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

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

#111

Post by krooj »

ryaniscool wrote: post #93
jjcm wrote: post #28

I've experienced a lot of these things since leaving the bay area and moving to Australia. The thing that surprised me most was similar to point #3 - in Australia the less fortunate are taken care of. One big mental drain I had in America was when my friends were sick but could do nothing about it. I had a roommate in Seattle who had severe dental problems and chronic tooth pain, but could do nothing about it because…

Same experience and background as you. I worked for Atlassian in Sydney from 2008-2013. I found Australia to be a relative Utopia compared to the USA. After traveling around to other countries and living in Australia, then coming home, I realized that America is one of the most indoctrinated cultures I've experienced. We're indoctrinated with the idea of our own superiority. We can't see how much better other countri…

I currently live/work in the Bay Area, but am a Canadian ex-pat. Over the past year, I've had a series of health-related issues which have me chomping at the bit to either move back to Canada or another country which has a sane healthcare system. The issue with the states isn't just that you might go bankrupt over medical bills, I've found that there's also a huge disparity in quality of care. Back in Canada, you'd get the right care for your issue, cost be damned; however, in the states, the quality of care might also depend on who you have access to, per your insurance, which is royally fucked up. Its implicitly correlating the value of human life with earnings - better job? Better insurance.

There's more to life than base pay, stocks, and toys you can buy, and the Bay Area has proven to be one big trap and a lie, so over the next year or two, I'll be planning my escape to another country, be it back home, Australia, or somewhere in Europe.

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

#112

Post by caymanjim »

CPLX wrote: post #67
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…

I live in the wealthiest and most successful city in the history of world civilization and I can’t take a fucking train to any of the three massive airports. In fact recently at LaGuardia it’s been so dysfunctional that’s it’s impossible to be picked up by cars. Meanwhile, not too long ago I was in Lucerne, where I got on a train and then got off an hour or two later 100 feet from the check in counter at Zurich airpo…

Other than LaGuardia sucking all around, this complaint is completely invalid. You can take multiple subway lines directly to JFK from Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. I do it myself all the time. You can take the E from Manhattan directly to the AirTran in under an hour. You can get there from Queens and Brooklyn even faster. NJ Transit trains (which you can get from midtown Manhattan) go directly to a Newark Airport monorail.

Mass transit in NYC has problems, but it's one of the most connected places on earth.

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

#113

Post by fastball »

boudin wrote: post #103
fastball wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really not very good at this. GDP per capita is not the same as GDP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

To remind you, it's a post about working in another country, the GDP makes even less sense in this context if you don't put it per capita.

You were presumably responding to "America is the most rich and powerful country in the world", since that is the only relevant portion of the comment you replied to where interjecting a comment about GDP would make any sense at all.

The US, as a nation, has the highest GDP, and therefore is the wealthiest nation in the world. The individual wealth of Americans is lower than some other countries (but not many), but that is hardly relevant in a discussion about the wealthiest country. If OC had said "Americans are the richest people in the world", you would be right. But OC did not, and being deliberately obtuse does not change that.

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

#114

Post by fastball »

F_r_k wrote: post #108
fastball wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highest GDP + most powerful military doesn't cut it for you?

Who care about military ? So you can launch some rockets and kill each other ? Lame.. Some of the American people can't even go to the hospital..

Military is generally how most people qualify the power of a nation (what we're discussing).

I've never heard anyone try to measure "power" as "how many people can pay their hospital bills", but nice non sequitur. And that is me being generous with what you said. Literally every American can go to a hospital (of which there are very many) whenever they want. The debt they will incur from such a visit is where the controversy lies. But back to measuring "power" with medical coverage: do you seriously consider Singapore to be more powerful than China? Because per capita, Singaporeans get better medical care than Chinese.

Sounds like you want to measure "individual prosperity" or something, but I'm afraid that isn't what was said. This sub-thread is about whether the US as a nation is the wealthiest (check) and the most powerful (check).

