Anglosphere

No, I'm in high desert, too, Jasper -- Cruces is 4000 ft above sea level -- a little short of a mile up. NM prides itself on having 350 days of sunshine a year, so that translates into about 2 weeks and 8 inches of rain a year. On average, of course.

It gets plenty cold enough to snow in the winter -- down into the teens -- but because there's little precipitation that time of year, I might only see a smattering of snow once or twice in my back yard. The mountains get dusted, of course.

I have to say that I rarely found Brits to be what I would consider "friendly", Damian. But that's a cultural thing. There's a lot more pressure on Americans to exhibit more personable behavior as part of their normal social interaction with strangers in public than there is on the British, I suspect. Here, it's just considered good manners and good customer service to be outwardly friendly. You seem to reserve that more for less public interactions. The English people that my dad worked for were much friendlier than say, waiters and retail staff that I encountered, but of course they were in their comfort zone and knew my dad, so they more likely to be warm and receptive to him introducing his visiting daughter. It's just a matter of having different social standards and expectations. I'm sure Brits are just as capable of being warm as anyone else, they just ration it out more. And even among Americans, there are parts of the country that are friendly or more reserved (and New Yorkers are known far and wide for being downright nasty!).

WASHINGTONIAN: upper 70s in July? Why, that's a scorcher! However do you manage? Are you sure you're not a Brit? :)

Here in good ol' Reno, we can expect 90+ each and every day from early July until early September.

Damian, the "ugly teeth" rumor seems to die down until we see pictures of high-profile Brits with nasty teeth; then, it seems to start all over.

I remember being mildly shocked at the sight of Camilla Parker-Bowles' nasty, dingy teeth. That's just something you would never see on a well-to-do American.

Heavy snowfalls in lowland Britain, even back home in Scotland, is getting less common due to global climatic change, and though 25cm of lying snow in London - due to what is technically termed the Heat Island Effect of large urban areas/city centres - some of the inner parts of the metropolis actually had less than that it seems but even so quite appreciable depths occurred after this YT clip was filmed before all the buses stopped running.

This was Piccadilly Circus, right in the heart of Central London, in the earlier stages of the snowstorm which affected London and many parts of South East England in February this year. It's clear that many of the people seen here were foreign tourists/visitors - even at the best of times you are far more likely - infinitely more likely - to hear foreign Languages being spoken in Piccadilly Circus and its surroundings than you are English. Later on in the increasingly snowy conditions all those familiar red London buses stopped running completely, and transport facilities, including the Tube (underground/subway) right across Greater London were severly disrupted.

Snowfalls occurred across many other parts of the UK on that occasion, and schools in many areas were closed, and "life as we know it" virtually ceased - even in places where as little as 3cm of snow fell - hence the ridicule displayed in many other countries seeing it all being reported on TV.

The UK, especially down here in wimpy Southern England, never, ever seems prepared for wintry conditions, no matter how often or not so often they occur....people react as if they have never, ever seen a flake of snow before! Many of the older people here continually bang on about "the old days when winters WERE winters and piffling amounts of snow such as we get today compared with even the recvent past, never, ever closed down schools or stopped the buses and trains from running and the £ Sterling didn't slide down a hill like a toboggan and God knows what else". ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqMsiJVwZEU&feature=related

Jasper: I suppose Camilla belongs to the generation which never particularly took special care of their teeth, when they didn't have all the facilities of whitening and all that stuff which we have today. If you look at pictures of the late Queen Mother her teeth, too, looked quite horrible - quite yellow in fact...yuk.

Uriel: It's pretty well known that American Customer Service, for example, is generally better than it is here in the UK and I've already stated what we, the Brits, assume to be the main reason for this, and I won't go into it again now. As for the apparent open "friendliness" of the Americans in the way you described, I have to say that most Brits have doubts about the genuineness of this "folksy" approach so many of your people display, rightly or wrongly.

The British attitude I suppose is one of more reserve without really being hostile or standoffish - and I have read on numerous occasions reports from Brits in America being "overwhelmed" by this American approach - being greeted "warmly and all matesy and folksy" and all that kind of thing, but on meeting up again at a later time being treated as if they had never even met before with the Americans acting as if they had never previously set eyes on those particular Brits. In fact, many Brits living in America find it really quite difficult forming proper genuine, close friendships with a great many Americans, leading to the assumption by the Brits that all this initial "friendly open-ness" is all a bit of a falsehood in reality.

Correct me if you will if this is British attitude is totally unwarranted.

