For six years, I was Marketing Director for Carnival Cruise Line, Australia. A Brit, I first arrived in Australia age 30, worked agency-side for a few years, before a contract Marketing Director role at Fairfax (RSVP Dating) and then Carnival.

I had never worked in the travel industry before, let alone stepped on a cruise. But it was an exciting company to be a part of at the time (who could have predicted what has happened now?) as the brand was starting up in Australia, the first home ports out of the United States. We were back by a multi-billion-dollar company, but far enough away from head office to have freedom to make our own decisions, and small enough that if a few things didn’t work out we’d be forgiven.

In November 2019, after achieving all I felt was possible at Carnival in Australia, I resigned. Then out of the blue, I was offered a role in the U.S, to come to the Head Office in Miami and lead Brand, Advertising and Social Media for North America. It was a very unexpected opportunity, not one I’d planned at all. But after 15 years in Australia and my husband in a job that wasn’t massively inspiring, we thought ‘why not’ and went.

We all know what happened next…

In March 2020, as I was bobbing around on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, working on focus groups for private destination project, a global pandemic was called. Having obviously watched CNN before going on this work trip, I had packed a few extra pair of undies, just incase things didn’t work out well. But things at the time seemed very ‘New York centric’ so I wasn’t overly worried. Though, there were murmurs that Trump wasn’t keen to let the Grand Princess back in to California. Plus, the Diamond Princess had also been anchored at the Yokohama port in Japan since 3 February too. But as crazy as it sounds now, at the time, none of us had any idea of the scale of what was about to unfold.

Being on one of the last guest cruise ships in the world, I will never forget where I was when the pandemic was announced. Thankfully, my colleagues and I had no issues. And at the end of the work trip, we were able to sail back to Miami. But the Carnival office had closed, we were sent to work from home, and the ships didn’t sail again in the U.S until October 2021.

This isn’t a story about working for a cruise line in a global pandemic in the United States. Though that is a very interesting one for another day. State versus federal politics, creating ship protocols to keep guests safe, navigating guests in certain states (looking at you Florida and Texas) who didn’t want to wear a mask, and didn’t want a vaccine. In June 2020, hundreds of employees were made redundant from Carnival, and several hundred more furloughed ship and office based. I was lucky to keep my job. Many people ask what on earth were you working on during 2020/21 when the ships were not sailing? It was a lot. As the expensive Brand Advertising was dialled back, the whole team was focused on e-commerce, CRM and owned social – keeping the lights on with past guest engagement strategies and most importantly getting in the bookings for 2021 and beyond (to balance out the volume of refunds the company was processing for the pandemic years).

But outside of Covid, WFH with unfamiliar colleagues and just the general ‘newness’ of being a country I didn’t know, there was still a stark contrast working in America, versus Australia and the United Kingdom.

Speaking the same language but not always understood

While all three countries speak the same language, I quickly realised that the work environment rules and behaviours are very different.

Some of these perhaps are obvious when down on paper. And this is by no means supposed to be disparaging about American work culture, nor Carnival (though I did decide after two years it wasn’t for me), it is more just highlighting the difference I saw. It is also important to note, that I was based in Florida for this role, providing perhaps a more extreme experience than had we been living in one of the more left-leaning states like New York or California. This is also my lens, with my particular personality. There are many, many people who have worked at Carnival in the United States for several decades and are very happy.

1. Day one in my new job

The first day I arrived at the office in Doral, Miami, there were several new starters all joining on the same day. So rather than being taken to meet our team, or our new boss, or find our desk, we were taken to an induction room, where we spent the best part of the day being told about the company history, ways of working etc. One thing that has stuck with me to this day, is during the morning inductions, there was a session on ‘Active Shooting Training’. A local police officer came into the office and made sure we had a ‘freshen up’ on our skills of what to do if an active shooter came in to the office. This really shocked me. I hadn’t even met my boss yet, but I was being taught how to barricade myself in a cupboard or fight back if there was a shooter in the office. Right until the last day we left America, the gun thing really bothered my husband and I. Knowing that wherever you are (in a bar, a shopping mall, walking down the street) that regular people are walking round with guns in their purses and pockets, and that very simple altercations can escalate very quickly.

2. Status

A general impression I took away is that status is much more important to Americans than Aussies or Brits. When I spoke to American colleagues about this, they were very surprised as they thought that us Brits were all about ‘the class system’. However, not in my experience. The American Dream and the Willy Loman character in the U.S feels as pertinent today as it has ever been. There is a lot of talk about what neighbourhood you live in, what cars (how many cars) you drive and labels on clothes very visible.

