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The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

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Re: The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

#61

Post by josemariaruiz »

simonh wrote: post #57
josemariaruiz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The waiter of Fawlty Towers was Spanish :)

Portuguese actually.

«Manuel, a waiter played by Andrew Sachs, is a well-meaning but disorganised and confused Spaniard from Barcelona with a poor grasp of the English language and customs.»

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawlty_Towers#Manuel

Wikipedia dixit :)

In the Spainsh translation of Fawlty Towers Manuel was Italian (that way us, poor Spaniards, will not be embarrassed by watching one of us strugling xD) and I suspect that in other countries they changed his nationality too.

Re: The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

#62

Post by hk_kh »

tluyben2 wrote: post #52
hk_kh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The younger generation is fat and spoiled and angry. Why? The news probably? Hearing every day your country is going under is not stimulating while the older generation lived with Franco / Salazar and know that this is the best they every had. Way to keep it classy.. The younger generation is not fat, nor spoiled, maybe angry. You just see the most blatant cases, and decide that's the general rule. If the average b…

Where do you live? I live in the montes de Malaga and I travel a lot to the Alpujarra, Cordoba and Ronda. The youth is 'a few kilos' too heavy. If you walk on the beach here the Spanish youth IS fat. It's a HUGE difference from 20 years ago. And their parents buy EVERYTHING for them; a lot of my Spanish friends with kids waste their own life to pay for their +20 year old kids because 'they cannot find a job'. So no,…

    # occurrences of the word "south" on your post[1]: 2
If you were referring to Malaga and Andalucia, it's a different game. Most people often forget Spain is about different cultures living together in the same country, and the southern culture in Spain is kind of special and unique.

For me it's similar as Naples in Italy. Most people that have spent time would say it's a chaos and terrible, but for me it is just too real and vivid to pick on them. I like them as it is.

I don't really know how to express myself better than Larra himself[2] "Vuelva usted mañana". I have tried to find a translation but they do not really work together..

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4438154

[2]: http://es.wikisource.org/wiki/Vuelva_usted_ma%C3%B1ana

Re: The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

#63

Post by josemariaruiz »

tluyben2 wrote: post #52
hk_kh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The younger generation is fat and spoiled and angry. Why? The news probably? Hearing every day your country is going under is not stimulating while the older generation lived with Franco / Salazar and know that this is the best they every had. Way to keep it classy.. The younger generation is not fat, nor spoiled, maybe angry. You just see the most blatant cases, and decide that's the general rule. If the average b…

Where do you live? I live in the montes de Malaga and I travel a lot to the Alpujarra, Cordoba and Ronda. The youth is 'a few kilos' too heavy. If you walk on the beach here the Spanish youth IS fat. It's a HUGE difference from 20 years ago. And their parents buy EVERYTHING for them; a lot of my Spanish friends with kids waste their own life to pay for their +20 year old kids because 'they cannot find a job'. So no,…

Being from Málaga, and my wife from Ronda, I can confirm what you say xD.

Well, 'a few kilos' too heavy is not that bad compared with USA people :p. It's all about the change in the customs and the way we eat. Spanish gyms are full of very healthy people, yet running and going to work in bike is still strange in Spain (which is a culture-shock for someone from NL).

And about asking for the past and Franco... Ronda is not representative of Spain!!! ;) (and yes they are still proud of been in the right «band» if you ask in a bar)

The Ni-Nis (translated as "Not working Not studying") are all around Spain, but in Málaga is worse as the unemployment rate there is the nearly the bigger in whole Spain.

Re: The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

#64

Post by tluyben2 »

josemariaruiz wrote: post #58
tluyben2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the fact that everyone 'hates Endesa'. That wouldn't fly in NL, why does it fly in ES?

