An American man who has lived in Australia for a decade is fed up with the country’s laid-back culture and claims the problem is a deep-rooted problem that needs to be solved.
He has discovered that society and most service industries are content with doing the bare minimum and never exceeding expectations.
The expat also called out the Australian “it is what it is” mentality for being superficial.
“From traditions, construction, hotels, repairs, customer service in stores… the lack of attention to detail is systemic,” he said in a post on Reddit.
He asked, ‘What caused this? And what can be done to fix this?’
An American man who has lived in Australia for ten years is tired of the culture that normalizes everything ‘half-a**ing’
Some Australians claimed the problem had its roots in Australian culture.
‘It’s considered ‘uncool’ here to be enthusiastic about something. In many workplaces, basically everyone is pressured not to follow the rules and cut corners,” says one woman.
“I’ve lived in Australia all my life and I know exactly what you’re talking about,” said one. ‘I have found the customer and hotel service here to be much worse on all fronts than when I was in the US.’
‘The US is far from perfect, but in my short experience there I have met many more helpful, outgoing and friendly Americans than Australians. I love Australia, but you’ve made some honest points that most don’t want to hear,” said a Sydney woman.
Another added: ‘I always assume this is due to the tipping system as people want to do a good job on most fronts and are usually rewarded equally for their efforts.
“If someone in Australia goes to extremes, he usually doesn’t get any further than if he adopts a mediocre attitude.”
The expat has found society and most service sectors are content with doing the bare minimum and never exceeding expectations
But some found the amount of effort “perfect” and didn’t understand why others preferred to be “constantly harassed” by service members.
“In terms of customer service, we want several things Down Under. In general, we prefer a lower level of service. We don’t want to be bothered every few minutes while eating, we want to be left alone to browse in a store,” one person wrote.
‘I think the cultural expectations about this are just different. And while there will always be people who are bad at their jobs, I find that when I need help with something, the customer service is usually great and I get the help I need,” one man wrote.
“Australians just don’t feel the need to plaster fake smiles on our faces,” another commented.
Some did not see the problem with ‘half things’.
‘Why take anything seriously? It’s warm and the cricket is on,” said one man.
“There are certain situations where it doesn’t need to be resolved. A boss of mine once said to me, “It’s like doing the minimum it takes to keep your job,” and I replied, “Perfect, that’s what I was going for,” one woman wrote.
She added: ‘The boss would consider this a nonsense, I consider it just the right amount of effort to achieve the desired result.’