Watching English (I)

Last year I bought the book: Watching English but I've been so busy that I've not had time to read it. I promise to do it this Christmas (at least during the idle time in the airport and during the flights). This book deals with the "non written" English rules or English behaviour.

I'm going to start to list things that have called my attention by comparing them to Spanish people, positive (most of them) and negative ones (that exist as well), ranging from very "silly things to most profound ones:

- They (English people) don't clean their teeths after lunch - First days in the office I was embarrasing to go to the bathroom to clean my teeths because nobody else used to do it! Now I think my colleagues have assumed that I'm a little strange and they don't look at me surprised anymore. I think it comes down to the fact that lunch is so quick that they don't even have time for that. In Spain, we used to have up two hours for lunch time ...

- They don't socialize at working hours: No coffees ... almost they even don't say good morning! I've seen people going to M&S at lunch time alone to grab something to have it while they read the newspaper. To meet someone at lunch time is something exceptional. French and Spanish are the opposite...On the contrary they like to meet colleagues afterwork to have drink which is more seldom in Madrid. For example, if in Madrid you ask the girl that sits down besides your desk to have a beer after work, she might think that you want an affaire with her!! Here is something normal.

- They don't like the direct confrontation and this is reflected on daily routine. For example, they prefer send emails rather than talking on the phone. Some months ago, I exchanged around 10 emails on a topic with an English engineer. To me, that was a waste of time because it would have been much easier to address the issue through a direct conversation but that guy didn't answer my calls on purpose... For the same reason they are very polite when they disagree and use the expression: yes, that's perfect BUT ... which means: "I disagree with you"

- They (this is more profound) don't like to get subsidies. I like this one. I was talking with a guy who told me that in England unemployed people don't like to get any subsidy, in fact they get ashamed by this and they look for a job as soon as possible. Can you imagine this mentality in Spain where there are people that show off simply because they have managed to cheat the government by getting some subsidies?

I believe that the last one starts to show why this small country ruled over a vast Empire...

I'll keep gathering these kind of things (I have a very long list) to see at which extent we are different (Spain is different) or they are different!