United States – Page 31 – understand-culture

Accept, Adjust

People are different. At one extreme are colleagues who are reluctant to enter into agreements, but when they do are highly reliable. At the other are those who enter into agreements quickly, and with the best of intentions, but are all too often less reliable. Most people are somewhere in the middle.

Follow-up allows people to account for, to accept, to adjust to each other, to the fact that some people are more reliable than others. Or, put more acceptably, some people need to be reminded more often than others that they have obligated themselves to do a specific thing, by a specific time.

It is an art form in the U.S. to follow up in a way which does not imply that the other person is unreliable: in a brief, informal email; with a quick phone call; “bumping into” the colleague in the cafeteria; always mixing a little small with big talk.

America is a nation of immigrants, perhaps all with their own understanding of what makes up an agreement, what it means to enter into, maintain and fulfill one, including how to know if the other party is “still on the ball.“

Tesla’s Bane

In 1885 Nikola Tesla, who had recently immigrated to the US from Serbia, told his employer Thomas Edison that he could redesign Edison’s direct current generators, greatly improving both their service and cost. Hearing this, Edison remarked: “There’s fifty thousand dollars in it for you if you can do it.”

Even though Edison’s company had a reputation for being tightfisted, Tesla took him at his word, and after he completed the task, Edison refused to pay him the money. Instead, Edison told Tesla that he was only joking, and offered him a $10 per week raise for his current $18 per week salary. Insulted, Tesla immediately resigned.

bane: death, destruction; woe; a source of harm or ruin, a curse. Middle English, from Old English, akin to Old High German death. First Known Use: before 12th century

tightfisted – parsimonious; stingy; tight; mean; miserly. Origin from 1835-45.

frequent follow-up

Interestingly, typing „frequent follow-up“ into Google leads to 179 million results. The first ten pages with ten results each all refer to healthcare:

Long-Term Follow-up of Asymptomatic Healthy Subjects. Frequent follow-up as data gathering and continued care. Colonoscopy Overuse A Result Of Frequent Follow-Up. Follow-up see eMedicineHealth. Is There a Benefit of Frequent CT Follow-up After EVAR?

The term follow-up in the medical space is about: care; staying on top of a problem; remaining proactive; constant monitoring; reacting to a changing situation.

Back out

Americans reserve the right to back out of an agreement at any time during its early stages. This sounds like a contradiction in terms, in the sense that once an agreement has been made, one should keep their word.

It is not. American agreements in their early stages are agreements in the making, they are under consideration, are conditional. Americans will do their best to deliver what they have agreed to, if they can, are permitted to, if time and resources enable them.

To go into too much detail of an agreement up front is a potential waste of time and effort. Americans want first the very basics of the agreement, in order to quickly assess whether they can and want to enter into it.

If the initial response is positive, they will enter further into the agreement, taking in more details, proceeding if they can, are permitted to, if time and resources enable them.

It is a step by step process, and not an all or nothing decision.

“Just say no“

The American reluctance to say no starts very early in life. Even children have difficulty using this word. It was this reluctance that prompted the War on Drugs campaign to encourage children to avoid drugs with the slogan Just Say No (to drugs) during the 1980s and 1990s. As difficult as it might seem to believe, many American children would never have considered just saying no as an option without someone telling them explicitly.

Roommate Agreement

On The Big Bang Theory, an American television show about a group of physicists and the girl next door, two of the main characters share an apartment together. In order to ensure that things run smoothly from the beginning one of the roommates drafts a roommate agreement that outlines all of the rules by which the two characters will abide.

Additionally, anytime there is a change in the characters’ status (for example, if one of them starts dating), this roommate will write a modified version of the agreement to accommodate the new arrangement.

However, the second roommate hates having a fixed list of rules, and rather than being a way to solve disputes, the roommate agreement actually becomes the source of many arguments.

Deadlines

The word deadline was first used during the American Civil War to describe a line which, if a prisoner crossed it, could result in the prisoner’s death. Even though most deadlines today won’t end in murder, Americans still feel that correlation when talking about a deadline, and they tend to treat it like a life-or-death matter.

