Max's log book

I think now I have been here long enough to start to compare life in NZ vs life in France vs life in Finland. I’ll start with life at work.

I have now been working at DT for over a year. I have noticed a few differences between working in New Zealand and working in France. I can’t really tell about work life in Finland as I was only studying in Helsinki and I haven’t worked but I may refer to it at some point. Some of the things, I have gotten used to them, some I haven’t. This is the risk of moving into another culture, you’ll never fit in either of them anymore, always in between.

 

Before I go on, I will say, all I write is based on my own experience and what some friends/co-worker have reported to me. It probably doesn’t apply everywhere and it’s only my own observations based on my views.

• Addressing someone: One important difference is the relation between people and the way they address each other. Here, most of the people call each other with a nickname (usually a short version of the first name). For instance, Raymond becomes Ray, Kevin becomes Kev, Fransisco Fran, Timothy Tim, Patlada Pat, Srivatsa Sri, John JK… We pretty much never use the last names, even when we talk to/about the directors or: Bill and Linc (for Lincoln). It doesn’t matter if you’re Papa Smurf or just an extra, nicknames will apply if your name is too long (as in more than 2 syllables). At first everyone was calling me Maxime (with a long “i”) but with time, they started to call me Max. In my case, Maxime doesn’t exist in English (very very popular in France), the closest name is Maxine, but that’s a girl’s name and it has confused a few people (expecting me to be a girl…). However, it’s still pretty frequent that people misspell my name in emails. Not a biggie, but for some reason it irritates me (especially if you replace it with a girl’s name). I think in France we’re really careful with names, it’s really rude to misspell a name (unless it’s obvious that you’ve never seen it written down). I remember always double checking I got it right before hitting “Send”. In my view in a French mind, if you misspell a name, it’s like talking to a person without looking at them, a bit rude. I will say, French names are fairly unusual for English speaking countries so, it’s fair they are not used to see them. I still struggle with pacific names (Sifa, Delister, Ezra, Taake, Vila, Poutasi…). And I always triple check the spelling and avoid to refer to them implying that they would be a lady or a guy as I have no idea what sex they are.
• In the morning, when you arrive in the office here, you’ll say Hi to whoever will hear it and go straight to your desk to get on with your work. In France, not everyone does that but many people (including me) would go a shake hands/kiss (on the cheeks of course) everyone around your area to say hi. Some days, it’s only going to be “hi”, some days, you’ll engage in a 2 minutes’ conversation or so. What I used to do, is go straight to my desk, put my jacket down, start my computer and then walk around to say hi to a good 10 people.
• Lunch-wise (yes, I’m French and it’s a VERY important part of the day), there’s a huge difference. Here, people tend to have lunch on their own. Some people also go for a run at lunch time, while in France, about the same would go out to the swimming pool, which is an interesting difference that I can’t explain. On my first day at DT, it really surprised me. I was following the French tradition (didn’t think that trough). In France, the rule is on your first day, you’ll go have lunch with your team. The goal is to get to know them (and them to know you), not just work-wise, but also as a person. It’s usually a great occasion to learn what’s happening around you. So I was working with Mark most of time that day. 14 o’clock came, I was starving. So I asked him “so what do you usually do for lunch”, turns out he had a very quick lunch at his desk (which I had not seen). After that I obviously embraced the culture and started to do the same, except I could never manage to go out quickly and eat on my desk. My French mind tells me that lunch break is supposed to be a break, to get some fresh air, change your mind. After that you’ll have a new eye on whatever you’re working which will be beneficial. In France, it’s also a great social thing. Most of the people will have lunch in groups outside of the office. Even if it’s seating down in a shopping centre bench. Talking to your colleagues about stuff you work on sometimes ends up in your colleague suggesting things to you. A lunch break will rarely be shorter than 1 hour (unless super busy period). Also, in France, every once in a while (every 2 months or so) you’d go out with your workmates and have a nice lunch in a restaurant (nothing fancy or expensive, but it doesn’t mean it’s a café or something super-fast. There aren’t much of these here (not even sure how to describe them) but it involves usually a 1h30 to 2h lunch break. And yes still everyone pays for his own meal. Now I have found a few people who seem to also enjoy a lunch with other people and that’s my workmates Pat, Dani and Maribel.
• Dress code: at work, like in France, we can dress casual. However, there is still a difference between France and NZ. Here casual can mean you wear shorts or jandals (I’ve even seem some of my colleagues walking around barefoot). In France, while you can wear a T shirt, a hoodie or a jean, you will be required to wear long trousers and closed shoes (skirts are accepted for woman). I remember in France, a colleague once came with shorts, the big boss called him up and asked him to wear long trousers the next day. It stayed at that but the guy had sort of a reputation afterwards (also, he came in jandals once). I think it’s nice that we are free to wear what we want. Although I don’t think I can actually turn up to work in shorts, not possible for me. Of course that is the exception of clients visits where formal dress is required.
• The salary, I already said, comes every fortnight (Wednesday at 22:00), in France, it’s at the end of the month. Here, the payslips are not sent via mail anymore (which is good, planet wise). You can see them online and print them if needed. In France a payslip takes a whole A4 page (see below, I had a few extra lines because of the on-call time, the meal tickets and the transport ticket reimbursement). And we still need to file and pay income tax returns every year. Here, the pay slip is 4 lines: one for the gross salary, one line for all the taxes (PAYE/ACC) and a line for KiwiSaver (the retirement savings scheme, which is optional, I’ll talk about it later). In a general sense, taxes are easier here. The money that comes in your account is yours.
  

