When a person like you is working in an international place is meant to find yourself surrounded by a lot of foreigners. You will see different ways of talking polite as being friendly for one culture can be considerate normal etiquette for other or overbearing to another one. So when you want to connect with a foreigner and you dont know his culture is safer to be polite and a bit distant until you know more. It is normal to keep a level of professional distance from your co-workers. The hierarchy levels in a company is a must to respect and keep them in your mind so you may act correctly and appropriately towards your co-workers. Example: You can`t talk with your leader as a friend during work hours (even if he/she is!) because that would make him/her lose respect from the others and that show you disregarded the professional relationship principles which soon will affect you, your leader and others as well (you may lose that relationship and your way of communication will change from friendly to coldly). Social background is one of the important contexts since old times- People were labeled as poor, ordinary and rich based on their social status from the beginning of time.
Between these “classes of people” always was a wall which they couldn`t pass- or rarely a miracle would happen that the poor would pass to ordinary class. This affected our relationship for centuries and unfortunately is still affecting. The mindset is so stuck that is hard to overcome and this keep us apart because we still see others ” different”.
( They might have different religion, opinion at politics, ethnicity/race, gender rights – and this is making us to struggle even if we are “open-minded”.)
