Happy Things Thread

[vampireshark]

Brazil has wonderful buffet restaurant concept called 'restaurante ao kilo', where you can take your food and pay per kilo. Perhaps it also exists in America or is it really a Brazilian thing? I have never seen it in europe.

We normally just have all-you-can-eat buffets: the "by-the-weight" concept applies really only if you're taking the food off the premises.

I never had this experience in France and I hardly spoke a word of French the first time I visited. I'd been living in Germany for a half a year by that time and I was struck by how much nicer the French were to me than the Germans, despite the fact that my German was nearly fluent.

I can echo this. French people were some of the nicest, friendliest, and most polite I've ever encountered. And they were (or at least appeared to be) delighted by me trying to speak French (granted, my French is adequate at best), mostly because it seemed like they appreciated that I was trying and making an effort to speak their language. Not to say Germans weren't polite and friendly, but France just felt a lot more welcoming in all.

I did meet a few rude Frenchmen in the 7 months I was there, yes, but I can probably count the number on one hand. (And two of them were government officials.)


Happy: I think it's sunk in that I'm going to Luxembourg. Got my one transcript sent out to get apostilled, figured out what I need to do for the background check, and have gotten the ball rolling on the work contract.

[linguoboy]

Brazil has wonderful buffet restaurant concept called 'restaurante ao kilo', where you can take your food and pay per kilo. Perhaps it also exists in America or is it really a Brazilian thing? I have never seen it in europe.

We normally just have all-you-can-eat buffets: the "by-the-weight" concept applies really only if you're taking the food off the premises.

Actually, a fair number of salad bars work this way, whether you're eating the food there or elsewhere. But the "all-you-can" buffet model is more widespread across different styles of food. In the Chicago area, "Chinese buffets" are among the most popular.

[sirdanilot]

Ib my experience, Germans are very friendly but they are also a less 'enthousiastic' people, and more silent. Perhaps some people perceive this as if they were not nice people , but I do think they are nice, if a bit formal.

Czech people are not so nice if you are not related to them. A lady in the metro simply refused to explain something to me, perhaps she still had a communism mentality, and as a child I have been scolded for not giving the right coin to a toilet lady.

[sirdanilot]

In any case, I have to go now to prepare for my flight to Brazil. It's too sad to leave today as it's like 30 degrees here, any time I go on vacation it happens to be beautiful weather here in Holland for some reason.

[linguoboy]

Ib my experience, Germans are very friendly but they are also a less 'enthousiastic' people, and more silent. Perhaps some people perceive this as if they were not nice people , but I do think they are nice, if a bit formal.

I knew a lot of friendly Germans. Very few of them, however, worked in service positions. An American who'd lived there longer than me advised me once, "Just remember that any conversation an employee is having with another employee is more important than talking to you". After a while I got used to it, but I was still caught off guard when I politely asked a woman at an Imbiss in Köln if I could get a plastic fork for my piping hot Kartoffelpuffer and she retorted "Hier ist kein Hotel!" (Fortunately, I was on my way to the Netherlands at the time and things got better after that.)

So, happiness: Gaming with buddies last night. Unfortunately our host was too tired to run one of the one-shot RPG scenarios he'd talked about, but we had fun playing a couple of card games, both of which I lost badly. I've missed having a group of guys to get together with and do things like that.

[hwhatting]

I knew a lot of friendly Germans. Very few of them, however, worked in service positions. An American who'd lived there longer than me advised me once, "Just remember that any conversation an employee is having with another employee is more important than talking to you". After a while I got used to it, but I was still caught off guard when I politely asked a woman at an Imbiss in Köln if I could get a plastic fork for my piping hot Kartoffelpuffer and she retorted "Hier ist kein Hotel!" (Fortunately, I was on my way to the Netherlands at the time and things got better after that.)

There's even an expression for that: Servicewüste Deutschland.

[linguoboy]

There's even an expression for that: Servicewüste Deutschland.

