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If you’re argument is that workplace culture distinguishes US workers and foreign workers, wouldn’t you be pushing for some in office presence?

Either:

a) workplace culture is hard to transmit online, in which case you’d need in-office for new workers

b) workplace culture can be transmitted online, in which case foreign workers can be integrated well into the company (even if this process takes decades)



c) the workplace culture is not transmitted just at work, or in the specific company one works for. It is a matter of expectations, the circle of friends overlapping with the circle of professional acquaintances, of media consumed, of etiquette.

Working remotely does not mean being in a cave since birth and communicate with a radio with your manager and co-workers.

There are some cultures, and I come from one of them, who are different, and let's limit ourselves to work culture informed by the culture of the country at large, from the U.S. work culture. For instance, Indian culture is very hierarchical, more title-oriented than the U.S. work culture, and largely people don't like--or straight-up refuse--to admit they don't know something.


Honestly all of the stuff you listed comes from work (except consumed media). It might not be from a specific workplace, but from a career at similar workplaces, but with the same idea more or less.


I kinda disagree.

For example, expectations may come from work, but not from your work, but from the work of others not at similar workplaces (the "work culture" more in general). One of the (mildly) "shocking" cultural moments I experienced when I first came to the U.S. more than a decade ago was that shops were mostly open at all times during the day and on Sundays (and some supermarkets 24/7, which was very new to me).

Did it inform me, rather brutally, about the way people in the United States view work? Yes. If I had had a conversation about the same work culture living all my life in Spain, would I have been informed in the same way? No.

I met some of my professional acquaintances in tech at the gym, not at work. It is much harder to get the same exposure in Mendoza, Argentina (first name that came to my mind, I am looking for wine).




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