Of course my point was over the top. It started with defending our directness, which I think is warranted. It's a feature, not a bug.
And then things got out of hand with national pride, highlighting the achievements, without any bad parts. I'm well aware of how one-dimensional it may come across. Because it it one dimensional.
In dutch tradition, you should destroy my claims. You partially did, although still far too carefully ;)
I compliment you on the deep insight into dutch business culture where trade triumphs engineering. Indeed, this is reflected into almost any business where the finance, purchase, and sales departments are enormous and basically considered the business.
Next, we may also have "hands". The people doing the actual work. Undervalued and underpaid, and easily replaced. It's definitely true that it's not an engineering culture in that sense.
Likewise, some pride is misplaced. If you look at a company like ASML, a high tech miracle, most of its engineers are Asian expats.
All true. Yet one thing persists in the culture: outcomes. Whatever it is that we build, or however we do it, there's very little tolerance for error. We don't accept half-assed products, we don't accept a lack of reliability. If errors occur, we don't let them linger.
I mention this in contrast to the many other nations I traveled to, many of which accepting things to barely function, not at all, or not reliably so. That's what I mean with "proper".
I am pretty glad I had this discussion: it is difficult to have a deep.understand of our own culture, but you have a deep one about yours—congratulations! :)
I think that if you could gather your two comments and make an article out of it, it would be very useful to newcomers in the Netherlands. I would have loved to read such lucid text when I first arrived here.
(Well, not everyone blogs, so it's just a passing opinion.)
> In dutch tradition, you should destroy my claims. You partially did, although still far too carefully ;)
When replying on internet, I try to be a little careful because the medium is limited text and, then, all my real opinions, with all their nuances, tend to not be expressed, then misunderstood, and then used as weapon against me. I usually distance myself from commenting on internet forums because forums tend to be quite a harmful environment for one's mental health.
> All true. Yet one thing persists in the culture: outcomes. Whatever it is that we build, or however we do it, there's very little tolerance for error. We don't accept half-assed products, we don't accept a lack of reliability. If errors occur, we don't let them linger.
>
> I mention this in contrast to the many other nations I traveled to, many of which accepting things to barely function, not at all, or not reliably so. That's what I mean with "proper".
By now, I lived in a few different countries, and that experience taught me that all countries have some interesting pros and odd cons.
Given that, I must agree with your sentence, and that is what I meant with
>> And it is not the Dutch are trying to fool people delivering _somehow looking done_ stuff. Not at all! It is just that their trading features comes first over their engineering ones.
There are countries, including in the list the top trading and economically successful ones, that fooling the customer is common practice; that "back-stabbing" for personal benefit is seen as "smart"; that personal and honourable values are thrashed for profit.
The Dutch culture might have its sins, but those aforementioned are not the ones.
(OK. Except on real estate, where a bare minimum habitation, considered regular in any civilised country, is market as "luxurious". But the sin here is hyperbole, not meanness.)
And then things got out of hand with national pride, highlighting the achievements, without any bad parts. I'm well aware of how one-dimensional it may come across. Because it it one dimensional.
In dutch tradition, you should destroy my claims. You partially did, although still far too carefully ;)
I compliment you on the deep insight into dutch business culture where trade triumphs engineering. Indeed, this is reflected into almost any business where the finance, purchase, and sales departments are enormous and basically considered the business.
Next, we may also have "hands". The people doing the actual work. Undervalued and underpaid, and easily replaced. It's definitely true that it's not an engineering culture in that sense.
Likewise, some pride is misplaced. If you look at a company like ASML, a high tech miracle, most of its engineers are Asian expats.
All true. Yet one thing persists in the culture: outcomes. Whatever it is that we build, or however we do it, there's very little tolerance for error. We don't accept half-assed products, we don't accept a lack of reliability. If errors occur, we don't let them linger.
I mention this in contrast to the many other nations I traveled to, many of which accepting things to barely function, not at all, or not reliably so. That's what I mean with "proper".