Like most comments here - I am a bit divided about the relevance and even the rationale of this article. That said it has given me a different twist on a sentiment I have been dealing with for a long time: I'm French but have emigrated to the English-speaking world 15+years ago (NZ, AU, USA). I have found the whole experience very challenging in terms of career management. Assessing my own progresses is something I really struggle with. For years, I was sub-conscientiously blaming my language skills (I have the worst French accent ever - when I meet new people they often ask me "when did you land" as I sound like a Tourist in a city I've lived for years lol).

I have since acquired more confidence language-wise, but it did not solve my 'confusion' (a la Travolta 404). I realized that what I was lacking was the negative feedback loop. I haven't had a long career in France before emigrating, but I had been through a large variety of student/casual jobs and a few short term engineering and project/program management roles. Enough to get accustomed to a French "professional context" in which I recall having professional reviews where negative feedback was given formally, and open discussions where employees would criticize the proposal made by a manager, or when a supplier was late in delivering - loud words would be exchanged on the phone. I haven't seen any of these in the past 15 years. Political correctness rules. Last time my temper took over and I inadvertently let a bit of my irritation be heard on the phone with a late supplier - they literally clammed down and it just added to the late schedule another 10 days of silence from them until they delivered. To quote Jeff Atwood - this is exactly the feeling I have at work sometime: "If a post has zero upvotes, does that mean it’s bad? incorrect? uninteresting? mediocre? There’s no way to tell, because zero has multiple meanings. [...] Downvotes give you the critically important ability to distinguish between the good, the bad, and the ugly. Without downvotes, how can you possibly tell the difference between a post that is harmless but uninteresting, and one that is actually wrong or harmful?"

Am I hallucinating ? I'd be curious to here about other emigrants/multicultural peeps' experience here.