Maybe relevant:
"Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture"
http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-b...
Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
381–390 of 405 posts
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is that just "design" of the culture though? If you're working 20% less of the time you've more time to relax; perhaps then you don't need to stress if you've a little more time to chat before your strudel arrives. Personally I hate it when you've only just sat down and the waiter is asking what you want, especially if it's a big menu and you've arrived at a meal time.
And I hate when you have to wait 20 min for the "garcon de cafee" to even notice you have finished and want the bill.
Right, you can tell an early waiter you need a couple more minutes, but you can't (easily) tell a late waiter to come early.
What's even more annoying than them not coming on their own is that they actively try to avoid eye contact.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst. This varies dramatically within Europe. From personal experience, customer service is decent, polite and timely in the UK and Ireland, and generally awful in Germany. It's difficult to generalise across a continent with 700mil+ people (500+ mil in the EU), with enormous cultural variations and expectations of good service (much greater variations than in t…
There is a great variation in the United States. A country of 300 million people, where each state has a unique culture and identity. For some reason, "American" is often generalized to be a caricature that I, having lived in the Pacific Northwest my entire life, have never encountered.
"great variation"?
Really?
Show me a state that speaks 4 major languages.
Show me a state that is majority Catholic. Majority Muslim. Majority Atheist.
Show me a state where euthanasia is legal. Or where abortion is banned outright. Or where all drug consumption is fully decriminalized.
Show me a state that is led by a monarch. Or one that is a direct democracy.
Those are just some of the examples of variations between Europeans countries, and I would not even consider Europe particularly varied compared to other parts of the world.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
About 90% of Americans overall have health insurance. Most full-time tech jobs in the US at the companies that would pay more than European salaries will include sufficient health insurance. I'm not sure who you're referring to dying in the streets because of a lack of medical treatment due to financial limitations.
90% have health insurance? Are you kidding me? I'd love to see where you pulled that figure from.
90.9%, according to the Census Bureau. See the table in this article copied from their report on Health Insurance Coverage: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/...
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is pretty standard in the US, especially if you don't work in some MegaCorp cog-in-the-machine type of situation. I think a good percentage of people working their asses off and working 60 hours a week are people who ARE actually successful. I don't blame them for turning work into a hobby.
What? Where are these 8:30-4:30-with-a-nice-long-lunch jobs? In my experience, smaller (non bigcorp) companies have to fight to survive and don't have these luxuries..
Is it really so unusual for someone with relatively marketable skills to have a standard 8 hour work day with a proper lunch break?
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does not match my own experience. I worked a few years in Canada (Québec) and liked it very much. I found that the work-life balance was much better than in France. It was more constant throughout the year. People have fewer vacations than in France 3-4 weeks/year with a few sick days vs 6-8 weeks/year but the daily working hours are lower (9-5) with quick lunch break where in France it is more 9-7 with a long lun…
At a guess you were living in the cities?
Yes 3,5 years in Montreal (I really miss that city).
I am sure that the experience is very different from Toronto and Vancouver.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
Commute time should really be considered part of work. I wouldn't be making the trip if it weren't for going to the job so why shouldn't it be considered work hours?
Because you have considerable influence over how long your commute time is. I can choose to live in a tiny apartment across the street from my job and walk to work, or I can choose a large house and drive 50 minutes to work. That's a personal decision. The worker who chooses the 50 minutes isn't entitled to anything more than the one who lives close by.
not really, once you have kids in picture its a whole different math. also the whole buying vs renting thing. to drive the seriousness of this home, Elizabeth warren did a study back when she was a prof & found that for every 10 point deviation from median in school performance house prices went up by 20 points.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#388How happy are they working that extra 25%? They are richer, sure. But I don't think being rich is an indicator of your overall state. Looking at [1], you can see that people in european countries come out on top of the happiness index. One could argue that working less is actually better for productivity and overall happiness. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/these-are-...
Happiness and even satisfaction are shallow metrics that make wanting to always take on new challenges with real risks seem like an optimization failure.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just an anecdote though. I work in the US and can come in after 10am and leave by 4pm if I want. I can work remote when I want to and have done this for a week out of state and just random weekdays. This is all on a 40hr salary that hasn't been cut. I bring my dog to work and go to lunch when I want to. I shoot the breeze with coworkers when I want to. We still get our work done. There are some times when I w…
> This is just an anecdote though. No, it is not. The guy is telling about a generic situation. And I can tell it goes the same way in Finland too. Yours is an anecdote though. You know pretty well your case is not common.
Not sure how common it is here or anywhere else based off these comments. That's the point. We now have 3 people saying they've got flexible jobs in 3 different countries. It doesn't generalize to 'everyone/most in those respective countries' from that alone. And country-pride or whatever isn't enough to sway me, sorry.
I know a number of people here that have more flexibility in their jobs than the Sweden job as described. Did I say 'generically, US is better' or anything like that? No, because maybe it's not true. Maybe you two are right.
Re: Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because you have considerable influence over how long your commute time is. I can choose to live in a tiny apartment across the street from my job and walk to work, or I can choose a large house and drive 50 minutes to work. That's a personal decision. The worker who chooses the 50 minutes isn't entitled to anything more than the one who lives close by.
not really, once you have kids in picture its a whole different math. also the whole buying vs renting thing. to drive the seriousness of this home, Elizabeth warren did a study back when she was a prof & found that for every 10 point deviation from median in school performance house prices went up by 20 points.
Yeah the amount of influence you have is very minimal, especially when you consider changing jobs, are you supposed to move each time you do? I think that is an often claimed adage (like the whole trickle down effect one) that is much less true in reality.