Page 90 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

Do Americans Really Have a Culture? 75

his old job as a garbage collector? Because, as we know, work in
the United States is more than simply a means to make money.
“Work constitutes a practical ideal of activity and character that
makes a person’s work morally inseparable from his or her life”
(Bellah et al. 1985, 66). We take pride in our industriousness and
are pleased to have a reputation as hard workers. This leads some
“workaholics” to put in sixty or even eighty hours of labor a week.
It is common for Americans to take only one or two weeks of
vacation a year, while many Europeans are guaranteed four to six
weeks annually. Although the work incentive has weakened in
recent decades, our attitudes are still strongly influenced by the
Puritan work ethic, that the most meaningful activity in life is
work.
Americans think of work as a serious occupation and prefer
not to “mix business with pleasure.” We conceive of separate
realms for work and play. Although some people derive great sat-
isfaction from their chosen careers, many of us grumble and grouse
when we have to get up and go to work in the morning. Play, on
the other hand, is what we do on weekends and during vacations
as a relief from the drudgery we face at the office. In other cul-
tures the boundaries that contain the workday are more elastic.
Latin Americans, for example, do not see work and play as mutu-
ally exclusive. A meeting in a Latin American workplace may turn
into a social event.
In a workplace with many Deaf employees and clients, such
as a school or Deaf agency, work and play are not as compart-
mentalized. Deaf people’s lives inevitably overlap too much for
that. This may lead to some confusion. When, for example, a Deaf
social worker goes to the local Deaf club and is greeted by her
clients with tales of their latest problems, she has to remind them
that she is on her off-time now.

Informality and Friendliness
Although most of us could forego the insufferable tableside greet-
ing “Hi, I’m Chris and I’ll be your server tonight,” we Americans
usually appreciate friendly, down-to-earth interpersonal relations.
This aspect of our culture is frequently the first thing foreign visi-
tors notice (although they may later refer to it disparagingly as
“superficial friendliness”).

04 MINDESS PMKR 75 10/18/04, 11:25 AM