Hi guys! let me share something very weird to me...
I am an expat here for almost 1 year and I had the chance to attend my first Xmas dinner with my Singaporean colleagues (we are only 2% foreigners in this company). I was happy to meet my colleagues in another environment than the office! I was expecting some fun, and thought it would be a good time to spend some time with them, to explore my colleagues a bit more than just during the office hours.
What a surprise when I realized that most of them, and I'm not kidding, went there just to get............... vouchers of any sorts!!!!! Everybody got a nice shopping voucher of 300$! I never got that in an Xmas party in Europe!!! what a nice gift, isn't it?!
Before, in Europe, we were very happy to go there in order to have fun and to celebrate the end of the year with colleagues! But here, I was very good surprised to get a gift!
Anyway.... the thing is the attitude of my colleagues really shocked me!!! after the lucky draw, almost everybody left!!! without even saying good bye, grabbing their gifts, and going home... about 10 of us stayed there... the rest (90% just left)!
The day after, the main discussion in the office was: "how much did you get?"... "oh, I was disappointed because I got less the year before" or "I would have preferred cash than vouchers"...well, I don't give you all the details!!!
Amazing and I must say shocking as well...
Probably another cultural difference, which I respect of course... but well.... How can people not be happy with a nice 300$ voucher?! I mean, it's already very nice to get something like that from your company!
I am always amazed how people like talking about money, food, packages, vouchers, shopping, sales etc....here... I really tried to talk about other things than that with my local colleagues...but no success... however, I respect the difference...
just sharing...
