I have to say, well done. My intuition was also somewhat aligned with the previous commenter, but the blowout list really says it all, especially considering the relatively small size of the Netherlands.

First of all, I want to say that I agree with most of what you said. I want be redundant and tell again the good parts of the Dutch culture.

However, I _strongly disagree_ eith a few of your points, which I think are over-the-top and incorrect.

And I say so given my experience of living in the Netherlands and working for two of the five companies you quoted.

I understood you are Dutch and making a good point against a possibly Usonian troll which has limited view of your country, its culture, tradition and influence.

However, years working for Dutch companies and living in the Netherlands allows me to state those points I quoted below are not true. (And I am not limiting my analysis to the companies I worked, but also government, companies I had to deal with, etc.)

The points are disagree are:

> Next-level automation. Rationality. Fast error-correcting. Reliability, do what you promise.

Rationality is one of the biggest "cultural shocks" I had when moving to the Netherlands.

It is _said_ that decisions are rational; in practice, it is the _opinion of the selected majority_ that matters, or a deturpation of the poedermodel.

And above it all,

> When you want to get shit done, and get it done properly, you call the Dutch.

Trading ia what flows in Dutch blood. It is part of their DNA. It is incredible. They are incredibly good at it.

That implicitly means they are great salespeople. And salespeople sells the buyer's dream, not necessarily a reality.

What I want to say is that Dutch are not exemplary engineers. Do not misunderstand me: they had instances of great scientists and engineers, but it is not their number one cultural goal as the comment I quoted implied.

And that is so clear that engineers, for decades, are brought from abroad. The exemplary Dutch engineering companies are _managed by Dutch_, but the products are (mostly) _designed by immigrants_ (which are incorrectly called _expats_).

So, the culture of "do it properly" (which is pretry engineering mindset) is not around, as implied.

The "get it _somehow looking_ done", however, is. And that is trading mindset.

Once I learned this cultural difference, I got piece of mind and started to be more effective at my Dutch job and society—and that is the "work smart" part you told about.

And it is not the Dutch are trying to fool people delivering _somehow looking done_ stuff. Not at all! It is just that their trading features comes first over their engineering ones.

Still, and again, I tend to agree with most of what you said.

Of course my point was over the top. It started with defending our directness, which I think is warranted. It's a feature, not a bug.

And then things got out of hand with national pride, highlighting the achievements, without any bad parts. I'm well aware of how one-dimensional it may come across. Because it it one dimensional.

In dutch tradition, you should destroy my claims. You partially did, although still far too carefully ;)

I compliment you on the deep insight into dutch business culture where trade triumphs engineering. Indeed, this is reflected into almost any business where the finance, purchase, and sales departments are enormous and basically considered the business.

Next, we may also have "hands". The people doing the actual work. Undervalued and underpaid, and easily replaced. It's definitely true that it's not an engineering culture in that sense.

Likewise, some pride is misplaced. If you look at a company like ASML, a high tech miracle, most of its engineers are Asian expats.

All true. Yet one thing persists in the culture: outcomes. Whatever it is that we build, or however we do it, there's very little tolerance for error. We don't accept half-assed products, we don't accept a lack of reliability. If errors occur, we don't let them linger.

I mention this in contrast to the many other nations I traveled to, many of which accepting things to barely function, not at all, or not reliably so. That's what I mean with "proper".

I am pretty glad I had this discussion: it is difficult to have a deep.understand of our own culture, but you have a deep one about yours—congratulations! :)

I think that if you could gather your two comments and make an article out of it, it would be very useful to newcomers in the Netherlands. I would have loved to read such lucid text when I first arrived here.

(Well, not everyone blogs, so it's just a passing opinion.)

> In dutch tradition, you should destroy my claims. You partially did, although still far too carefully ;)

When replying on internet, I try to be a little careful because the medium is limited text and, then, all my real opinions, with all their nuances, tend to not be expressed, then misunderstood, and then used as weapon against me. I usually distance myself from commenting on internet forums because forums tend to be quite a harmful environment for one's mental health.

> All true. Yet one thing persists in the culture: outcomes. Whatever it is that we build, or however we do it, there's very little tolerance for error. We don't accept half-assed products, we don't accept a lack of reliability. If errors occur, we don't let them linger. > > I mention this in contrast to the many other nations I traveled to, many of which accepting things to barely function, not at all, or not reliably so. That's what I mean with "proper".

By now, I lived in a few different countries, and that experience taught me that all countries have some interesting pros and odd cons.

Given that, I must agree with your sentence, and that is what I meant with

>> And it is not the Dutch are trying to fool people delivering _somehow looking done_ stuff. Not at all! It is just that their trading features comes first over their engineering ones.

There are countries, including in the list the top trading and economically successful ones, that fooling the customer is common practice; that "back-stabbing" for personal benefit is seen as "smart"; that personal and honourable values are thrashed for profit.

The Dutch culture might have its sins, but those aforementioned are not the ones.

(OK. Except on real estate, where a bare minimum habitation, considered regular in any civilised country, is market as "luxurious". But the sin here is hyperbole, not meanness.)

Again, all in all I agree with you! :)

> is market as "luxurious".

Well, the price most definetely was luxurious, wasn't it?

> poedermodel.

Poldermodel : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_model