Aussies have the bad habit of knocking down tall poppies. Americans put them on a box and make them taller.

At my grand old age of 47, I was shocked how important the school I went to was, was it private or public, did I have a masters or an MBA. Conversations would dissect down on your university, trying to work out if the one you attended in London was as good as an Ivy league etc.

I found it quite irritating and would tend to exaggerate my lack of higher education, just to see them squirm at how I managed to do my role without a Masters.

3. Hierarchy

I believe this also bleeds into a trait I found terribly inefficient. Everyone outside America knows that Americans love a job title. Vice President, Senior Vice President, Executive Vice President and so on. The corporate ladder has a lot of rungs.

I always found UK and Aussie companies to be fairly egalitarian. If you have a good idea, and proposal to share or general feedback, you can pretty much talk to anyone in an organisation and it doesn’t cause issue. In contrast, when I moved to the U.S, it was terribly difficult to have direct or productive conversations, as everything was so layered. You couldn’t send a document to anyone who was more than ‘one ladder step’ above you, and thus projects just tended to drag on, as you waited to see if VP would pass to EVP, who could then pass to SVP and then to President.

4. Work-life balance and mental health

As I write this, I realise that each of these observations are very much connected. The concern about status. The agonising hierarchy (which also creates intimidation) leads to anxiety and people not being able to simply ‘be themselves’ at work.

While by no means perfect in Australia and the UK, there are now conversations around mental health and the importance of balance. I feel the America I saw has a lot to learn about productivity, and that this is not necessarily connected to the number of hours you work. I noticed when I had an American boss in Australia, she had a similar approach. Thinking that the person who sat in their chair in the office the latest every night should be given the achievement award. Now having worked in an American office, I can see this is common.

I used to eye raise at the ‘sorry not sorry’ conference calls often set-up on evenings or weekends, on projects that could have waited until Monday. And how the number of hours worked, the lack of holiday taken, and working through sickness was worn as a badge of honour. This created a terrible culture of expectation, where more junior workers felt they had to be seen to have nothing else but work, to be accepted. As someone who works quite fast (this is not a showing off thing, but just fact), I was damned if I was going to pretend to be working on a presentation at a weekend, when I had already finished it, just to keep up with the ‘Joneses’ who had dedicated their whole life to work. Many times I would explain that I had my best ideas on a run, so it was an integral part of my week, and the mobile was staying at home for an hour.

5. Work and alcohol

Ending on a lighter note. I am pretty sure my American colleagues thought I was an alcoholic. Though I drink maybe only a couple of times a week, the looks they would give me when I would try and bond by suggesting ‘a few beers after work’.

Brits and Aussies don’t always have a healthy attitude to booze, and often those Friday night beers can descend in to a few more than they should. However, I really did miss the opportunity to decompress and get to know my colleagues. But it just wasn’t part of the culture at all.

It was exacerbated somewhat by being in Miami, the over reliance on cars and the terrible public transport situation (and snobbery around using public transport). And of course, when Covid hit, all hopes of socialising with colleagues disappeared.

However, in my few short months in the office, I noticed that hanging out with colleagues after work, just wasn’t a thing. And the association of alcohol with anything work-related was largely frowned upon. My first and only Christmas ‘party’ at Carnival in the U.S, we were given one wristband to exchange for one glass of wine. In contrast, the annual Christmas bash in Sydney, used to involve hiring a venue, DJs, and always an after party to celebrate the year’s success. Very different.

For fear of sounding like a whinging Pom, I’ll end here and say again, that these were just ‘my observations, my story’ working in Florida for a large corporate. Over my time in the U.S, I did also speak to other expats who felt similarly. By no means is this everyone’s experience.  

During my time in the U.S, there are also many things I feel blessed for. During the height of the pandemic, when social distancing was essential, my husband and I got to explore many of America’s beautiful national parks - the Grand Canyon, Moab, Zion and Glacier National Park in Montana. So while it was a pretty tough two years at times, it was also a time where we had some amazing experiences. And all the observations above are very general. One thing the pandemic has given us all is close bonds. Zooming with colleagues every day, I also formed some strong connections and lifelong friendships as we navigated this most unexpected time together.

I am now back in the United Kingdom, a place I haven’t lived for 17 years. It feels like I have been locked in a time capsule and have woken up in a place that feels very familiar but also incredibly alien. Let’s see what the next two years brings. Likely a little more culture and maybe some shock.