Curiously my answer (I don't know if it's THE answer) is that Spanish people do not like conflict. We don't have class actions as in other countries and people are not used to claim for their rights against big companies. I think we still need a bit of this crazy david-vs-goliath mindset I've seen in other countries where people fight big injustices to the death. The Spaniard is too preoccupied about what the other w…

I have noticed that. So it might be a part of the problem. But in NL we don't have class action suits either; you can sue but you'll never win much if anything and it'll just cost you money. I think the Dutch were just fed up when the whole UPC thing happened. I don't even think they know what they did for consumer support for big companies in NL. When I call someone from Nuon (electricity) or internet (XS4all, UPC, Ziggo) or something else, they ask me if i'm ok, if i need more, would I like discounts and such. If I do get a rude person, I ask for their complaints service and as their is always a 'superior' listening in, this escalates fast. Usually ends in a discount of some sort and an apologetic mail. I don't need that; i'm not made of sugar. But I would just like people treating me like I'm paying them for something.

For UPC it was the national press who did it; they kept publishing horror story after horror story and after a while it started hurting the bottom line.

There was no Twitter and such yet; now it goes much faster. I'm surprised how little effect it has in Spain though; I had companies closing their Twitter or Facebook page after complaints and just opening a new one. Not big companies (might work there or don't they do social even? Never checked...), but smaller ones like furniture delivery companies who actually just deleted everything from their facebook page and got another one with happy stories...

Re: The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

#65

Post by tluyben2 »

hk_kh wrote: post #62
tluyben2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you live? I live in the montes de Malaga and I travel a lot to the Alpujarra, Cordoba and Ronda. The youth is 'a few kilos' too heavy. If you walk on the beach here the Spanish youth IS fat. It's a HUGE difference from 20 years ago. And their parents buy EVERYTHING for them; a lot of my Spanish friends with kids waste their own life to pay for their +20 year old kids because 'they cannot find a job'. So no,…

# occurrences of the word "south" on your post[1]: 2 If you were referring to Malaga and Andalucia, it's a different game. Most people often forget Spain is about different cultures living together in the same country, and the southern culture in Spain is kind of special and unique. For me it's similar as Naples in Italy. Most people that have spent time would say it's a chaos and terrible, but for me it is just too…

Ok, point taken. In my mind I said it a lot more than I actually did :)

I love Andalucia and if I could I would live there forever. I will retire/die there. Like said; I'm not trying to insult people, I'm just saying how it is here. And it's rather crazy. If you are on a permanent vacation, it's the best, but I've tried doing serious things and it just doesn't work.

My point is that there are bunches of talented people rolling out the CS dep of Malaga uni who scream, every option they get, that there 'are no jobs'. When I provide jobs, they use another excuse not to take them. NiNi's is apparently the word (I heard it before, but it didn't stick, now it will); it's very prevalent and I do not understand it. I have discussions with these guys & girls and over a truckload of rum-cola they understand, but the next day, it's gone.

Re: The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

#66

Post by pimentel »

anil_mamede wrote: post #59

98% of Portuguese IT industry are consultancy and solution development. We have very few product and services development. The game industry is almost zero, applications made here are very rare and services are just copycats. We have a lot of public institutions IT back office projects executed by the same big companies. For a programmer who loves programming: what is the motivation in doing back-offices? Well there…

That's so right. One classic "success" story of the Portuguese web is http://www.adegga.com/, a social network for wine... :( Other classic success stories are the ubiquitous service-consultancy firms, always recruiting developers for Sharepoint, COBOL, SAP... Every year I hear about some 3 new of these successful firms.

You can also see so called "startups" whose "business" consists of organizing dinners of 20 people, once a week. And there's always the team wanting to open a spa and bringing their "idea" to all incubators.

My solution was to work in close relationship to the university and a university spun-off company. Some interesting computer-vision stuff is made here, from time to time.

Re: The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

#67

Post by yummyfajitas »

tluyben2 wrote: post #39
miguelpais wrote: post #27

I'm one of those about to graduate students from a technical university in Lisbon, and for me, there is no doubt anymore, I'll start to work outside of Portugal. When you look at it from one side, South European countries have everything: they have the food, the weather, good universities, kind and welcoming people (not to say that other countries don't), talent. They have the potential to be the best countries to li…

Change comes from the people of the country, not the people who run away. You should fight for change, not take the way of least resistance. Look beyond your personal gains and to the remaking of a whole country. If all brains leave, your country will be dead soon. And yes, of course you don't work for big consultancy companies :) That I have notices a lot; people in Portugal, especially students, seem to be overly o…

Look beyond your personal gains and to the remaking of a whole country. If all brains leave, your country will be dead soon.

