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The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

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Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#331

Post by lovich »

emodendroket wrote: post #286
lovich wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing median salary in Berlin with the high end in the US, and you are ignoring much of the complexities that were already mentioned such as the incredibley high cost of living in San Francisco where google and facebook pay those salaries. I'm in the Boston market and median salary for devs is around 80-90k when you include all skill levels, but every single dev I know has roommates or an hour+ commute int…

> every single dev I know has roommates or an hour+ commute into the city They should probably look for housing near a commuter rail then

I know several devs who are within a few minutes walk of a commuter rail and still deal with the hour+ commute. The best I've seen is my own 12 minute walk I had for a few months but the job didnt pay nearly enough for the rent in the same area and I had to move on to a new job, or if you get the reverse commute, but those are uncommon

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#332

Post by lovich »

emodendroket wrote: post #318
nkrisc wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the "has roommates" part. That housing is going to be more expensive.

I live in the South Shore near the commuter rail. It's pretty affordable for someone making $80k.

Do you not have student loans? A few people in my social circle managed to get out of college without them through parents paying/scholarships and they have a much different calculus than the majority of us

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#333

Post by rorykoehler »

xienze wrote: post #320
jdietrich wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visiting a foreign country is regarded as an essential rite of passage in many parts of the world. Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience. Your understanding of "normal" can shift very quickly when you get to experience being a foreigner. I can't help but think that passport ownership is one of the funda…

> Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience. Other than the currency part, we've got that in the US...

It's really not the same thing. America always feels like America. Travelling in the US is no substitute to travelling abroad.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#334

Post by d--b »

imgabe wrote: post #206
d--b wrote: post #153

This is a strangely divisive topic in the startup industry. For some reason, there are smart people who think that meritocracy works: work hard and things will be good for you. The problem is that in many cases working hard (as in building up a startup) does indeed give people the opportunity to rise in society. But it is not true in all cases at all. And so the negative statement "if you are struggling you didn't tr…

> First, in capitalism, a work's remuneration is supposed to be related in a way to the perceived utility of that work for society in general. This is a misconception, I think. A work's remuneration is related to the utility perceived by the person providing the remuneration . Society in general doesn't pay people. Specific people pay other people. Find something enough people want and give it to them. It's not any m…

That's why I wrote "supposed". In reality it's a lot more complex than that, but it is usually one argument brought forward to explain why CEOs are being paid more than the workers they manage.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#335

Post by cozicoolmail »

conanbatt wrote: post #190
alkonaut wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. This is an age old debate, and it's very hard to compare one vast continent to another. Regional differences between US cities and European cities are at least as large or larger than the difference between the avereages of US and European salaries/living standards etc. The difference between central manhattan and rural Apalachia is…

A software engineer in a startup in berlin earns maybe a median salary of 60k euros ayear at a 40% tax rate. Thats less of what interns make in the us at a 30% tax rate. An experienced engineer at google or facebook make 200k with a sizable signup bonus. As far as I know, theres no comparison between what a soft dev makes in the us and what he makes in europe. This is from someone that lives in south america, and is…

"Not to mentioned that people criticizing work-life balance of engineers in the us haven't visited google offices."

Google and other tech companies in the U.S having nice offices doesn't mean the work life balance of Googlers is something to envy. Probably the opposite actually (three meals a day makes you stay there for dinner, nap rooms to let you stay even later). Not a great work life balance.

Source: know Googlers, have been to Google offices

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#336

Post by conanbatt »

whiskers08xmt wrote: post #272
conanbatt wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A software engineer in a startup in berlin earns maybe a median salary of 60k euros ayear at a 40% tax rate. Thats less of what interns make in the us at a 30% tax rate. An experienced engineer at google or facebook make 200k with a sizable signup bonus. As far as I know, theres no comparison between what a soft dev makes in the us and what he makes in europe. This is from someone that lives in south america, and is…

Cost of living is always important to consider. Looking at this site[0] for a ballpark figure, it would seem that someone living in San Francisco needs to be earning at least the double of someone in Berlin, to afford the same standard of living. San Francisco is still a very attractive place to work as a Software Engineer, but it's not as black and white, as the huge difference in pay might make it look. [0] https:/…

Software engineers most of the time get fed by the company and i distrust, at least with my spending habits, the cost of consumer prices like clothing or gadgets being cheaper in europe than in the us.

Housing is the main difference: you can get a fairly large place in berlin, and you can have a family there. But SF is one city, there are pleny of other cities in the us more family friendly (if not any other city).

I remember recently a map showing the purchasing power by salary per state, and the biggest purchasing power was nebraska.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#337

Post by hellofunk »

readittwice wrote: post #140
hellofunk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Holland, everyone takes off 4 - 6 weeks in the summer to travel the world. This is so different than Americans: 1) In the U.S. you can work for years at a company before getting more than 1 or 2 weeks paid vacation. 2) Most Americans don't travel much outside their own state or region, let alone country. Most don't even own passports. 3) Even when not on the job, either at night, on the weekends, or on vacation, A…

Why should Americans bother to have a passport? Their country is so huge, probably more than you could visit in a lifetime. Deserts, mountains, cities, ... In Europe countries and the continent are smaller, Vienna for example literally has 3 other countries in commuting distance. It is quite obvious that you are more likely to need a passport here in Europe. A much fairer comparison would be to only count Europeans t…

Most Americans don't even travel far within their own country. The vast majority have never seen New York or San Francisco, for example. Or the Rockies, even.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#338

Post by hellofunk »

koolba wrote: post #224
jdietrich wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visiting a foreign country is regarded as an essential rite of passage in many parts of the world. Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience. Your understanding of "normal" can shift very quickly when you get to experience being a foreigner. I can't help but think that passport ownership is one of the funda…

> Visiting a foreign country is regarded as an essential rite of passage in many parts of the world. Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience. Your understanding of "normal" can shift very quickly when you get to experience being a foreigner. True but America is a wide enough place that you can have most o…

> True but America is a wide enough place that you can have most of that without leaving the continental USA.

Except that most don't make those trips around their own country.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#339

Post by xienze »

rorykoehler wrote: post #333
xienze wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being surrounded by people who speak a different language, use a different currency and have a different culture provides a very valuable life experience. Other than the currency part, we've got that in the US...

It's really not the same thing. America always feels like America. Travelling in the US is no substitute to travelling abroad.

Believe me, there are plenty of places in the US you could go where you'll say "holy shit, this is AMERICA???"

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#340

Post by hellofunk »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #181
hellofunk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Holland, everyone takes off 4 - 6 weeks in the summer to travel the world. This is so different than Americans: 1) In the U.S. you can work for years at a company before getting more than 1 or 2 weeks paid vacation. 2) Most Americans don't travel much outside their own state or region, let alone country. Most don't even own passports. 3) Even when not on the job, either at night, on the weekends, or on vacation, A…

> In Holland, everyone takes off 4 - 6 weeks in the summer to travel the world. This is so different than Americans No we don't. I have 5 weeks of holiday a year, total. I take 2 weeks around christmas. Maybe a week somewhere in Spring, that leaves 2 weeks summer holidays. Plus, you want to keep a few spare days in case you need an incidental day off for whatever reason.

Exactly, 5 weeks! That's a huge amount by American standards. And many Dutch I know do take most that time in the summer, at once.
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