Payslip in France

Payslip in New Zealand

• Back to food…. At the office, there are 2 kitchens, one at each floor. In the morning, there’s quite a number of people who actually go there and have sort of a breakfast (cereals and the like). I can’t imagine coming in with my bread, Nutella and juice and have breakfast at the office. Everyone his way. I have never seen that in France. The kitchen we had was a coffee machine a water boiler and a microwave oven (used for lunch).
• Here, every once in a while, there’s something organised, could be a game night, or a Christmas outing. It’s actually quite nice, and I enjoy it. Although, I realised the outings are pretty much always sports related (football, biking, laser tag, go-karts…). I was talking about that with my co-worker Sharron and she says all of these always end up with the same people leading whatever activity there is. It would be nice to have the people who are always quiet take the lead on that kind of things. I agree 100%. In France, all outings we have done were going in a restaurant, which is also nice.
• Sarcasm: kiwis are very sarcastic people, even and especially at work. I’m still not quite used to it. I often receive (directly or not) emails with very sarcastic sentences and you better have what I’d call a second degree, otherwise you may get offended. Sarcasm is always an option, no matter what the situation is. Obviously this is internal communication. For me, it’s especially hard when I’m under a lot of pressure at work because yes, even though sarcasm is a way of joking, there is pretty much always a seed of truth in it. I’m sure I’ll get used to it with time.
• Congratulations: this one is a tough one to explain (even more so not in my native language), but I’ll try to explain what I mean. Also, as in sarcasm, there’s always a seed of truth. I have come to realise that kiwis are a lot more prone to say “thank you”, “great job” and these kind of things than the French. It’s quite great in a way. But with time, I started to realise that often it was more some sort of politeness than maybe a deep emotion. For instance, when your boss says “well done, good job”, he probably things you’ve done well, but the same way he actually expected you do to so. It doesn’t necessarily come from the bottom of the heart. I don’t mean kiwis are fake (not like an American who’ll say “I love you, you’re my best friend” to someone they just met). With time, and I guess experience, I’ve come to differentiate the difference between the “thank you” polite and the one they will actually feel. In France, especially at work, people will rarely say “you did a great job” because, I think, they expect you to do a good job, that’s why they hired you in the first place. But sometimes, they will say that and you will know that they really think you did well, and they are very thankful for it. I think this explains why French (and by French I mean especially Parisians) are known to be rude. Of course they’ll be polite (most of the time) but you shouldn’t expect someone in a shop to be over complimentary. When it comes from someone we don’t know, we assume it’s fake and probably hypocrite. French and Anglo Saxon worlds are quite different in that regard. Now of course, it’s even worse in Scandinavian culture. Finns are very, very shy (considered cold even). Finns will only say how they feel about you if they really, deeply mean it (don’t hope to get “Minä rakastan sinua” anytime soon).
• Times: like in France (where I have worked anyway), hours are flexible, for as long as you work the minimum and you achieve what you’re expected to do. For this one, Paris will have to be an exception, as the reason why people arrive so late is transport time (it took me from 25 minutes to 1h30 one way every day to commute). Congestion in Paris a big problem, even if you take the metro/train. You may have to let 2 or 3 trains pass before you can actually get on it. Here, people tend to arrive between 7 and 9:15. A few people arrive later. Me, at the moment I arrive at around 8:15. And I’m always the first in my team. I like coming earlier because I’m more effective in the morning and I don’t get distracted then. I leave at 17 and of lot of people have already left then. In France, people usually between 8:30 and 9:30, even 10am and stay longer at night. Some days, I would leave at 20. And I you left before 16:30 then you’d definitely be the first to leave.
• Work organisation: This is another big difference that I have felt. In France, in my experiences, for as long as the result is there, no one will ask you what you’ve done or how. You just did. And you’re free to organise the way you want to achieve it. There are of course, some general guidelines but people are happy to bend them if that makes things work. Because of that, you get the chance to improvise and try things. And then you learn things. Now obviously you need to prove yourself before your manager let you do things. And if things do get wrong, you’ll have to justify to your manager. But he’ll take responsibility for you in from of the client anyway. Here, I have found that people are happier to do things in a way, and keep it that way, until it breaks. They will put the checks and controls in place to make sure it doesn’t. In the end, there’s less chance for failure but also less chance for improvement. It’s the eternal balance between creativity/risk and control/quality. I have yet to get used to that.

