1- No Kissing at work

I am a woman who has been working in a male dominated workplace for more than 20 years, in 2 different countries: France and USA. In France, I used to come to the office and enter an open space office with 98 men and 2 women. If you are a male, you shake hand to men and cheek-kiss women at work. If you are a female, the tradition is to cheek-kiss your male and female co-workers. Can you imagine kissing 98 men and 2 women every morning? 200 kisses per day! Think about all type of cheeks you should kiss: unshaven cheeks, greasy cheeks, sweaty cheeks, cheeks buried under half a inch of foundation …

What a relief I felt when I started working in NY! No more kisses! No more hand checks in the morning at the office either! Just a simple ´Hi’ … efficient…

When I came back to France 5 years ago, I couldn’t come back to the French tradition and just explained my co-workers that I’d rather check hands – like men – and I do not accept any cheek-kisses at work. Sometimes it felt awkward to stop someone leaning on you to cheek-kiss, but you got to do what you got to do: stop him, no matter what! And that’s how some started to call me by this nickname ‘the American girl’ …

2- No Touching

How many times in Paris metro or buses you happened to be pressed against the door or other people because it is so crowded? What is amazing is that I never felt anyone touching me in the NY subway, even during peak hours. Everyone manage to keep his own personal space. Magic, no?

My kids who attended pre-schools in NY were always taught to ‘Keep your distance! arm-length distance!’ during recess. What a surprise (or should I call it a shock?) when they had their first recess in France five years ago? My son was in CE1 (second grade) and he described recess like a jungle with kids jumping on each others and he came back home with a black eye on the fifth day, with no explanation from the school. No one saw what happened. Can you imagine how upset I was?

3- Everything is awesome

It is well known that the city that never sleeps gives you an incredible energy. But is it really the city? I think the people gave me this energy. It looks like people here are always feeling good, and that everything is great no matter what.

When your co-workers ask you in the morning: ‘Hi! How are you doing?’, answer ‘Good!’ even if you have a headache, or you didn’t sleep all night because your baby was up late, or even if a tree fell onto your house… If you answer ‘Fine’, it means you are not going well, so I can’t imagine if you answer: ‘quite bad actually’. I never dare to answer this in 10 years in a NYC office!

At first, I remember I had to struggle against my typically French morning attitude! I was always grumpy 😡 or moody, because it was true I wasn’t feeling enthusiastic every morning after waking up early, dressing up my kids, preparing their lunch box, dropping them at school and running to the office. But eventually, I picked up the New Yorker attitude and decided that I should feel thankful every morning and lucky to have a job and two healthy kids.