QUOTE (JarnoA @ Feb 12 2010, 02:26)
USF1 are treating Americans like we imagine Americans to be. In other words, anything outside of America means nothing to them. Any city in europe is a part of London. Madrid? That's in LON DON isn't it?
Up until last year I worked for Americans for several years as Sales Manager EMEA and had to visit the HQ in New York several times. I'm glad I don't work for them anymore because the difference in culture and especially behaviour (which tended to be very very ignorant) was huge with constant conflicts between the European & US office. But anyway; I fully agree with your point about their geography. Most of them can't even point out countries on a world map and they just seem to think that Europe is just one big region.
I could give multiple examples of that but to mentione some: my American colleagues were constantly referring to Belgium as Brussels and even said our European office was in Brussels although it wasn't located even near Brussels. They also always said Amsterdam to the Netherlands and to cities like Maastricht (near Germany), Rotterdam or Utrecht they always called it Amsterdam. There also was a colleague who tried to pay a taxi in Belgium with dollars (how arrogant to think you can pay with dollars anywhere) and another one who was so surprised that people speak different languages in Europe ('why don't they just speak English' he said). There was another colleague who thought that the city of Brugges (Brugge) was some kind of a funfair amusement park. And these were suppose to be educated people... At the time I thought that was very anoying.
And on London: once I had to visit a customer on a trade show in Birmingham, UK. My American boss was visiting London at that time and asked me to come over to where she was. She thought Birmingham was like 5 minutes from London. On another occasion I had to drive all the way from Hannover (Germany) to Paris because my American boss was there and wanted to meet with me; I think I drove something like 9 hours at full speed in one go to get there. She didn't even want to believe me when I told her the distance was too big; she thought everything located in Europe couldn't be far from Paris. I'm really sorry for any American who reads this but Americans can sometimes be so incredibly stupid.
Their knowledge of history is just as poor and doesn't go much further than the history of the USA. To give an example: I had to explain my US boss the difference between WW1 and WW2. At the time I thought it was shocking that I had to explain something something that even little children from primary school know in Europe to someone who graduated on a US university...
But even worse was that during a holliday in S-East Asia I once met an American of +- 35 years old who claimed that Spain was in South-America (he was from Texas and probably first time outside the US). When I told him 'no Spain is in Europe' he simply replied 'no Spain is in South-America because they speak Spanish in S.-America'. I wouldn't say those kind of situations with Americans are a rule but they are certainly no exception.
On USF1: I really want to see a US F1 team on the grid but if they operate or communicate even remotely like the American company that I worked for then it will be a huge farce and looking at what we've seen so far from USF1 they will look ridiculous.
PS: no offence intende on US users of this forum. My girlfriend is in fact American (born in Boston) so I have nothing against Americans but did have very negative working experience with them and I really don't like to generalise but unfortunately the negative experiences outnumber the positive ones for me.
They are probably one and the same person.
