How do hackers drive?

[Brad Knowles]

At 11:15 PM -0500 2003/11/07, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:

>  As I said, if you're planning to spend some time there you'd want to
>  learn the language.  Just as anyone wanting to spend time in America
>  should know English.

	I was trying to emphasize the point that, even if you are told 
you do not need to learn the language, you should do so anyway -- for 
social reasons, if not practical ones.

	In my case, my employer (Snow BV) was working on finding me a 
place where I could learn Dutch.  However, for the first major 
customer I was told that it was actually an advantage that I did not 
know Dutch, because they were an international company whose official 
language was English, and the local office I would be working in felt 
that they needed to improve their English language skills.

	Whether or not this was a true desired goal of that customer, 
this still wound up creating a bad situation for me -- I should have 
learned Dutch anyway, and either forced my employer to pay for the 
lessons regardless, or found a way to attend privately.


	Frankly, in terms of day-to-day "getting things done" in the 
Netherlands, I found that everyone I encountered throughout 
Amsterdam, Utrecht, Waardenburg, and all the other towns and cities I 
went to/through, spoke enough English that I could get by -- everyone 
from gas station attendants to check out clerks at supermarkets and 
hardware stores, etc....

	It was the more subtle social/personal/personnel issues within 
the company and customer (where most people spoke English as well as 
many native speakers, and some spoke and wrote better English than 
most native speakers), where the language issues became more 
prevalent on the long-term basis.

	There are few conversation-stoppers worse than "I'm sorry, I 
don't speak your language -- can you speak mine?"  So, you miss out 
on all the hallway chat, the elevator chat, the smoke-room chat, and 
all those little social encounters that can end up making your life 
wonderful or miserable, and can seriously shorten or lengthen your 
stay at that employer.

>  This is equally true of the US (at least, in my experience it is true of
>  academic visas, and I have been told it's true also for H-1B visas).

	As bad as the process is over here, I have been told by many 
people that the process in the US is even worse.  More's the pity.

>  I imagine most countries have similar rules.

	Sadly, that is likely to be true.

>>  and requires working through your embassy in the local country plus
>
>  I doubt this

	I had to work through the local US Embassy for my original work 
permit paperwork.

>>  the local country's embassy in your official country of citizenship,
>>  etc....
>
>  That's pretty obvious, who else would you go to?

	I was making the point that you have to coordinate things through 
multiple offices, in multiple countries (multiple >= 2).

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles at skynet.be>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
     -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

GCS/IT d+(-) s:+(++)>: a C++(+++)$ UMBSHI++++$ P+>++ L+ !E-(---) W+++(--) N+
!w--- O- M++ V PS++(+++) PE- Y+(++) PGP>+++ t+(+++) 5++(+++) X++(+++) R+(+++)
tv+(+++) b+(++++) DI+(++++) D+(++) G+(++++) e++>++++ h--- r---(+++)* z(+++)