Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

Re:Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy... by JumpCrisscross on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @12:40PM (#13483698)

> There's no reason why it can't scale

I grew up in Switzerland. Nobody checked if we bought metro tickets. Everyone bought them. The only people I remember being little shits about it were tourists. Cultural norms do not informally enforce themselves at scale--you need institutions, and those institutions cost money and freedom.

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Re:Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy... by mkaziz on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @01:16PM (#13484152)

Disagree. As an immigrant to the US, I see many cultural norms that the US has (at scale, despite heterogeneous population) that were bizarrely foreign to me, but that I (and other immigrants like me) quickly picked up on and developed.

Examples: (good) giving pedestrians right of way when driving, stopping at stop signs, holding the door open for people (bad) empty small talk conversations used to fill silences with casual acquaintances.

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Re:Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy... by louisswiss on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @12:47PM (#13483793)

Not to mention leading to a culture in which displaying genuine creativity and strong opinions will quickly destroy your social and career prospects.

This is changing for the better with the younger generations, however.

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