So what? Why should you care about the health of "your country"? That's just an attempt at emotional manipulation.

You can help Portugal with your IT skills, or you can help a similar number of people in the US/UK. If you get treated better doing the latter, there is no reason to stick to Portugal. The people of the US/UK are no less deserving of your skillset than the people of Portugal.

Re: The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

#68

Post by hk_kh »

tluyben2 wrote: post #65
hk_kh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

# occurrences of the word "south" on your post[1]: 2 If you were referring to Malaga and Andalucia, it's a different game. Most people often forget Spain is about different cultures living together in the same country, and the southern culture in Spain is kind of special and unique. For me it's similar as Naples in Italy. Most people that have spent time would say it's a chaos and terrible, but for me it is just too…

Ok, point taken. In my mind I said it a lot more than I actually did :) I love Andalucia and if I could I would live there forever. I will retire/die there. Like said; I'm not trying to insult people, I'm just saying how it is here. And it's rather crazy. If you are on a permanent vacation, it's the best, but I've tried doing serious things and it just doesn't work. My point is that there are bunches of talented peop…

NiNi is a pejorative word used to refer to people that "Ni estudia Ni trabaja" (do not study, do not work).

I hope this word just stops being used. As a young person from Spain that have studied and is working (and have been since I was 18), that term used in spanish people is terribly insulting.

Re: The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

#69

Post by tluyben2 »

josemariaruiz wrote: post #63
tluyben2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you live? I live in the montes de Malaga and I travel a lot to the Alpujarra, Cordoba and Ronda. The youth is 'a few kilos' too heavy. If you walk on the beach here the Spanish youth IS fat. It's a HUGE difference from 20 years ago. And their parents buy EVERYTHING for them; a lot of my Spanish friends with kids waste their own life to pay for their +20 year old kids because 'they cannot find a job'. So no,…

Being from Málaga, and my wife from Ronda, I can confirm what you say xD. Well, 'a few kilos' too heavy is not that bad compared with USA people :p. It's all about the change in the customs and the way we eat. Spanish gyms are full of very healthy people, yet running and going to work in bike is still strange in Spain (which is a culture-shock for someone from NL). And about asking for the past and Franco... Ronda is…

It's not that bad compared to some parts of the US no, but it pains me. One of the best vacations I ever had was to Madeira (which is Portugese) many years ago. It was the time when Brasil (and some parts of PT) had metal music in the top-40 a lot and this is what they were playing in disco's. While in NL we had utter crap (depending on taste, i'm telling my story here :) going from 1-40 (or 100 for that matter), on Madeira I stood in a real discotheque with extremely pretty girls (who I only saw in these big discotheques in Amsterdam normally dancing to crap) headbanging to Slayer and Sepultura. I never saw something like that again. In one of the town squares (of Funchal) they had a deadmetal band playing and all these young and old people where standing there watching, not calling it shit, but just looking at it like it was the marching band.

Almost all girls looked amazing (I have pics, I wasn't dreaming ;). Now I went back the odd 20 years later and mostly everyone is overweight. And not 'just a bit'. It's such a contrast. Same for Spain (Andalucia) and I also saw it in Guatamala as well. I'm not condemning this, but I'm referring to the amazing difference here in 'only' 20 years.

Re: The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

#70

Post by theorique »

miguelpais wrote: post #27

I'm one of those about to graduate students from a technical university in Lisbon, and for me, there is no doubt anymore, I'll start to work outside of Portugal. When you look at it from one side, South European countries have everything: they have the food, the weather, good universities, kind and welcoming people (not to say that other countries don't), talent. They have the potential to be the best countries to li…

1200 euros for which time period? That's critically important!
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