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

41–50 of 207 posts

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

#41

Post by bhaak »

S_A_P wrote: post #8

Transportation is the biggest difference between the us and a lot of the rest of the world. Switzerland is the size of a small New England state. Mass transit is a tough thing to scale. That said I’ve noticed that a lot of the jobs in the us that would be considered “glamorous” are by and large the lowest paying jobs with the longest hours. Looking past the status of a company and career and looking into the practica…

> Transportation is the biggest difference between the us and a lot of the rest of the world. Switzerland is the size of a small New England state. Mass transit is a tough thing to scale.

I don't buy this argument. "We are much bigger than $OTHER_COUNTRY therefore we can't have comparable public transport".

I concur that for the whole country this might be a viable argument but it doesn't explain why the public transport in metropolitan areas are also often not good at all.

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

#42

Post by fizzledbits »

mruts wrote: post #7
llamataboot wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's okay, you can sub most any country in Europe in, and still end up with a much more sane work culture than the US.

Many people (including myself), don't want a laid back work culture. I want to kill myself for the firm, and work as hard as humanly possible. I think I just derive the most happiness from working (though I do like drinking as well). I know a lot of other people like this. Maybe you can call us brainwashed or whatever, but this is how myself and most of my co-workers are. I don't think it's an accident that America i…

I and my closet colleagues have the same attitude and can’t exactly say where it comes from. I feel incredibly lucky that my work is capable of fascinating me, and I want to become as good at it as I’m capable of being.

A big part of that is the subject matter, and getting to work with (build software tools for) artists and sound designers. It probably helps that the work is a well rounded social-creative-technical experience much of the time. Once I stopped seeing myself as a repository of generic, commoditized skills for sale, and found an actual purpose, the sort of ‘employee mentality’ I used to have vanished and my relationship to work became simpler and more gratifying...and I work a lot harder. And yes, I also get paid a lot more, although that came later and I don’t regard that as a requirement - would much sooner give up the money than the passion. I’ve seen a similar transition happen in others.

To some of the downvoters: we all admire artists and musicians who have totally devoted themselves to their craft, and we don’t condescendingly pity their “unhealthy work life balance”. My hero growing up was Feynman, who was doing physics every waking hour (or so I’ve read). It’s not like his estate is going to reap the economic benefits of his work; so was Feynman a pitiful sucker, abused by his university employers? Why does someone else’s ambition anger you so much?

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

#43

Post by EliRivers »

mruts wrote: post #7
llamataboot wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's okay, you can sub most any country in Europe in, and still end up with a much more sane work culture than the US.

Many people (including myself), don't want a laid back work culture. I want to kill myself for the firm, and work as hard as humanly possible. I think I just derive the most happiness from working (though I do like drinking as well). I know a lot of other people like this. Maybe you can call us brainwashed or whatever, but this is how myself and most of my co-workers are. I don't think it's an accident that America i…

as a highly ambitious person who wants to win no matter the cost

This seems at odds with "I want to kill myself for the firm, and work as hard as humanly possible". That is losing, not winning.

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

#44

Post by markbnj »

falsedan wrote: post #30

I recently moved from working for a US company to working for a CH one. There’s some disadvantages, like people not giving their all at work slowing things down. Compared to the previous role, it’s glacial. But no on call, 6 weeks vacation, and 8% pension contribution from the company that I don’t even have to match is a good trade-off. Work is always going to be frustrating, but I’m at a point in my life that I’d ra…

> There’s some disadvantages, like people not giving their all at work slowing things down. Compared to the previous role, it’s glacial.

Maybe they've figured out that getting work done as fast as possible isn't the end goal of all human existence.

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

#45

Post by boudin »

Reedx wrote: post #9

Is Switzerland producing anything like SpaceX? Or Google? Or Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Tesla, Stripe, Y Combinator? More importantly, would we have produced these with their system? If so, then great, but let's see the evidence. No problem to have a work culture preference, and things could definitely be improved(!!), but I think we're kidding ourselves that there are no tradeoffs and everything would simply be better.…

After moving from a small city in France to London, I definitely miss Sundays with all store being closed. It's a good break.

Why Switzerland would need a SpaceX, Apple and Google? For the last 2 I would be happier if they wouldn't exists, having more of those would be quite bad :D

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

#46

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

kyledrake wrote: post #2

Sure, but it's also really expensive to live in Switzerland. Not factoring in the cost of living over there is pretty disingenuous. And it's going to be a serious project to get residency there if you're not a Swiss citizen. Edit: This is not an opinion, cost of living in Switzerland is highest in the world, twice as high as in the US. Even if you make twice as much money, you're basically making the same amount. And…

>Not factoring in the cost of living over there is pretty disingenuous.

A Vox article not showing the whole picture... you don’t say! ;)

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

#47

Post by baby »

I personally find Switzerland boring and expensive. And I'm not sure your work culture is going to be that different if you work at Google or another tech company.

If I go back to Europe I would go to Portugal or Italy or Spain. These countries are laid back, cheap, have good weather and good food. What else do you want?

London and some cities in France like Bordeaux or Montpellier are insanely fun too.

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

#48

Post by hiram112 »

Tomte wrote: post #12
mruts wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people (including myself), don't want a laid back work culture. I want to kill myself for the firm, and work as hard as humanly possible. I think I just derive the most happiness from working (though I do like drinking as well). I know a lot of other people like this. Maybe you can call us brainwashed or whatever, but this is how myself and most of my co-workers are. I don't think it's an accident that America i…

> I don't think it's an accident that America is the most rich and powerful country in the world. Or that American Tech dominant the world (except for China) You were the winners of a World War that left your competitors in scorched ruins, while you hadn't suffered much physical damage. In the multi-stranded bundle of reasons for American dominance, this is the big one.

America had the largest economy in the world after our civil war in 1860s.

WW2 left us as one of two superpowers, but we have been highly productive for a while, and a lot of that is due to our 'protestant work ethic' that keeps us wealthy but also overworked.

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

#49

Post by eps »

kyledrake wrote: post #2

Sure, but it's also really expensive to live in Switzerland. Not factoring in the cost of living over there is pretty disingenuous. And it's going to be a serious project to get residency there if you're not a Swiss citizen. Edit: This is not an opinion, cost of living in Switzerland is highest in the world, twice as high as in the US. Even if you make twice as much money, you're basically making the same amount. And…

US and Canadian citizens can get Permit C (unconditional residency permit) after 5 years on Permit B (employment-bound permit). Citizenship is 5 more years after that. For EU citizens I think it's even simpler. For all other countries it's 10+10 years.

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

#50

Post by H8crilA »

falsedan wrote: post #30

I recently moved from working for a US company to working for a CH one. There’s some disadvantages, like people not giving their all at work slowing things down. Compared to the previous role, it’s glacial. But no on call, 6 weeks vacation, and 8% pension contribution from the company that I don’t even have to match is a good trade-off. Work is always going to be frustrating, but I’m at a point in my life that I’d ra…

What's the deal with people putting 120% efforts at work. It's clear that this is not necessary (for example - Switzerland is just fine). Put a steady 60-80% and bump it up to 100% when things get rough. I truly don't get it, sometimes it feels like people simply want to spend lives at work rather than do something else.
Post reply on HN