 

A few things that I miss from French culture:

• Lunch with my colleagues, would be a great way to catch up with some other people. I’m happy to have found a few already though. I’d like to have these proper lunches every once in a while. I’ve managed to do it once or twice, but it had to be prepared and organised a week ahead of time. I miss the spontaneity of just someone sending an email at 10 asking: “you guys want to have a lunch at a restaurant today?”, for no reason (except it’s a Friday of course).
• What we call “pots”: basically in most of companies in France, when you join in, you organise a “pot”. You’ll get some snacks, chips, bread, “saucisson sec” and a bottle of wine (or 2) and everyone in your openspace/team will come (that’s about 30 people) and you’ll get to meet the people, share a drink, a few things to eat. It will last between 30 minutes to much longer (3 hours can happen) and will start at the end of the work day (17:30 in France). You usually send a heads up the day before. Like the first lunch with your team, this is the best way to get to know everyone and what they work on. They say that no one will know your name until you’ve organised that. It usually happens within the first 2 weeks. On the same idea, when it’s your birthday, you’ll bring some croissants and other kind of pastries (or a cake) along with some orange/apple juice and will send an email to everyone on that morning to call for a breakfast. Same idea as the welcome “pot”, this is a great way to start the day, enjoy a good croissant and a coffee (they will come with their coffee or tea) and again, a good catch-up. Here, the only thing close to it would be the morning tea, on Fridays, but it’s more formal, as the projects managers will talk about their projects and what’s happening. You only get 2 minutes to talk to people before it starts.
• Swearing: I know it sounds stupid, but here, I can’t seem to swear. I don’t swear much anyway, but I can’t do it anymore, in French, or in English. It’s been a long time since I let go of a “put*** de me***”. It doesn’t seem to come… Sad, I know.

 

 

Wow, it’s gotten a lot longer than I expected it to be. Once I started, I realised there was more. And writing this one actually helped me understanding why I didn’t agree with some of them. It’s just different, no necessarily better or worse, just different.