Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016) • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by burfog » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

boudin wrote: post #23

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…

Just so you know usa is ranked 10 in GDP. I don't think being the richest means much, but USA is not the richest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...

Nearly all of the ones ahead of the USA are clearly city-states or oil/gas sources. Both are unreasonable comparisons. The city-states could properly be compared with Manhattan. The oil/gas sources may have a high GDP, but the typical people tend to be in poverty. Ireland and Switzerland are the only clear exceptions, and both are rather small countries. Norway is an oil/gas source, but might also be an exception because things are run a bit better than they are in the typical oil/gas source.

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

#122

Post by fastball » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

lagg wrote: post #19

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 think the downvotes (that's what gray means right?) are people's way of saying that the personal narrative that defines your life is so boring that your job is the only place you can achieve feelings like that. I feel bad for you so won't downvote. But I'd suggest finding something for that narrative that doesn't coincidentally mean handing your life over to the guy you work for. He certainly won't complain that yo…

Maybe OC doesn't care about "making us Americans look good"?

Talk about emphasizing your personal narrative.

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

#123

Post by hollerith » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

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..

If the country your family and all your friends are living in ever gets bombed or invaded, you will care about military.

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

#124

Post by csydas » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

amedvednikov wrote: post #82

cpursley wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you been there? I really don’t think Russia has it figured out better than the US. Yes, I live here. Russian transportation absolutely blows anything in the US away, and I've traveled extensively in both countries. Transportation is embarrassing and frustrating for me when I come back to the US. The US is absolutely car-dependent. Russia has everything from Rail transport (trans-Siberian, etc), city subways (M…

Agreed, but I'd exclude marshrutkas from this list :) This is not something you want in a good public transportation system.

Be fair )). Marshrutki are the fastest way to get from region to region as long as you don't care about your well-being or appearance when you get there ;) When I need to get 15km across town fast in SPB rush hour I take a marshrutka.

Jokes aside, I honestly am surprised megastores haven't come up with an equivalent in the US. Last I visited my family, I was frustrated because in an admittedly small City, a walk to a grocery store that was 1 mile away as the crow flies was either a 3 mile walk on safe paths or required the car. It just seems logical to me that you can bring more people in to spend if they can actually get to your location. Uber and other taxi-likes aren't really the same because the cost for a private ride is prohibitive for some to use it regularly like you'd use a marshrutka. But surely Walmart, shopping malls/centers, and other such commerce areas would benefit from a string of vans on regular intervals just picking up and dropping people off on a direct route.

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

#125

Post by hollerith » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

geff82 wrote: post #5

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…

The cost of living in relative terms, compared to average salaries, is actually rather low. Rents, food is all really expensive judging from the numbers, but you get to keep a larger amount. Switzlerland is expensive for tourists - but for citizens not so much.

So the starting salary for software developers in Switzerland is higher than that in the US?

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

#126

Post by fastball » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

boudin wrote: post #120

fastball wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm being deliberately misleading? Have you ever looked in a mirror?

This conversation started because YOU referred to GDP PPP as just "GDP". There is a reason that "List of Countries by GDP (nominal)" and "List of Countries by GDP (PPP) per capita" are separate articles on Wikipedia.

Hint: it's because the two metrics are different, and conflating them is misleading, whether deliberate or not.

You arbitrarily deciding that the only way to measure the wealth of a nation is with GDP per capita doesn't mean you can call anyone who doesn't use that same metric (and instead uses a more common one) wrong. Again, we are talking about the wealth of a nation as a whole. Not the wealth of individual Americans.

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

#127

Post by baby » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

kartan wrote: post #62

baby wrote: post #47

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.

> These countries are laid back Have you worked in Italy or Spain? I'm Spanish and laid back at work is not a thing. The main reason I moved to Sweden is for is better work life balance. Never go to live where you go for vacations, you will be very disappointed.

No but have many friends there. It depends if you're in the north or the south. Same with Italy.

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

#128

Post by bhaak » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

eternalny1 wrote: post #59

My father worked for decades for a Fortune 100 company in the US as a manager and then worked in Switzerland for a few years. In both scenarios, he had a comfortable life. The US company provided great benefits, a pension, good work hours, and the job in Switzerland was even better. When I discuss what it's like to work in the technology sector, he doesn't understand it. 1099 contract work with extremely expensive he…

Are you keep trying because you hope for striking gold sometime or because you can't find a job that resembles the jobs your father worked?

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

#129

Post by S_A_P » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #27

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 never understood that argument - Bay Area, the (arguably) richest place on this planet is smaller then Switzerland and it's transit system is catastrophic in comparison to SBB still. I get that you can't cover Alabama with Swiss railways, but why the heck is traveling from Zurich a Swiss mountain top in the middle of nowhere still faster and more convenient than getting from SF to Mountain View?

From my perspective this is how I see mass transit in the US, and I am 100% for changing the status quo here. READ: Im for sensible, reliable and safe public transit systems by train/bus/subway/ whatever.

In Houston, there have always been proposals for hub and spoke train service from the burbs to downtown. They get shot down repeatedly, usually on grounds of imminent domain fights. High speed rail from Houston to Dallas is proposed every so often and will likely arrive on the same time scale is fusion energy. (perpetually 10 years away). Dallas is actually an example of a sane train system, and I quite enjoyed using the Dart when I worked there for 6 months a few years ago.

If you happen to use the public transit in many urban areas of the US, people don't seem to want to take care of these sorts of things, so they usually get pretty grimy and in a state of disrepair quickly. People (rightly or wrongly) fear for their safety as sometimes these trains harbor those with drug problems or other mental illness.(separate and equally important issue to work on here)

The projects that do get off the ground seem to turn into boondoggles that blow their budget 10x or more and end up serving 1/10th of the proposed areas. California comes to mind as an example of this recently. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-governor-rail/...

I admit it was impossible to glean this from my comment and it would be easy to see what I said as anti mass transit and all of the political baggage that carries with it. That isn't the case here. Pragmatically speaking, though you are misguided if you think that it is as easy to implement rail and other forms of mass transit in the US vs a small European country. That is not to say its impossible, or that other countries haven't done it. But I do stand by my statement that rail projects in Switzerland are not the same as those in the US. Its not apples to apples.

In my opinion, for this sort of thing to take off in the US, it would take a sea change in how most people view urban living. That means people will need to decide that they don't need a 4-5k sq foot home in the burbs with a 30-40 mile commute every day...

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

#130

Post by wool_gather » Sun, Jun 16, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

fizzledbits wrote: post #107

lagg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the downvotes (that's what gray means right?) are people's way of saying that the personal narrative that defines your life is so boring that your job is the only place you can achieve feelings like that. I feel bad for you so won't downvote. But I'd suggest finding something for that narrative that doesn't coincidentally mean handing your life over to the guy you work for. He certainly won't complain that yo…

Most of us 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? Is it my responsibil…

Here's one possible take on the difference of perspective.

There's a distinction to be made in the nature of the output. Feynman's physics work was investigating nature on behalf of humanity. What artists produce is spiritually/intellectually/emotionally edifying for other people. Contrast this with OP's [killing themselves to make a rich banker richer][0], or, say, working on the next addictive mobile game.

This is putting things in the strongest possible light, of course: Feynman also worked on the bomb. Artists can be navel-gazers. And some people break their backs working for a company that is "curing cancer". So it's not black and white.

[0]:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20196385