The hardest part of London’s culture that is the most challenging to adapt to is how much more blunt they are. In the United States, I feel like there is a lot more effort put into being super friendly and welcoming. Whereas here, people are much more mellow and not as cheery. I also have worked in the customer service industry in the past as a cashier and waitress, which has played a part in how I view the social culture here. In restaurants and stores in America, all the employees are super friendly and energetic when they interact with customers. This is also due to the tip culture that persists in America, where part of the pay employees receive is dependent on your customers. However, since tipping is non-existent here, the servers and waiters do not put as much effort in being super friendly. This was hard to reconcile in my brain that people were not being “mean” to me, but instead Londoners are simply more mellow. This carries over to my internship experience where sometimes I am unsure how my coworkers are feeling. If they are in a good mood or a bad one, it is much harder for me to gauge here. Also the humor is much more dry here, which I do enjoy since I like making sarcastic jokes and also complaining.
The most significant issue that I am encountering in my internship is having unclear directions on some tasks. However, all my coworkers are extremely kind and I have become more comfortable asking for their help in supporting me in some of my assignments. For example, I need to draft two emails to attach into a workflow, but I wanted someone to look over and modify my writing before I sent it out. So I sent it to someone on the team that has amazing writing skills, and she made some fantastic changes to it.
I think at this point I have completely mastered navigating London. I am really comfortable using the tube and the buses here. If anyone comes to London, they have to download Citymapper to navigate the public transportation here. It tells you exactly which platform to head to, what direction to walk, and when you need to transfer. And although this is my first time being alone in a city, luckily I came with one of my best friends. So this has made settling in much easier because I have someone from home with me. And since we were already such close friends before we came here, we were able to explore many different parts of London together.