<<Heavy snowfalls in lowland Britain, even back home in Scotland, is getting less common due to global climatic change, >>

Just wait until the Gulfstream stops flowing. The rest of the world may continue to get hotter, but the UK will be frigid, and you guys'll have to break out those big 3000-hp rotary snowblowers to keep the railroads (railways?) open.

Damian, since I work in customer service, I think I can shed some light on the topic.

I remember reading many years ago some studies done about friendliness to the customers. It turned out that friendly clerks produced significantly higher customer return rates than indifferent or unfriendly clerks. Apparently, we humans as a species wear an invisible sign reading,"Please make me feel important/good"; we all have that inner human need to be made to feel welcome.

So in the realm of customer service, friendliness—even when it's "fake"—simply makes better commerce. Friendly clerks mean more $$ for the company.

One thing that puzzles me is the a priori judgment many Europeans make that the friendliness is "fake", however. A whole lot of times, I am friendly to the customers for no other reason that I feel happy that day. (Of course, one must always be polite, but being polite isn't necessarily the same thing, is it?)

On an entirely different matter, if you ever visit the US, you will often find strangers in public situations friendly for no apparent reason. They'll strike up a conversation with you in an elevator, for example. I don't know where we Americans got that tradition, but in most cases, it's entirely genuine.

<<On an entirely different matter, if you ever visit the US, you will often find strangers in public situations friendly for no apparent reason. They'll strike up a conversation with you in an elevator, for example. I don't know where we Americans got that tradition, but in most cases, it's entirely genuine. >>


From the Germans?

Must be from the Italians.

<<On an entirely different matter, if you ever visit the US, you will often find strangers in public situations friendly for no apparent reason. They'll strike up a conversation with you in an elevator, for example. I don't know where we Americans got that tradition, but in most cases, it's entirely genuine. >>

It is a long time since I went to the States. However I can remember that people were often very open and very friendly. Of course, British people regard such behaviour with suspicion.

I worked in a BT (British Telecom) Call Centre. An American woman had a very high well paid job in which she gave advice on how the Call Centres should be run. One of her commands was that every available opportunity the Call Centre staff should say 'Sorry'.

The Call Centre did realise that there were some situations in which saying 'Sorry' damaged BT's reputation. But the general thrust was that Call Centre staff should be 'apologetic' and 'helpful'.

So, in training sessions you would be encouraged to say sorry. The calls would also be monitored, so the number of times you said sorry in a call could be ascertained.

This is what people dislike about American business practices.

<<This is what people dislike about American business practices. >>

Why would they do it if it didn't work?

Depends on what you mean by "genuine". Being friendly doesn't mean we intend to be your best friend, or continue the relationship on any lengthier or deeper level. In fact, I think it's with your true friends that you are allowed to be cranky, irritable, snippy, etc. So it's just a social behavior.

Sorry about not visiting the res to your fair isles, Damian -- my dad was stationed at RAF Molesworth, and I was at the mercy of his travel plans -- but I had a great time where I was.

And I have to say that I didn't notice anything odd about the way they talked...what's so different about the East Anglia accent?

<<So, in training sessions you would be encouraged to say sorry. The calls would also be monitored, so the number of times you said sorry in a call could be ascertained.

This is what people dislike about American business practices.>>

Business of any sort, doesn't matter where you are, is often very shallow until you get to the books . . . that is when it suddenly takes a rocket scientist to understand. It is what keeps MOST of the Bernie Madoffs of this world on the street. (and don't pretend you don't have them elsewhere) Good thing we have our fall guys and sacrificial lambs.

Uriel: "Depends on what you mean by "genuine". Being friendly doesn't mean we intend to be your best friend, or continue the relationship on any lengthier or deeper level."

That's exactly right, Uriel. Being friendly doesn't mean that you want to continue the relationship ad infinitum, it just means you feel like being friendly for the moment, because maybe you had an exceptionally good meal, or it's a sunny day, or you had "romance" that morning, or maybe you just woke up on the right side of the bed. :-)

Maybe the Brits are misunderstanding this short-term friendliness with a longer-term endeavor—I don't know. Do you?

Robin Michael: "So, in training sessions you would be encouraged to say sorry. The calls would also be monitored, so the number of times you said sorry in a call could be ascertained.

This is what people dislike about American business practices."

Now Robin, with all due respect, that statement is just plain silly. What would you rather a company do? Say," Actually, we're not sorry at all; in fact, we'll do it again if we can. Now bugger off!" (Actually, you might get that response at a DMV. ;) )

This reminds me of an old Lily Tomlin skit on SNLive. She played a telephone operator for Ma Bell. The punch line was,"We don't care—we don't have to." If there is any American in here over 40, he'll get that joke right away.

Is it funny because there used to be (probably) just one telephone company?