Unfortunately it was only coined after I got back to the States, otherwise I would've known what to expect.

[Gulliver]

I knew a lot of friendly Germans. Very few of them, however, worked in service positions. An American who'd lived there longer than me advised me once, "Just remember that any conversation an employee is having with another employee is more important than talking to you". After a while I got used to it, but I was still caught off guard when I politely asked a woman at an Imbiss in Köln if I could get a plastic fork for my piping hot Kartoffelpuffer and she retorted "Hier ist kein Hotel!" (Fortunately, I was on my way to the Netherlands at the time and things got better after that.)

There's even an expression for that: Servicewüste Deutschland.

Hah! I was once told "this is not your home" for moving a chair in the patio area of a bar. On the whole, though, I found German customer service on par with English customer service - "I'll help you when I have time if I like the look of you".

[linguoboy]

Hah! I was once told "this is not your home" for moving a chair in the patio area of a bar. On the whole, though, I found German customer service on par with English customer service - "I'll help you when I have time if I like the look of you".

Yeah, well, English customer service has its own ill rep: https://youtu.be/E9PSg0sQyfs

[sirdanilot]

I am so happy to be back in Brazil now. It feels like home. The funny smells everywhere (one moment you smell poop and the other moment some delicious food which is being cooked next door), the lovely fruit, the lovely heaty cooking of my family, and of course seeing my family again after many years.

[linguoboy]

"heaty"?

[alynnidalar]

hearty, probably?

[sirdanilot]

hearty, probably?

Yes, sorry !

[Bristel]

I was thinking "heady" because of all the talk of smells.

[linguoboy]

Those were both possibilities in my mind, as well as "filled with [metaphorical] heat".

ObHappy: We have tomorrow off due to the holiday and part of me is celebrating already.

[Viktor77]

I drove 1.5 hours from Manitowoc to Egg Harbor, WI in Door County just to watch a half an hour fireworks show on the pier and then drive 1.5 hours back home. They have the best fireworks so it's entirely worth it.

[Shm Jay]

Did you have an egg for dinner there? Or at least one for breakfast?

[Viktor77]

Did you have an egg for dinner there? Or at least one for breakfast?

Haha, no. But the whole place is covered in decorative large eggs by local artists.

[Ketumak]

I won't be here tomorrow as I'm travelling or on Tuesday 21st because I'll be watching my son's first TV appearance. He's on a UK channel called BBC1 in a medical soap called Holby City. It starts at 8pm and he appears as a patient covered in gold paint. Much more than that, I couldn't tell you. Our family are all looking forward to it and hoping it'll lead to more work for him, too.

[finlay]

just a minor channel, that

[hwhatting]

he appears as a patient covered in gold paint.

They can treat that now? In "Goldfinger" people still died from that.

[Ketumak]

Ha, yes! They consider treating it at one point, but it turns out to be incidental. The boy done good, though.

[Travis B.]

I just got offered a job working on an MRI project as lead software engineer!

Honestly, though, I am feeling a bit intimidated, since this will be my first role in which I will have people under me whom I will be expected to lead, where I will be responsible for developing requirements from scratch and making key design decisions for an entire team, and where I will not simply be able to rely on a lead above me to give direction and provide guidance. (I have been involved in developing requirements and making design decisions before, but always on limited subprojects and never for anyone other than myself.) I somewhat wonder whether I have bitten off more than I can chew, since this is well outside my comfort zone and my range of experience, as exciting as it is.

[din]

I guess with any upward career move you'll feel like an impostor in the beginning. As long as you communicate your expectations well (and in a nice and considerate manner), I suppose you'll do fine if the subject matter is one you're already familiar with..

Good luck

[Travis B.]

As my actual job title is lead host software engineer, which implies that I will be working as part of an even bigger project where there will be other lead software engineers for different parts of it, I am hoping that I will be able to get at least some direction at the start from the other lead software engineers working on the greater project, and that I will not actually be completely on my own at the beginning.