One of my blog readers is Viennese. He makes a lot of great comments on my blog. I thought it was a good idea to add the view point of someone who is truly Viennese. Be the voice of the Viennese to balance out mine a bit. He responded to my post Fears of an Expat with the below.
hi!
first: i think you meet/ask the wrong people 
)
2nd: i am more or less genuine Viennese (parts of the last 5 generations on mother & father-side are from Vienna 
)) i guess i can give you some info about viennese thinking from my view:
the crankiness is mainly a protection for the Viennese – if you expect the worst you got a good chance of being positively surprised. the crankiness is on the outside – mostly but not on the inside! and with the right ‘Schmäh’ you usually can see the inside as you might know, Viennese always try to avoid aggressiveness and confrontations – this is where they use the “Wiener Charme” to work arround (I guess this is one reason why Vienna is quite nonviolent compared to other cites.) they always like to talk it out at a Heurigen or Kaffeehaus (or compensate it with crankiness).
Also business is done not in office, but on a small table at the
Heurigen. As Metternich said “Der Balkan beginnt am Rennweg”! that
might also be the reason why one can bargain for mostly everything in Vienna – if you know how )
And sometimes it is just some kind of mental relaxing, if you don’t have to be always happy.
this are very general views! of course there are a lot of different, nice and unnice, people in vienna, but you can find this “melange” everywhere …
PS: most expats I know, are quiet happy here – they adopted (parts of) the viennese lifestyle, which works quiet well (as ‘viennese’ is a mixture of a lot of cultures & lifestyles )
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I constantly find working in an Austrian corporation fascinating. Things are so many differences, but in a fun way.
For example. In Outlook, my spell check runs through the text in my emails twice. Once in German, then again in English. How cool is that! This is a very nice feature for me because I do write my emails in both languages (though not in one email). Of course as a native English speaker I would find it a bit embarrassing to have typos in my emails. Writing in German isn’t one of my strengths, so I like to have at least the spell check running to be half way understandable.
Excel on the other hand, is a bear. Grrr…. The German system of writing numbers is exactly opposite of writing English numbers. Example: In English we write numbers like 2,456.98 and in German the same number is written like 2.456,98 Argh! As if that’s not hard enough, the American Microsoft Office system (Excel) doesn’t like this. So when I am running an analysis of numbers, both Excel and I freak out. I have to be very very careful when running reports. I swear I almost break out in a sweat. Whew!
Stepping away from the computer, I’d like to mention my co-workers. Right now it is vacation time. Everyone flees the summer heat and goes off on vacation all over the world. My co-workers have been going to Bali, Thailand, Japan, China, Ireland, India, everywhere. And you know what they do when they come back? Bring little gifts for everyone in the office. Isn’t that sweet!
Gift from co-worker who went to Bali
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I’ve been an expat spouse for two years now. I have to admit, it’s going much better than I thought it was going to be.
At the beginning, when you first come to your host country and you watch your partner leave for work, your first instinct is DON’T LEAVE ME! The door to the apartment/house closes and the place is still. The phone doesn’t ring because your friends and family are probably in a different time zone and therefore sleeping. Not to mention they are a bit irked that you left in the first place. The TV or radio isn’t on because you can’t understand the garble coming out of it anyway. You ask yourself in the quietness around you, Now what?
Put your shoes on and go explore your new city. Find out if there are language courses available. Educate yourself on how you can get a job. Can’t get a job? Ask yourself what your dream has always really been and start your own business.
I’ve been pretty lucky. I speak the local language and I am a European citizen. Getting a job was fast and easy for me. I do have a terrible sense of direction (I blame this on being born and raised on a peninsula and always being told that the ocean is west. You see the problem) so exploring my new city was a bit intimidating. I get lost easily. Even with a map. So I got a cell phone/mobile with a GPS/tomtom/navi in it. Freedom of movement!
I also started this blog to entertain myself and meet people =)
I started my own business http://www.taschenhalter.at/
I joined two professional networking groups and am debating about a third.
The point is, while your spouse is off doing his/her thing, you’re left with time on your hands. Do something with it! Take an underwater basket weaving course. Play with mud (ceramics) or even go back to school. A lot of international universities would be pleased to have you.
The possibilities are endless.
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Working in an Austrian company is funny for me. I have never been “accused” more in my life about being “so American.” Well, thanks!
My Austrian co-workers accuse me of being so American because:
- I have a photo of Paul and me on our wedding day on my work desk. Apparently this display of family life in the work place is “so American”
- I live and die by the numbers. I analyze the reports and make suggestions based off of the numbers. I am aggressive in my decision-making. My instinct doesn’t play a role and I have no emotional attachment
- My boss told me that I acted completely differently than my co-workers and he guessed that was due to me being American. Er, okay. He was quick to reassure me that despite that observation, I seemed to be integrating myself into the team just fine.
I find it odd to be perceived in such a way. According to my point of view everything I do is normal. According to their point of view, everything I do is a bit foreign.
Lucky for me my co-workers handle me with tolerance and kindness. I don’t think my ways disturb them, they just think of me as “so American.”
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This is a fear that has been going around and around in my head for about eight months now. Will I regret relocating to Austria?
The fear has been planted by other expats. Every single one that I have met that have been here for an extended period of time aren’t happy about being here. When I ask how long they’ve been in Vienna, they make a face, roll their eyes, or grimace as if in pain. Then they mutter the years of their lives that they have spent in Vienna.
Chills go down my spine as I see this routine. Will this be my fate over the next few years? Will I inherit the bitterness that I see? Is this from being an expat, or is this the famous Viennese crankiness that is the influence?
Is being an expat a sentence to living in a gilded cage? (Vienna is so gilded that one cannot explain it any other way). Gilded cage or no, it’s still made out of iron bars. Is the door of my cage closing, and I don’t even realize it, or will I manage to fly free and find my happiness in this city?
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I flew back to L.A. in July to attend my brother’s wedding (it was beautiful). Getting a direct flight from Vienna to L.A. is not possible, so I had to stop over in Frankfurt, Germany. Things just worked out that I spent a night in Frankfurt, giving me time to tour the city. So here it is, a post about Vienna versus Frankfurt.
Frankfurt – the people are most definitely friendlier. The women are more fashionably dressed (a much needed break for my poor abused eyes in Vienna). The city is cleaner. Sightseeing in Frankfurt is minimal. Having spent a day in the city, I saw all that I needed to see.
Vienna – poor Frankfurt can’t compete with the glory of Vienna’s Inner City. Vienna is stunningly beautiful. Frankfurt is functional. Also the sightseeing possibilities in Vienna fill four full days easily due to the wonderful options of palace tours, museums of every kind, coffeehouses, gardens and so on.
To sum up really quickly the difference between Vienna and Frankfurt: Throw a stone in Frankfurt and you’ll hit a bank. Throw a stone in Vienna and you’ll hit a church or a palace.
My conclusion: Skip Frankfurt and just use the airport to get on your next plane to Vienna.
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Having the courage to be an expat has opened me up to being couragous in other aspects of my life as well. My husband and I have started our own business.
www.taschenhalter.at
Taschenhalter
Taschenhalter is quite literal. It means purse hook. It keeps a woman’s handbag from being placed on the dirty floor of a restaurant or coffeehouse.
I love my purses. Whenever Paul and I would go out to eat, I was always fussing with where to place my purse. It usually got wedged between me and my seat, forcing me to sit uncomfortably. Necessity is the instigator of many things, hence our business.
Tell all your friends about it!
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