Appreciate the insight.

I'm really quite curious about the inverse of this from the US. HNers who don't live in the US but have worked for a US company trying to do business in local markets: what weird US-centric idiosyncrasies have you seen companies and US-based leadership foisting upon local markets?

Tangentially related, but I work for a New Zealand company that does civil engineering work, including some in the US. There's a lot of localization that we have to do around roads being much wider and different materials being used, but the main idiosyncrasy is that in New Zealand we can just call people up on the phone or via email and arrange contracts, but for large jurisdictions in the US there is a competitive bidding process that we (as a foreign company) can't just circumvent.

My boss wanted to investigate some sinkholes on the runway at LaGuardia to calibrate a device, and was confused that I (the token American) couldn't just call up the Port Authority of New York and get our truck of equipment onto a runway the same week. I tried to explain to a coworker that American airports and the Port Authority in particular are very sensitive about what they allow airside, and he said "oh, so we don't get hit by a plane." I had to explain the last 25 years of American history to him.

A bit of anecdotal story about the differences between US and Japanese companies and customer relations follows:

The scene was Tokyo Disneyland at the time of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. Shelter in place was a requirements, and there were school age and younger children who took refuge in a gift shop. As a help to keep the youngest children comforted through a scary time, the staff there took the initiative and let the children hold stuffed anials from the gift shop inventory.

Now, think about this from the US Disney Corp. viewpoint. They did what?? They gave away what amounted to pretty much the entire inventory of stuffed characters?

How fast would the manager taking that action be 'unhired' at L.A. or Florida?

But, this was Japan and things are different.

The managers have a cultural standard of hospitality and responsibility of care, even though this is a Retail Location, these children and parents are still guests in the venue.

The children and their parents also knew that these weren't "gifts" from Disney, but, without getting explicit or formal assent at the time of handing them out, everyone just understood that when the shelter in place period ended, the stuffed characters were to be returned.

Staff didn't even have to ask for them back, and the parents had managed childrens' expectations to prevent meltdowns when that happened.

All the children who needed some extra comforting in a stressful situation had a favorite character, and the Retail Location lost exactly zero product.

I could go on with many other intrinsic differences, but this one is a pretty clear example.

So, the US business realities neither were necessary nor appropriate in that situation.

Thinking that they can fire people at will.

Working for US companies is hilarious because they act like I don't have workers rights.

Subway has ordering kiosks that barely work and take longer than telling the employee your order.

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