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Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

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Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#31

Post by Swizec »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #28
Swizec wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now now, we Slovenians change that depending on who’s asking. Also time period. Wanna talk economic prosperity, work ethic, and things of such nature? We’re Central European, basically German. Wanna talk partying, good food, sense of humor, and having fun? Proudly Balkan. Unless you want healthy food, then we are definitely Mediterranean. Oh good pizza and pasta? Yeah we’re basically Italian. Funfact: It is unknown q…

> economic prosperity .. basically German > Slovenia I don't know mate, if Slovenia was so prosperous, then their workers wouldn't be driving 2h/day commuting to work and study in Austria for the chance of making 2k Euros/month. Or just moving to Germany, UK, Ireland, etc. for more. Every slovene I talked to seemed very unhappy about the wages/CoL ratio back home.

Oh it’s far more aspirational than real :D

With a tinge of “We work hard like the Germans! We’re not like those other people from the area. Please hire us”.

My understanding is that under Yugoslavia we were the most prosperous region by far. Then the export market collapsed and we realized “Shit, most of our economy is oriented towards former Yugoslavia!” and we started reorienting towards central europe.

But central europe has plenty other even cheaper markets to import from. So that’s been a problem.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#32

Post by Ekaros »

izacus wrote: post #3
ggeorgovassilis wrote: post #2

This is about references in academia. Very detailed, still a good read.

All of this holds true in private corporations as well. The baseline for praise is much much different between west coast and eastern europe which can be problematic in performance packets, reviews and general manager/employee communicaiton. For us Eastern Europeans the takeaway is to exaggerate, exaggerate and when in doubt praise some more when talking to Americans. Otherwise, your reports or your own performance r…

Kinda also reminds me of star ratings. For USA it seems 5 star is average. 4 star is bad.

Where as in other parts 5 star would be stellar.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#33

Post by euroderf »

krn wrote: post #11
rmind wrote: post #9

I have to say "Eastern European" is a quite poor and unhelpful generalization nowadays. It is ethnically and linguistically diverse: Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Romance (Romania) as well as Albanian and Hellenic. It is religiously diverse: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and even the bastions of irreligion/atheism (Czechia and Estonia). There are significant cultural differences, especially comparing the more…

> Many generalizations really don't work for such a vast and diverse region. I think the right solution here is to divide the region into Central Europe, The Balkan Region, and The Western CIS and Caucasus: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Map-of-Eastern-Europ...

IIRC "Central Europe" wasn't really in usage during the Cold War. The concept re-emerged after B.Wall fell.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#34

Post by euroderf »

Ekaros wrote: post #32
izacus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this holds true in private corporations as well. The baseline for praise is much much different between west coast and eastern europe which can be problematic in performance packets, reviews and general manager/employee communicaiton. For us Eastern Europeans the takeaway is to exaggerate, exaggerate and when in doubt praise some more when talking to Americans. Otherwise, your reports or your own performance r…

Kinda also reminds me of star ratings. For USA it seems 5 star is average. 4 star is bad. Where as in other parts 5 star would be stellar.

This is why I never provide feedback to apps that involve people (e.g. ride "sharing" apps): Anything less than 5 stars is an internet slap in the face.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#35

Post by jenny91 »

rmind wrote: post #9

I have to say "Eastern European" is a quite poor and unhelpful generalization nowadays. It is ethnically and linguistically diverse: Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Romance (Romania) as well as Albanian and Hellenic. It is religiously diverse: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and even the bastions of irreligion/atheism (Czechia and Estonia). There are significant cultural differences, especially comparing the more…

Nobody counts Finland as part of their definition of "Eastern Europe".

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#36

Post by ghaff »

Ekaros wrote: post #32
izacus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this holds true in private corporations as well. The baseline for praise is much much different between west coast and eastern europe which can be problematic in performance packets, reviews and general manager/employee communicaiton. For us Eastern Europeans the takeaway is to exaggerate, exaggerate and when in doubt praise some more when talking to Americans. Otherwise, your reports or your own performance r…

Kinda also reminds me of star ratings. For USA it seems 5 star is average. 4 star is bad. Where as in other parts 5 star would be stellar.

I'm fine with giving, say, books on Amazon a 3 or 4 star rating if they were basically "OK." But, yes, in a lot of contexts, anything other than a 5 star rating is considered bad and everyone knows that fact so more than a few "only" 4 star ratings and the Uber driver gets kicked off the service, the AirBnB owner loses their superhost status, or someone misses out on their bonus.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#38

Post by oblak »

jenny91 wrote: post #35
rmind wrote: post #9

I have to say "Eastern European" is a quite poor and unhelpful generalization nowadays. It is ethnically and linguistically diverse: Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Romance (Romania) as well as Albanian and Hellenic. It is religiously diverse: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and even the bastions of irreligion/atheism (Czechia and Estonia). There are significant cultural differences, especially comparing the more…

Nobody counts Finland as part of their definition of "Eastern Europe".

A guy from South Africa once made the same argument about Sweden. Whether he was right or not, geographically speaking, does not really matter. We all know what everybody means. Nordic good, Eastern bad. Sadly, it's mostly true.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#39

Post by oblio »

wirrbel wrote: post #16
arka2147483647 wrote: post #5

This also has the other side that an American style cv, for example, might be seen as "too positive" from eastern European perspective, and thus be ignored. That is; you read 10 CV's, all go through the roof of your superlative scale, therefore you ignore all of it, or consider all candidates as more-or-less equal and/or mediocre.

A common reaction is: It cannot all be positive. Or, as a colleague of mine put it: "When I first interacted with americans, they were smiling so much I suspected they were trying to trick me in some way".

No post body was provided.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#40

Post by oblio »

pastage wrote: post #7
paganel wrote: post #4

I appreciate the author of the article wanting to do good, but the last thing we need here in Eastern Europe is even more brain drain.

You just described how to get brain drain, by limiting the development of your students you will for ever be stuck with no outside influences. Students will often come home even if they get education abroad.

This ONLY happens in countries with high salary ceilings: China, India, etc, or countries with high QoL despite low salaries: Southern Europe, Czechia.
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