Hello.
I live in a relatively obscure state somewhere on the outskirts of Europe and civilized world.
These are a few main ways why work culture here sucks:
• If an employee does a bad job, they get flack and are threatened to be fired. However, if an employee does a good job, higher ups put even more job on their shoulders. More, more, more, until a good employee breaks.
• Hard to get to better positions, especially if you do a good job in a current position. “You are a good foreman of a tile laying shift? Why would we make you a
• Nepotism 101.
• No higher up will ever see effort (unless to notice whom to give more work) and say thank you. No higher up will acknowledge hardships.
• Licking of a “brown eye” is basically one of two ways to climb up stairs of career. You either do that, or apply to a higher position in a first place and show lots of qualifications so your future employers can't ignore you. No middle ground.
• Big division between blue collar workers and white collar workers. Both may get similar salaries, but office sitters, in a lot of times, seem to be more entitled and also happier. Sometimes even eating quarters are divided and blue collar workers (even if changed) are forbidden to be seen by “the office elite”. And office elite, in a lot of cases, act like elite.
• No complaining is allowed. You need to be happy to get paid in a first place, even if it is a minimum wage. Because you are lucky and privileged they allowed you to work for them.
• No work-life balance. Need ability to survive? Work and smile! Work and don't show tiredness. You can get overtime, additional works, paid bonuses and everything else, yet you'd still be able just to pay bills and rent… But that's more of an overall country economy.
• Brushing off safety and ignoring tools to make work easier. The harder you do stuff, the more respect points you earn. You still need to meet deadlines, though.
• Even if job needs to be done, no one will pay attention if you just look like working. If you don't have work at the moment, just wonder around holding a shovel.
• You'll be respected even if you do completely unnecessary work. It is important to show that you are a good little slave, who loves getting your hands dirty. I worked at a construction site for a bit. That day I stayed in the headquarters as they did not have much job for me and my friend. Somebody offered to brush the floor of some open air wielding area. It was an empty, completely unnecessary work. We had an “alpha” male manager of that city I worked at. He saw me and my friend doing this job and expressed how proud he was. Very unlikable individual, who looks like he likes hard work and things getting done, but in reality just loves alpha-male-unnecessary-stoicism-and-give-everything-you-have-without-a-flich-to-do-any-work attitude. It is not just an anecdote, seen this over and over again in different locations, different jobs and among different people.
• If you are a man, you might be expected to carry heavy stuff and do some blue collar labor relatively often, even though you are here doing office job. Of course, unless you are worm with higher ups/office dwellers and a “part of the elite”. Men are expected to get their hands dirty and women are expected to do janitor jobs, despite the position (again, unless they are a part of elite).
• Mistakes are not allowed, unless it's first half a day of training. If you don't show awareness by the end of a day, you will be considered a looser and it will be very hard (and long) to earn respect.
• You are expected to bring awareness and knowledge no matter the age. In my post soviet country, everybody is good at practical tasks (construction, warehouse, machinery, technical things) so you are expected to have a good amount of knowledge (speaking of manual labor jobs).
These are a few main points how work culture here operates. Sure it changes and differs city to city, town to town, but these are observations I've seen/experienced myself in both province and city work environments.
How are these in your country? Is there any place in the world where normal workers (not the elite) can wake up for work and not feel like getting ready for a front line?