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

#115

Post by Reedx »

jjuhl wrote: post #69

So the USA is fucked up when it comes to work/life balance and the US has no social system worth anything. Who knew? Well, we all knew. The US has been the laughing stock of the world for decades and the only ones who haven't noticed are the americans. No news here.

> The US has been the laughing stock of the world for decades and the only ones who haven't noticed are the americans.

Right, it's not like the world has benefited at all from modern innovations from the US. Like the Internet or the US' contributions to medical science and technology or humanitarian efforts. And why they're not using Google, iPhones or Android devices, watching American movies, etc.

Also please explain why so many have bothered to immigrate to the US in a bid to improve their lives? You think they moved to the laughing stock when they were already in a better situation? Your claim is insulting to American immigrants.

It's also worth noting that over half of unicorn startups and Fortune 500 have immigrant founders. The system is working better than most and has helped the entire world in concrete ways. Does it have flaws? Absolutely. Huge flaws. But let's aim to improve it, not throw the baby out with the bath water.

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

#116

Post by klipt »

Reedx wrote: post #115
jjuhl wrote: post #69

So the USA is fucked up when it comes to work/life balance and the US has no social system worth anything. Who knew? Well, we all knew. The US has been the laughing stock of the world for decades and the only ones who haven't noticed are the americans. No news here.

> The US has been the laughing stock of the world for decades and the only ones who haven't noticed are the americans. Right, it's not like the world has benefited at all from modern innovations from the US. Like the Internet or the US' contributions to medical science and technology or humanitarian efforts. And why they're not using Google, iPhones or Android devices, watching American movies, etc. Also please expla…

> Then please explain why so many have bothered to immigrate here and started hugely successful companies?

Because the US has cheap labor (read: low pay) compared to Switzerland?

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

#117

Post by erikpukinskis »

chrisseaton wrote: post #70
H8crilA wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why do so many technology breakthroughs and successful companies get founded in the US, compared to Europe, then? Why do so many Europeans go off to work for US companies? There must be something beneficial about the US approach.

Do more Europeans go off to work for US companies than vice versa? I’m not up on the stats.

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

#118

Post by erikpukinskis »

red_admiral wrote: post #109

There's a lot to like here, but > The Swiss have a culture of professional part-time work ... Coincidentally, this is the very day that one of the top stories on Swiss broadsheet Tages Anzeiger is about how more people would like to work part-time, but can't because of family commitments: https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/sonntagszeitung/nur-8-prozent-d... EDIT: to quote for example "Rund drei Viertel der Eltern mit Vollz…

That seems fine to me? The point of part time work is that you can choose between money or time.

In the US there is no choice, generally speaking, as a coder. You can get $120k for 40 hours, but there aren’t many $60k for 20 hours jobs available. You have to freelance basically which is 3 years up front hustle.

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

#119

Post by hollerith »

EGreg wrote: post #54
Tomte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

How about taking over an entire continent from the natives, sharing a language and federal government that led to only ONE (count em) war on the continent in 300 years, and so on. Read Stratfor’s “inevitable empire” series on USA: https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/geopolitics-united-st...

I agree with your comment and also recommend the linked pages, but I think you have to count the American revolutionary war as a war, too.

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

#120

Post by boudin »

fastball wrote: post #113
boudin wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To remind you, it's a post about working in another country, the GDP makes even less sense in this context if you don't put it per capita.

You were presumably responding to "America is the most rich and powerful country in the world", since that is the only relevant portion of the comment you replied to where interjecting a comment about GDP would make any sense at all. The US, as a nation, has the highest GDP, and therefore is the wealthiest nation in the world. The individual wealth of Americans is lower than some other countries (but not many), but t…

I'm gonna stop answering because you're being misleading on purpose, but you can't say the USA is the richest because people in other countries are laid back worker when the GDP per capita is lower than the other mentionned country. It means that there's just more people but that they are quite "less productive" (i personnaly think that's it's a stupid way to judge people productivity though, i just responded to this comment because the author belief was wrong)
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