cultural :: greetings :: work based

Published by: rose 2010-03-14

There are 2 greetings that you'll hear in a work enviornment quite often.

The Bay Area Cross Cultural Manager Support Group (Cupertino ::
These days most work environments are multi-cultural. We have to work with people who often have very different ideas about how to work together.
http://www.meetup.com/The-Bay-Area-Cross-Cultural-Management-Support-Group/HOME

Gokurosama
O-Tuskaresama

I here them everyday. Being more American in this situation i don't use them but they're good to know since you're coworkers will use them hopefully in regard to you.

Complexity Blog The Same Difference Measure of Culture::
greetings at home among family, greetings at work among colleagues, determining cultural distances in agent-based models of societies where behavior is often measurable with
http://complexityblog.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=133&catid=5HOME

Gokurosama = Thanks for doing something that isn't really your duty but is sort of your duty.

Example: A night watchman at a high school I work at will bring up the evening edition of the newspaper to the teacher's lounge and if there are other teachers there will say "gokurosama" while I being the dumb gaijin will just say "arigatou" or "sumimasen".

O-tsukarasma = Thanks for doing a difficult and/or ****** job that nobody else except your are elected to do. Well, doing something while the person mentioning the phrase is busy sitting down or busy relaxing and smoking.

Examaple;
I teach the last and latest classes in school so when I go for my stress relieving smoke after class many teachers greet me with "o-tsukaresama" .... hehe, it's a good feeling to hear that.

:D haha, nice examples!
specially the first one, i guess i would act like the dumb gaijin (hehehe), saying 'arigatou'!