The biggest cultural confrontation I have been faced with so far is related to my internship. A couple students and I have found that the language used in the UK is much more general, requiring more intuition on our end related to our work assignments.
A funny moment was my boss wanted me to create a marketing strategy utilizing a specific budget. I had gone full throttle with the idea without asking for much more information. When I had met back up with him on my ideas, we had to talk about the direction of them. I was not going to receive the money in the budget and not all that money was to be utilized with one purchase. After that clarification, I realized that asking questions would be vital.
Typically, in American jobs, we are given very clear guidelines and demands. Obviously, asking questions about your work will occur in any culture, but it has definitely been a learning experience adjusting to the difference in the communication of language – even, if we’re both still speaking English.
Another example of this was when I had to create a draft email for consumer outreach. I was utilizing many adjectives within the email, and I was advised that in British societies that there is a humbler culture. My boss was very kind and made a joke of it but did let me know that sometimes less is more when speaking within British workplaces.
From this, I’ve been noticing that the way I communicate amongst friends, coworkers, teachers has been much more restrained. I hadn’t realized the grandness in our speech in the states until I was confronted with it. I’ve now incorporated this Londoner style way of communicating into my everyday life and it has helped multitudes in getting my point across in concise ways. Conclusively, not everything needs to be explained to its minute detail. Sometimes, leaving room for interpretation can be a good thing.
-Angel Colon