281–290 of 404 posts
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I guess that's another quality of life perk of working outside the US :)
Well, I'd say the opposite... Here you'd be making more money.
In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, f…
I believe most people would watch TV, play cards, play video games. This is what they already do with their spare time, there's no reason to believe there wouldn't be more of it.
It's amazing what a 'schedule' and 'working with others' and 'requirements' and 'deadlines' can do - it brings people to life and is probably the only way hard things get done.
For a certain kind of person, some free time would lead to a lot of exploration but for most people it would not.
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I like the idea of working less, but it's going to be hard to use Germany as a poster child. The German economy hasn't been doing to great recently. In my opinion it's largely due to carrying lagging EU economies, but it will be hard to use a struggling economy as a positive indicator Germany: https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-growth US: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
GDP growth is not indicative of a higher standard of living. It just means more things are part of the economy. If I grow my own food and play board games with my family, it doesn't boost the GDP. However, if I go to MacDonald's and then send my kids to daycare while I go to the movies (3 economic transactions), it increases the GDP since those services are now commoditized. Increasing the GDP might boost the standar…
Whoa there, GDP is absolutely correlated to the standard of living, this is not contentious. That it's not a direct measure, true, but it's definitely 'a' measure. Moreover, growth or contraction in per-capita GDP in a nation is definitely correlated with increasing/reduced economic prosperity even in 'rich' countries. Yes, many things are 'not measured' particularly leisure, but most things of material value are. The GDP is one of the 'least bad' measures we have.
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I live in NYC, and I have a roughly 1 hour commute each way, but I just take the train everywhere. Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that taking a train to work is a lot less stressful than driving every day. At least on the train, I can read, or pull out my laptop, or just play a video game.
I had the same experience when I lived in NYC. A 45 minute commute on the subway was a lot less stressful than the 45 minute bumper-to-bumper driving commute I do now (in Seattle). I would usually play mindless puzzle games and listen to music on my commute. Other people mention the train delays being stressful, but my company had a standing "subway delays ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" attitude about showing up late. People would show…
Spent a lot of money on REALLY good rain gear and averaged almost 8K mi a year for the four of the five years we were up there. As long as I wasn’t stopped in traffic I felt even more relaxed getting a good motorcycle ride in every morning and being actively zoned out (focused on now instead of life) vs taking the train and being passively zones out with media.
Now that I’m 4mi from my office, come home a few times a week and say hi to the wife at lunch, etc. I will also never go back to anything resembling a commute.
I can't begin to explain how much less stress I encounter in day to day life having just one week day to stay home. Just having a day to be able to easily knock out chores between Jira issues; drop the car off at the dealer, sell something on craigslist, complete a house project, go to the dentist, meet the handyman, go to the bank, etc is so nice. All of these things wind up on the back burner when I'm in the middle…
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Well, I'd say the opposite... Here you'd be making more money.
I admit to being blissfully ignorant regarding financial matters but isn't 50% less work while earning 33% less (as opposed to 50%) a good thing?
If you actually paid less in taxes on _every_ dollar by dropping a bracket, then you'd have been making more all along in a progressive system. Are you certain that was the case? Just curious.
I introduced "work from home Wednesday" at our company and the reduction in stress is palpable. Hell, I sleep better on Tuesday nights knowing I've got a day of silence lined up. The naysayers quickly fell in line too, once they realized how much more they could get done that day.
Why Wednesday though?
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GDP growth is not indicative of a higher standard of living. It just means more things are part of the economy. If I grow my own food and play board games with my family, it doesn't boost the GDP. However, if I go to MacDonald's and then send my kids to daycare while I go to the movies (3 economic transactions), it increases the GDP since those services are now commoditized. Increasing the GDP might boost the standar…
"GDP growth is not indicative of a higher standard of living. " Whoa there, GDP is absolutely correlated to the standard of living, this is not contentious. That it's not a direct measure, true, but it's definitely 'a' measure. Moreover, growth or contraction in per-capita GDP in a nation is definitely correlated with increasing/reduced economic prosperity even in 'rich' countries. Yes, many things are 'not measured'…
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I agree that it's hard for some people (managers) to see a relaxed, happy person and believe that they're also totally productive. I don't blame them either; I feel like the image of overly-caffeinated, stressed-out people is embedded in our collective consciousness as representative of High Productivity and our lizard brains can't seem to be able to reconcile that with the data that is saying "relaxed people who mak…
>I feel like the image of overly-caffeinated, stressed-out people is embedded in our collective consciousness as representative of High Productivity Don't forget about the over prescription of amphetamines. I knew I was in a bad place when all the "high performers" (according to management) all had darting eye, chewed gum all day, and were underweight/never ate during the work day.