Why should employers not pay a living wage? Making your employees rely on the generosity of your customers is exploitation of the worker and the expectation that your customers should pay the business's overheads, as well as the price of the food... well, that sucks too! On the smiling front, Europeans value prompt and respectful service, not fake smiles.
rossdavies
It's not smiling we have a problem with in the UK, it's fake smiles. Bear in mind that Americans consider shop and restaurant staff inferior and expect them to show deference and pretend to be happy to be treated like slaves. In the UK, the person serving you is your equal and you need to show them respect to get some back.
Steeleperfect
My problem with tipping (I'm from Sweden) is that I think everyone should have a wage that they can live on. Theire employer should pay them enough.
peppermintcrush
The smiling thing is about honesty: If you smile about everything, how can we tell when you mean it?
justicar
The claim that British people have bad teeth is totally wrong. The UK is joint 4th on the list with Sweden with the best teeth in the world. USA comes in 9th. While Denmark, Germany and Finland are the top 3.
OblivionGate
As a European what I find odd is the fact that if you can't sleep in the middle of the night you assume it's a good time to go shopping. Also the reason we don't have 24h services is because night shifts are heavily restricted by law and unions. Salaries increase about 30% for night jobs. Also it's a very small costumer base, no shop would want to pay a night staff (except some gas stations ad fast food jints excuded along the high ways) because 3-4 people might consider buying something in the middle of the night because most people sleep.
Vollification
being religious or patriotic in Europe is mostly a personal thing and therefore isn't something we usually show-off.
unusualgrunt
Well... I will agree with this "smiling issue" ;) I worked in US company for a few long years and that was one of the most noticeable cultural differences that I've spotted. People were smiling all the time, no matter what. They didn't have to like you, they could possibly talk behind your back, but they were always smiling. And the cherry on the cake: we had a customer service training and I heard there, that even when I have a really bad day, for example, I have a huge headache or something bad happened in my family, even then I should put a smile on my face when I talking with the customer over the phone to make sure that he feels my positive attitude... Literally, I was shocked. How is that different from being a hooker (just in an emotional way)? This and similar examples are the reason why people outside the US see this "smiling culture" as fake.
atomictsarina
its not the dental hygiene, were just not used to bleeching our teeth i guess...
TheCourtJester.
Rest of the world only tip if they get good service we dont have to make up low wages with tips.
scottharvey
In the uk you leave a small tip at a restaurant but we have this crazy idea, it's where we pay our waiters and staff a somewhat decent wage
Also the smiling thing, we dont really need the person at the counter of a lidl to be constantly smiling, neither of us want to be there, so we arent going to be fussed if they dont force a smile
joemorton
Brit here. My comments are ...
Card and contactless payment is everywhere at least here in the UK. I've read we had PIN before the US, but even that is now old school compared to just tapping your card to pay.
I really hate it in the US, Canada and Japan where the price you see is not the price to pay. It always gets me when I go to pay!
A lot of cities (including a 5 minute drive from me in my small city) will have a 24 hour supermarket and 24 hour petrol stations / gas stations are definitely the norm.
As for the teeth thing, I don't know why our US friend keep repeating this. British teeth are no different to Irish teeth or French teeth etc and I've read better than US ones in terms of health.. Why pick on us! :)
Loving your vids by the way!
andyt
Please don't be a stereo typical American and think Europe is a country and not a
tanyano
I went to Walmart, my friend bought some beer, I wasnt buying anything, just standing around waiting for him. The lady refused to sell him the beer because I didn't have ID on me. Despite me stating I wasnt buying anything she said she had to ID me because I was with him. We were in our 30s. I was baffled.
Shenanigan
The commentary seems to assume that every European country and person is exactly the same when in fact they are all very different. For example, there are very few similarities between say, Norway and Italy.
MrKeithblair
I'm English and whenever I go into a shop I often smie and have a bit of a conversation with the assistants or a little joke. I've got no reservations about being cheerful and polite.
windsorSJ
I am British and have been to USA a few times. Things I found weird:- Brands, everything seems to be branded, including medicines. Debit Cards being taken away from you at restaurants to pay for your food, you don't let that sucker out of your sight in UK, that made me anxious! Food Portions and cheese and salt on everything, I put on over 10lbs on a two week holiday there! (the food is good though) the gun counter at Walmart (I think it was) I found it disturbing, never seen a gun up that close before. Laziness, here in England we love to walk (most of us) in USA people will drive across the road to the next car park.
edenmoon
The weirdest thing for me is that bank notes all look and feel the same, it seems discrimatory against blind people. It's also really quick to see how much you have just opening your wallet if all the notes have different sizes and colours
emilyc
I’m a waitress in the UK and i don’t mind if people don’t tip bc I earn a good wage but the vast majority of people tip about 10% which is seen as polite but not essential :)
meganbenn
Here in germany there's only petrol stations and some very small convenience stores that are open all week and day. By law pretty much most places have to be closed on sundays. Only exceptions are restaurants, libraries and some other places people usually visit in their freetime. But then the place has to be closed on another weekday and they usually can only be open for a few hours on sunday.
Generally most stores open at 7 and close at 10 during the week and close earlier on saturdays.
Sure this means you have to prepare for not being able to buy anything on sunday, but it also means you can meet up with most of your family and friends on sunday because most people will not have to work on sunday (if you do work on sundays or official holidays then you have to get payed higher for the hour and get another day off to compensate for it)
Generally works have much more rights here than in the US and unions are very much a normal thing. If your workplace ever tries to prevent their workers from forming a union that would be illegal.
Also, traditionally breakfast in germany is just bread buns "Brötchen" of different varieties (we love our bread) with different things on them like cream cheese, butter, cucumers, cheese, sausage slices, pickles, pretty much anything you can put on bread.
