Working in India vs. Abroad

 These office habits still surprise many professionals coming from India…🇩🇪

1. A manager may reject your idea in a meeting and then happily join you for coffee 10 minutes later. Disagreement is often separated from personal relationships.
2. Nobody is impressed by “I worked until midnight.” In some teams, it can even raise questions about planning and prioritization.
3. If a meeting can be solved with an email, people may openly ask why the meeting exists.
4. Junior employees often challenge senior leaders with data. The strongest argument usually wins, not the highest title.
5.  “No” is a complete answer. People don’t always wrap refusals in multiple layers of politeness.
6. Your calendar is treated as your territory. Colleagues may ask before booking time rather than assuming you’re available.
7. Documentation can matter more than verbal discussions. If it’s not written down, some teams act as if it never happened.
8. Employees regularly block focus time on their calendars and are expected to protect it.
9. Many colleagues won’t add work contacts on personal social media, even after working together for years.
10. In some offices, the quietest person in the room may have the most influence because expertise often carries more weight than visibility.
11. People may leave a meeting immediately when it ends—no extra 15-minute “meeting after the meeting.”
12. A manager saying “This is not my expertise” is often seen as a sign of professionalism, not weakness.
13. Teams can spend weeks discussing a decision and then execute it extremely quickly once alignment is reached.
14. Employees often expect clear ownership. If everyone owns it, many assume nobody owns it.
15. During interviews, candidates who ask thoughtful questions about strategy, processes, and challenges can leave a stronger impression than candidates who only talk about themselves.