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Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

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Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#321

Post by eru »

usrusr wrote: post #278
ido wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you're at but I have never seen this treated as that big of a deal in my 8 years of living in Austria & 7 in Germany unless you're talking to the prime minister (and especially not if you're obviously not a native speaker). Maybe more comparable to addressing someone by their first name instead of Mr./Ms./Mrs. .

Du/Sie and first name/last name are almost without exception divided along the same lines in German. Sie plus first name is how a person with extreme status expectations would address their butler, and just as old-fashioned. "I'm sorry you can never be my peer but I respect you anyways". Last name and Du would be using the last name as a nickname in a decidedly first name situation. Think "bro" but timeless.

Oh, there's more to it. Compare https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger_Sie

I can vouch for the Kassiererinnen-Du being used. My mom runs the butcher in a supermarket. She and and many of her coworkers share a lot about themselves, but they still address each as other as Frau Schmidt and Herr Schulze.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#323

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

eru wrote: post #317
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another data point from Lidls homeland regarding the wage of the "shop people" from about 10 years ago. While we had endless political discussions about minimum wage there were numbers of 7,50EUR to 8,50EUR per hour in the air at that time. Don't remember exactly anymore. What i DO remember though is that they had signs in the shops which you couldn't miss when standing at the cashier. They read 10EUR per hour, and l…

Lidl and Aldi both expect a lot from their employees. The high productivity justifies the pay. Not everyone wants such an intense job. So I am not sure it is a good idea to force eg other retailers into the same strategy. They already have Aldi and Lidl to compete with on the labour market, so there's already opportunity for workers to get higher pay, if they want to make that bargain.

I know that. Thing is, the other retailers don't treat their employees any better, have usually higher prices, but pay less. What to do?

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#324

Post by eru »

TravelPiglet wrote: post #206
occamrazor wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you mean the 2nd person form (du or ihr fir singular or plural) instead of the 3rd person plural (Sie), which is the courtesy form fir singular and plural. Yes, in German it’s a big deal, roughly the same as saying “Hey dude” instead of “Good morning Mr Smith”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen Similar in Sweden 50 years ago.

Their old system reminds me of some things I dimly remember from old German media. But even more complicated, it seems.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#325

Post by eru »

TurboHaskal wrote: post #303
_the_inflator wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German in Management here. This "Du/Sie" thing is a local shit test in Germany in my opinion. Comparable to what I experienced in strictly hierarchical enterprises like Sony US in the early 2010th, where at least one Senior Manager would only talk to an employee directly, instead only to her senior manager (same level BS). Informal is owning the workforce finally, it is on the rise, and you can use it as a shit detec…

I always struggled with this in Germany as a foreigner. Coming from a country in which the so called formal form changed significantly in the last decades and is now reserved to people you don't want to get along with (that's how politicians refer to members of other parties, or how customer support starts to address you after you tell them that you want to quit the contract), I always ended up using the informal for…

Many people who formally learn German as a second language (as opposed to just picking it up on the spot) seem to default to Sie. I guess that's what they teach in the Goethe institute.

Defaulting to Sie seems like a safe default. At worst you get some funny looks for being overly formal, but you don't insult anyone.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#326

Post by eru »

jawns wrote: post #311
StreamBright wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The Cloud idea very likely was acquired together with a former SAP cloud sales VP. Here is the difference: Core Schwarz DNA is selling packed soup to end customers at a crazy scale, without even intervening in the whole process. Core DNA SAP is a large scale enterprise sales. Go read the Stratechery posting about why Google failed with GCP to understand why Schwarz should not do this. This is exactly what I have g…

> Many of the AWS guys are life timers, do not care about money I've heard, anecdotally, that Amazon/AWS engineers tend to be more money-driven than others in the same tier, or at least they're willing to put up with a lot more headaches because of the money. Is that a misconception? If not money, then what keeps them there?

I used to work for Google and have friends at Amazon.

Google definitely seems to have the better working conditions. The impact on the world you have is probably similar. So relatively speaking, I'd expect people at Amazon to be into it for the money more.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#327

Post by eru »

why_only_15 wrote: post #270
exdsq wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that really work? What sort of experience levels are you talking about?

I have one year of experience at a FAANG and i posted on the HN "who is looking for a job" thread and got an email from a company.

Do you have an American or EU or other passport?

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#328

Post by xnyan »

chx wrote: post #179
occamrazor wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you mean the 2nd person form (du or ihr fir singular or plural) instead of the 3rd person plural (Sie), which is the courtesy form fir singular and plural. Yes, in German it’s a big deal, roughly the same as saying “Hey dude” instead of “Good morning Mr Smith”.

Parent says Eastern European country, well, I had the bad luck to be born in Hungary (am Canadian now), and I fully understand what happened. It's a generation divide. I am 45 and I am one of the oldest for whom it doesn't matter and looks downright outdated but even to many in my age cohort and especially older it's exceptionally offensive, irrespectful to use the familiar form of "you". https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

It was somewhat similar in eastern Ukraine when I lived there from 2007-2009, but perhaps not so intense. Russian is not my first language, so at first I would always play it safe and speak formally - to young children, to dogs, to people my age. People thought it was pretty funny.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#329

Post by eru »

niwork wrote: post #175
delcaran wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. As senior software developer I made 25K EUR in 2019.

That's a very poor salary for your job, if you don't mind me saying. Are you in Italy? What's the cost of living like? Salaries in Europe are generally quite low for devs compared to the US. I think it's best in the UK. Starting salary will average ~£25k, rising to ~£35k as you get more senior, then maybe £~45-55k one you're 5-10 years in. This is excluding London and contract-based work, of course.

> Salaries in Europe are generally quite low for devs compared to the US. I think it's best in the UK.

That's mostly London as far as I can tell. The rest of the UK isn't so hot.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#330

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

neuronic wrote: post #304
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lidl in .de forced that fake customer relation smile onto us too, and it didn't crash and burn for it. My (late) mother liked Walmart for it's watercooler. I have been only one time into a german one, because too impractical location for me, and when i wanted to check it out again (because soooo laaaarge) it was closed down. That bagging thing... don't know what to make of it, since we don't have it, but let me tell…

Then you are one of the better/nicer people you encounter in supermarkets but in general, fast bagging performance is an a social requirement when shopping at the grocery stores (far more relaxed at other stores). Also, some juicy reading on Walmart in Germany: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/business/worldbusiness/02... I noticed one more stark difference: many Germans don't own a car and apparently the large Wal…

It depends. The one Walmart i knew of was central and easily reachable by public transport, the one my mother went to not so much but she did so nonetheless, because WALMART! WATERCOOLER! :) Anyways, it depends on the location, there are parts of large towns which are underserved, or in structural decline with almost no options, and not everyone lives in the big cities. So when you live out of town, away from the masses it can happen that you have to drive about an hour by car to the next larger "big box cluster" somewhere, serving that larger sparsely populated area, or into some town.
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