alt Hacker NewsWorking for London startups in the past, I've found they're much more polite, but much less honest and straightforward. There's a layer of britishness you have to get past sometimes to get to what people really want instead of directness.
Working for London startups in the past, I've found they're much more polite, but much less honest and straightforward. There's a layer of britishness you have to get past sometimes to get to what people really want instead of directness.
best reasoning I've heard for this is that English is subtext heavy, like Japanese due to the history of the aristocracy. The populace were in thrall to their feudal lords and the aristocracy as serfs and servant classes for so long, that being indirect has been embedded into the language as a defense mechanism to not upset the pay masters. We get the subtext but people new to our culture might not.
I remember a technological mess being present at work and my team lead bringing out the classic:
> it's not ideal is it?
or the classic Jeeves and Wooster valet/aristocrat relationship with Jeeves giving it the:
> as you say sir
> very good sir
with both statements being flexible but often being delivered with the dripping subtext of "yeah that's complete bollocks".[0]
Obviously this doesn't apply to the real working classes but then those types are not the sort to gain a STEM education.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s03Fq1nsbng
(The full scene is around 11:30 in the first episode and I think its captures a conversation of subtext and indirectness quite well).