Hey guys, I’m Swiss and born here. However I have a different cultural background where sharing, reciprocity and helping each other is valued more. So naturally I would do this here in Switzerland as well: try to help the neighbor a bit, offer my help, give a kid a free lesson of tutoring, whatever I thought would help people out after listening to them - now here’s the thing: I noticed that doing this - being kind, offering help - over time makes people here take disadvantage of you and start disrespecting you. I’ve had this happen to me repeatedly - people feeling entitled to help, demanding more, also never offering anything in return or reciprocating any help or support. This baffled me because I’ve lived in different parts of the world and there this way of being always had the opposite effect: e.g. I lived in Colombia and over time people thought I was awesome, respected me, invited me, I built a network and made many friends. That’s I think because informal networks are valued more highly in many parts of the world than here. So I realized that kindness and being available for other is interpreted as weakness in Switzerland (WTF?) So I decided to change my strategy: Charge for everything. Your kid needs a math lesson? Sure, can do it for 70 CHF / hour. The elderly neighbor wants me to help her carry her groceries? Sure, would be 20 CHF per trip. The neighbor needs help researching and installing an AC? Yes, will do it for you for a fixed fee of 300 CHF for my time. You want somebody to listen to your plights, effectively unloading your bad mood or psychological problems on me? Yeah, sure for 10 CHF per listen. etc. etc. SO I noticed then that people started taking me up on the offer, and actually respecting me and my time. And as a side effect, I also make some money by helping people! I thought this way of charging for every little thing is ridiculous and would get you branded as avaricious and an asshole in the rest of the world but in Switzerland it actually makes people respect you and think you’re resourceful and have scarce time lol. So much for cultural differences I guess… What do you think? submitted by /u/tschilpi
Originally posted by u/tschilpi on r/Switzerland