Deadline: a line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot; a date or time before which something must be done; the time after which copy is not accepted for a particular issue of a publication. First known use was in 1864.

Examples: She worked on her composition right up until the deadline. We had to hurry to meet the deadline. The project was completed a week past its deadline. The deadline for submitting college applications is April 19th. They’re working under a deadline.

Deadlines and recovery from missed deadlines are so important to Americans that many job interviewers specifically ask applicants to describe a time that they missed a deadline and how they recovered from it. If you type missed deadline into Google, you’re immediately bombarded with self-help websites describing how to recover from a missed deadline.

In 2013, the Prince George’s County school system lost $1.4 million of state funds when it failed to approve school construction contracts within their two year deadline. Although the school district was very close to approving these contracts, no extension was given, and the money had to be returned.

“touch base”

To briefly make or renew contact with someone, often to check on the status of an agreement or project. Example: “I just wanted to touch base and make sure you hadn’t changed your mind about seeing me.”

Can-do people

Can-do: Marked by willingness to tackle a job and get it done; characterized by eagerness to accept and meet challenges; a can-do kind of person; first Known Use of Can-Do: 1945.

Perhaps the most famous fictitious can-do American and cultural icon is Rosie the Riveter. Rosie represents the American women who labored in urban factories and replaced men who had left to fight in the Second World War. Rosie represented the ideal American laborer: loyal, efficient, patriotic, and pretty. Throughout history and up to the present, Rosie the Riveter is traditionally used as a symbol of women’s economic prowess and feminism.

Seldom does an American feel comfortable saying no to a customer, a boss or to a colleague. A no signals either lack of ability or lack of effort or both. Responding with a no to a request leads to that person – customer, boss, colleague – turning to others for assistance. And that means a loss of business.

Westinghouse Company’s War Production Committee commissioned Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller in 1942 to create a series of posters to boost public support for the war effort. The “We Can Do It!” poster came to be associated with “Rosie the Riveter.”

Nike Inc.’s “JUST DO IT.” trademark normally appears alongside the Nike logo, the Swoosh. Nike’s share of the domestic sport-shoe business rose from 18% to 43% from 1988 to 1998.

IBM’s slogan is a playful use of IT as in Information Technology and the pronoun “it.” The slogan boasts competence and forward movement in the world of technology.

Dell Computer’s slogan advocates for seizing the day, or “carpe diem,” and exploiting it. It argues for deriving more function and greater satisfaction from the present moment.

Arrested Development

The American television show Arrested Development which aired from 2003 to 2006 and was revived in 2013, follows the story of a wealthy family that recently lost their money in a scandal involving the family’s real estate business.

In the first episode Michael Bluth becomes CEO and President of the Bluth Company after his father is arrested for crimes involving the company. Immediately all of their assets are frozen, and they have to get by with very little money. Most of the family moves into one house together, and Michael sells their car and jet in order to have a little money.

Despite their sudden loss of funds everyone except Michael tries to keep living extravagant lifestyles, and whenever Michael finds out about his family’s excessive spending and low-income, he tells them ‘no.’

For example, Michael refuses to buy his brother Gob small items like desk lamps or frozen bananas, and he doesn’t support his career as a magician. He also refuses to let Gob live in the family house, and tells him that he can’t live in the family boat or at the company office either.

Whenever Gob has ideas about the company (most of which are illegal) Michael tells him no. When Gob tries to escape from prison by jumping from a balcony (around 30 feet in the air) onto Michael to break his fall, Michael also tells him no. And this is only a small sample of the times Michael tells Gob no, not to mention the numerous times he uses this word with the rest of the family.

Despite his efforts to help save the family and their business (and turning down good job offers to do so) his constant ‚no’ keeps the family from appreciating him. The other members of the family often describe him negatively, calling him such things as selfish, robot, and chicken, and at one point, Michael and his sister Lindsay discuss Michael’s helpfulness:

Lindsay: “You’re, like, the least charitable person I know.”

Michael: “I don’t do anything for myself; everything that I do is for this family.”

Lindsay: “You don’t do it for us. You just do it because you love being the guy in charge, because you love saying ‘no.’”

“Don’t jump on me!”