And it shows up on résumés where it is completely unrelated to the job.
Marital status, number of children, religious affiliation, and so on have turned up on résumés from overseas applicants where it wasn’t a specific requirement of the job.
Yes, all of that is included in the typical resume in Thailand.