Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 186 posts

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#21

Post by deedubaya »

I used to work for the US HQ for a Swiss owned company. I worked in both offices on occasion with close interaction with both Swiss and American employees (I'm American).

This article is very spot on. What it doesn't mention much of, however, is the difference in what happens during working time. In a typical US office setting, water cooler talk, filing meaningless reports, etc is common. You'll probably have a guy who you're not really sure what he does. You simply don't see much of that in Swiss offices (at in my limited experiences, I'm sure there are exceptions). When it was time to work it was time to Fucking Work. If you're not adding value it is looked down upon. In the US, you kinda just shrug and go back to filing your TPS report.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#24

Post by dennisnedry »

deedubaya wrote: post #21

I used to work for the US HQ for a Swiss owned company. I worked in both offices on occasion with close interaction with both Swiss and American employees (I'm American). This article is very spot on. What it doesn't mention much of, however, is the difference in what happens during working time. In a typical US office setting, water cooler talk, filing meaningless reports, etc is common. You'll probably have a guy w…

This is true for large corporations, but smaller startups that is not the case. Smaller companies have everybody wearing multiple hats. Nobody sits around, and if they do, it's time to ask them to leave.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#25

Post by sleavey »

csomar wrote: post #18

In my opinion this is missing an important thing: Does the Swiss model scale? For example, the Singapore model can't scale. It's based on rich people and corporations arbitraging the international fiscal system. You can't have another Singapore without having another East Asia and West with it. Swiss is definitively a privileged place that is benefiting from the overall wealth of Europe and many other countries. We c…

There's no reason why it can't scale, but one problem in implementing this kind of system is convincing the population to accept higher taxes (and Swiss taxes are, overall, still significantly higher than the US despite what the article seems to make out). It is, ultimately a case of the government taking more of your personal wealth to provide services to society as a whole, which flies in stark contrast to the traditional US approach.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#26

Post by manarth »

Symbiote wrote: post #12
Arizhel wrote: post #9

Any time I meet or hear about someone like this, who comes back to the US after living in western Europe, I really have to wonder about them. Especially this one: she's just complaining a lot about life in America not being as great as in Switzerland. Well, that's no surprise. What did she expect? Even worse, she's just in time for Trumpism. She couldn't have picked a worse time to come back.

When she wrote the article, presumably some time before 1 February when it was published, Trump seemed a lot less likely.

The article's date says 1 February 2016, but the slug is even earlier, dated July 2015.

It popped up on HN back then, too.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#28

Post by robert_foss »

johanbrook wrote: post #11

The U.S. is very behind many European countries in the work-life balance department. It's kinda surprising that America – with its liberal policies for private companies – is so backwards when it comes to caring about their employees. The points in the article could apply to policies/norms in Sweden as well. Here, we get at least 4 weeks of paid vacation per year, as well as some insurances and a very generous parent…

> The points in the article could apply to policies/norms in Sweden as well. Here, we get at least 4 weeks of paid vacation per year

No, mandatory EU minimums enforce at least 5 weeks of vacation.

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#29

Post by izacus »

csomar wrote: post #18

In my opinion this is missing an important thing: Does the Swiss model scale? For example, the Singapore model can't scale. It's based on rich people and corporations arbitraging the international fiscal system. You can't have another Singapore without having another East Asia and West with it. Swiss is definitively a privileged place that is benefiting from the overall wealth of Europe and many other countries. We c…

Can you explain more what do you mean by the word "scale" here?

Re: Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016)

#30

Post by throwaway91111 »

chrisper wrote: post #17
cven714 wrote: post #8

Slightly off topic, but the beauty of Switzerland was such a stark contrast to where I grew up in New Jersey that it almost made me angry. All these people, going about their daily lives in Switzerland seemingly oblivious to the fairy-tale landscape around them!

Remember that people get used to the environment. People who live in the Bay Area don't care about the Golden Gate Bridge for example.

For someone out of the area, what's the big deal? I much prefer the mackinac bridge for the sights AND the bridge itself.
Post reply on HN