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Comment by vanderZwan | Hacker News Reader

> People that reach for this kind of decisions occasionally seem to still have a colonialism point of view, like "they will do as told and we still stay in control", except that isn't how things work and eventually they stand on their own feet and are able to even outperform their "masters".

Oh man, the amount of Dutch "we're going to build a knowledge economy" news articles I've seen in the last decade that barely hide their colonial mindset is staggering, and the implied assumption that "we" are smarter than "them" is so blatantly racist that I'd almost feel offended if I didn't know that they'll reap what they sow with that attitude soon enough.

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It's not just Dutch but been a prevailing tune in most of the Western Europe (outside perhaps Germany) for a couple decades now.

And yes it stinks of "we'll live with the hard part of telling other people what to do".

>outside perhaps Germany

You clearly haven't dealt with German managers at their companies operating in Eastern Europe ;)

Technically that makes it a German company outside of Germany :p

Jokes aside, "behaving badly abroad while showing their best behavior at home" is basically yet another proud colonial tradition, isn't it?

Like how the Swiss are considered the most civilized people in Europe ... until they go driving in Germany or go partying in Mallorca/Prague.

I can’t count the times I was greeted Maestro! by the typical blond middle-aged manager from Amsterdam... (I’m Italian, so I guess we’re all Pavarotti even without the waistline.) I’ve been toiling 10years in NL and I’ve yet to see anyone in the executive suite who’s not a Heineken buddy from the Universiteit

>I can’t count the times I was greeted Maestro!

As an Eastern European immigrant, I can think of worse things you can be called in the West than Maestro!. You have no idea how good you have it.

> I’ve yet to see anyone in the executive suite who’s not a Heineken buddy from the Universiteit

I wish this didn't ring so true. It is so prevalent that for those who were raised locally and who went through said university schooling it is still painfully easy to distinguish from which student union in which city these guys originate based on how they treat each other, even when they graduated decades ago. Which ironically means that they are guilty of the kind of primitive tribalistic nonsense that they project onto other cultures.

... actually, now that I wrote that out, I guess that could partially explain a few things as well.

(and I'm well aware that this is not a problem unique to the Netherlands, but it still sucks)

Thanks for pointing this out.

I was working for a major Dutch electronics company and it was interesting to watch how whenever colleagues from their US/German brach would come visit the Dutch managers would treat them like equals and invite them to drinks and dinners but whenever colleagues from their Czech/China/Singapore branch would visit, the Dutch managers would politely pretend they don't exist.

This is so sad. Would you say the same treatment was given by the lower-downs?

>I was greeted Maestro!

No Problem with that ;)

Happens to me a lot too, but there is nothing remotely Italian ... or Dutch about me. I think they use it as a term of endearment to talented colleagues?

Out of curiosity, could you share some of them?

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