Why Are People In The Bay Area So Soft? (San Francisco: salaries, to move)

[The Land]

Originally Posted by Mr. Fantastic

That's simply wrong.

Everything you type is wrong, Troll.

[Mr. Fantastic]

Originally Posted by The Land

Everything you type is wrong, Troll.

Why are you so angry with me? That type of anger isn't healthy. Raises your blood pressure, lowers your self esteem, negatively effects your personal relationships, etc.

I have some breathing exercises I can send you if you're interested.

[04kL4nD]

The fact that I feel even the slightest bit compelled to agree with Mr. Fantastic lets me know how hard he's trolling everyone. I rescind my former assertions, people are just people.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

in California, people have more of a 'dream big, live big, enjoy life' attitude.

There's plenty of that, along with the reciprocal "Live simply, that others may simply live" approach to life here. (Kind of thinking SF/SJ vs. Santa Cruz ethic)

But for anyone suggest that people don't have to work their asses off to accomplish the 'CA dream' is to speak from the mouth of one who hasn't attempted to do so on their own part. And how the hell is San Jose not on that silly workaholic list? Fremont?!?

[Snort]

...because they eat white bread and ingest large quantities of genetically modified corn syrup. That's why.

[CTC]

Denver CO the 3rd most workaholic city??? haha
Definetly a Bogus list!!

have you ever seen the throngs of skiers clogging I-70 on the weekends??

ps I read this board on occasion cause I was born in SF (live in CO now)-and have family there still-moved back briefly worked there in 98-03 doing the biotech thing-we worked pretty hard, but still had time to play.

[Heart]

I remember when I moved from my tiny midwestern town to East bay. Never in my life was I cussed out so much on the road for going the speed limit Happy memories. I'd say I was a culture shock victim, and I probably whined for the first year. It was the pace of the city, not the people I had to get used to.

[Domination83]

Don't know about soft but I've lived in both places and there's definitely a difference between the people on the coasts. I for one like to enjoy myself. I love the club scene etc. If enjoying life rather than being a pure workaholic is wrong then what man with any sort of life would want to be right? When I die I'm going to do so knowing that I had a great life and did all the things I wanted to do. Rather than working my ass off trying to get ahead of everyone else. I bet a lot of those people wish they got more enjoyment out of life when they get old. We only live once.

[atrbrut]

sf is the coolest city in usa because there's so many tranplant freaks, foreigners, surfers, artist, pc *******, homos and other future passengers on noah's arc ,the sequel-i opened a gallery in sausalito ten years ago and think the bay and the surrounding ant hills are sine quo non-and yes we could use more sarcastic, sardonic, one finger peace sign flingin east coasters-the more the merrier-as for clone girl she lives in mill valley anyway-you can find her at the red dragon-haha

[Salty VW]

Sorry to bring this post back from the dead, but I came across it in a google search and just had to sign on and chime in.

I moved to the bay area 8 years ago from the Sacramento area and experienced some of the same culture shocks you did as well as a few of my own.

-The PC culture also drives me nuts. I've never gotten used to this and it's really made it difficult to connect with local people, especially in the work place. l have to be extremely careful when joking around, and even laughing along with other's jokes. Everything can be seen as racist, sexist, whatever. Growing up in Sacramento everyone jokes about everyone else and we all get along just fine.

-Everything DOES close early, and it bugs the heck out of me too. In Sacramento everything is open late, and people are still out and about at 10pm (partly because it's too hot in the summer to run errands in the middle of the day). Growing up this way, I became a night person and I have never really grown accustomed to bay area hours. Even the social scene shuts down early. In Sacto my friends and I would hang out till 3-6am on any given Saturday night. Down here everyone want's to go home by 11pm-1am.

-You're right about folks not sticking up for themselves here. There seems to be this weird dynamic where if you stand up for yourself, now you're the one causing the problem. You're more or less expected to walk away from everything - whether it be a verbal confrontation or an attempted mugging. When it comes to verbal confrontations, I notice this leads to a lot of grudge holding. Folks walk away and end up hating the person, rather than standing up for themselves and getting all of the aggression out. Where I grew up, the people you fought with usually ended up being your friends.

-It's not on your list, but bay area drivers have a "me first" mentality. Lots of cutting people off, blocking you when you try to merge, turning an attempt at passing into a race, etc. I've gotten used to this to the point that I hardly even notice it anymore, but it really drove me crazy when I first moved here.

-Lots of localism, even though it seems like hardly anyone I meet was actually born here.

-Customer service here absolutely sucks and people are rude to strangers until given reason to be nice. And for some odd reason, neighbors don't want anything to do with each other. Where I'm from it's the inverse. You are the nicest to people you have just met, until given a reason not to be.

-I get what you're saying about east coast business vs. west coast business. I've worked with folks on business trips from the East Coast, and when they come over here I've noticed they conduct themselves in a much more professional manner. They arrive early, dress nicer, sit up straighter, walk in a very straight up almost mechanical fashion, etc. If you were to act that way on a daily basis in the bay area, you might be looked at as being stuck up or "better than everyone else" unless you perhaps held a very high position. It's an odd dynamic, although I do prefer the more casual work place myself (to an extent). I remember someone from our corporate office coming to speak in front of our entire division a few years back on a (casual) Friday. He commented at how much of a shock it was that he was the only person in a suit while the rest of us were in Hawaiian shirts and baseball hats. He didn't seem offended by it, but it did open my eyes as to just how "progressive" we are on the west coast. I definitely understand why you might feel like folks are too laid back. My only suggestion would be to try and enjoy it. On the surface it might make us look like slackers, but I believe it actually makes us happier and thus more productive workers.