[csydas]

Heh, I've noticed that Western culture does put a different emphasis on work ethics. After moving to Russia, I've just noticed a different approach to how work is perceived, and my partner and her mom have often cited this proverb at me:

Работа не волк - в лес не убежит. Work is not a wolf, it will not run to the forest.

Basically, the idea is work isn't going anywhere, so no need to worry that much about it. At my last job in the US, I couldn't understand why people were so adamant about how busy they were when most of the time people were doing what they could to look busy. It's not that they were actually burdened with work, it was that they wanted to appear like they had no time. My employees would frequently get into arguments over who had the busier and more difficult schedule. My family does the same (one of my brothers prides himself on how little free time he had)

I guess it's just this perception that important people are busy and the inverse of that is if you're not busy you're not important. Just speculation, of course, but it's my experience that once you get away from the US, you lose this mindset.

Edit: I guess in fairness I should note that I did have genuinely busy coworkers - our under-staffed programming team were constantly under pressure and in constant repair mode due to not having the time or resources to move out of a crisis state. This is a true "always busy" scenario in my mind.

[SerLava]

>I guess it's just this perception that important people are busy

Perhaps but I'm sure the primary thought in their subconscious is "don't back down or they will punish you by inventing new burdens for you."

[pbhjpbhj]

>Western culture does put a different emphasis on work ethics.

See "protestant work ethic".

[aianus]

That's not the inverse, it's the contrapositive. The inverse would be "busy people are important".