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People who are satisfied

Euchale

Crazy German Guy
I´ve recently moved to the UK and there is one thing that annoys me a ton. People being satisfied with what they have.
Examples:
In my house the mail just get thrown through the slit in the door, and it keeps lying on the ground until everybody has picked up his mail. So everytime you go into your house you have to walk over the mail. I simply took a big piece of cardboard, glued 6 plates on it and added stickers on top with the name and flat number of everybody here in the house. Now you can simply throw it in the appropriate box and be done with it.

We had BBQ and they had grills without holes for air. So I simply went to engineering, grabbed a drill and made a few holes in it. In addition I took a metal bucket and drilled a few holes in there to make a "coal ignition oven". Easy and simple.

And also the people here. Once they have a job they are happy with it. Zero ambition to improve it.

tl.dr: I´m pissed off that I´m not satisfied, but everybody around me is.
 
I'll admit, I was satisfied with my job. Then I started to realize, if I stay right where I am and do what I do, I'll never really advance. That's mostly why I decided to go back for my Masters (plus the young guns are starting to show my up with their new knowledge, so I can't fall behind). Best thing to do? Don't worry about other people and follow your own plan. Why should you be concerned if others are satisfied? What matters is if you are, and if you're willing to make it so.
 
You could be what they're looking for then, you might be able to use that to your advantage (career wise) and leverage yourself into better experience and position-wise for your tenure in London, which could help when you go back to Germany. As much as that is infuriating when people are too "lazy" to help themselves, there is a bright side as long as everything doesn't get pushed onto your plate without recognition.
 
leverage yourself into better experience
This is exactly why I do this job. I wanted to have "worked in a native english speaking country" on my CV. That my boss is very knowledgeable and we have a lot of cool machines is a plus.


Why should you be concerned if others are satisfied?
Because it indirectly influences me. I was pissed off every day by the thought of people trampling over my mail.
Also it´s this weird thing that my brain can´t grasp what those people are thinking.
 
I used to struggle with this early in my career, because even though I would never outwardly admit it, I am competitive and I am ambitious. This was a terrible combination, since I probably worked a little TOO MUCH in retrospect.

I found that when I compared myself to other people, there was always someone else with more money, better looks, better job, better work hours, better etc etc etc. So, I eventually stopped all that and decided to make milestones for myself. Example: be a director in X amount of years. Then, once I achieve that goal I make a new one. Repeat and repeat.

Once I did that, if I didn't achieve my goals I had to figure out why and go from there. It helped me quite abit to be "happier" in the sense that I was achieving what I decided what was important to me instead of letting someone else's successes negatively affect me.

Do I slip once in awhile? Sure, I'm still human. But I like to believe I'm much better now than I used to be.
 
I´ve recently moved to the UK and there is one thing that annoys me a ton. People being satisfied with what they have.
Examples:
In my house the mail just get thrown through the slit in the door, and it keeps lying on the ground until everybody has picked up his mail. So everytime you go into your house you have to walk over the mail. I simply took a big piece of cardboard, glued 6 plates on it and added stickers on top with the name and flat number of everybody here in the house. Now you can simply throw it in the appropriate box and be done with it.

We had BBQ and they had grills without holes for air. So I simply went to engineering, grabbed a drill and made a few holes in it. In addition I took a metal bucket and drilled a few holes in there to make a "coal ignition oven". Easy and simple.

And also the people here. Once they have a job they are happy with it. Zero ambition to improve it.

tl.dr: I´m pissed off that I´m not satisfied, but everybody around me is.
Well, never come to live and work in America. The majority of people are existing to go home to their couch and fast food.

As for you: Keep doing what you are doing. Use that disgust and disdain to keep yourself moving. You are the type of person who will innovate and invent and engineer this world to a better tomorrow. Ignore the people who do less and keep doing more because its the right thing to do. Ignore them slackers. Realize that you are the 1% of the doers in this world. Obviously no one else thought to, or better yet decided to take action to fix the mail slot or the bbq. Revel in the fact that you do something while all the others stand around and wish they had done something.

Don't let it get you down that other people suck, Keep doing you and life will turn out awesome.
 
better etc etc etc.
I actually don´t mind it a lot if other people get "more" whatever than I do. My problem is more in the "if you would invest just a little bit more in your job, you would be 10 times better". I just don´t get why people don´t do this.
My entire life I´ve worked to improve stuff. Either myself, the place I stay at or my workplace. And people really like me for this, because I often find easy solutions for difficult problems. It´s just that I feel like other people should have had this idea AGES ago. But nobody did it because they said:"I am satisfied with what I have, and even though this would make my life easier in the long run, I ain´t gonna do it"

People who are statisfied
Germans pronounce it stat-is-fied. But yeah it´s a typo.


Don't let it get you down that other people suck, Keep doing you and life will turn out awesome.
It´s pretty much what I do. It´s just a real culture shock, because in Germany I had quite a few people that were like me, but here in the UK, I´ve seen nobody.

I´m used to work like it is portrayed here (at around 12:00):

Btw, the entire thing is actually pretty decent. Just don´t think too much about the averages.
 
I don't know if that's satisfaction so much as perspective.

Some people saw the mail and it didn't bother them because that's the way the mail had always been and they didn't have a particular reason to change it. It bothered you because you noticed that the system was terrible and could be made better rather easily. I think that's great. You've got a perspective that doesn't see things for just how they are, but how they COULD be. That's a great leadership trait. Also good for inventors, entrepreneurs, and other creative types. Without people like you, we'd languish in the status quo forever.

You just need to figure out how to better monetize your ability, and you'll be all set.
 
I'd thought I revisit this thread, since it´s been a while when I came here and my opinions have changed a bit (and also to try and necro the forum).

What I did not understand back at the time I came here is, everybody here is thinking of doing his/her own best. They do not mind having somebody who is better or worse around them. So if the best you can do is the minimum then you don´t feel bad for not doing more. This is a very relaxed approach to life and I have to say, just living here has made me a lot calmer. I am still as ambitious as before, and most likely will always be, but the drive to inspire people around me to do better is gone. I now only do this with people who are actively trying to do so.
 
That's the great positive - negative concerning the "anglo-sax" culture.
It does calm people down who strive all the time, and many of us could use that. However it also encourages complacency as there are many fewer people trying to do just a little better every day. Comparing it to other cultures there's a much higher degree of satisfaction, but a lower amount of happiness.

EDIT:
One amazing thing you see constantly in the growing world is that people are so much happier on a whole, yet dissatisfied with daily life. Maybe that little improvement every day is what we all really need and can explain our constant chasing of the next best gadget when we have no need, use, or reason to have it in the first place.
It distracts us from the crushing nothing that our life has become.


The positive is that the groups which form based upon improvement and exploration have much greater bonds and desires and do some amazing things. Some groups do amazing things beyond the ideas of other high-striving cultures. However, many others of these potentially amazing groups are plagued by the complacency of being just a little tiny bit better than everyone around them.
It's an amazing outlook on life either way.


Take the new found calm and enjoy it, but most of all put it to some good use.
Inspiration doesn't necessarily mean calamity, sometimes that clam voice in the back can push a boat a lot further than a whip.
 
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