Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#201

Post by wheels » Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:02 PM UTC

chrisaycock wrote: post #186

mapgrep wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason American workers say they can barely survive on $60k a year is that they pay out of pocket for things German workers can take for granted: * Comfortable retirement - 401k contributions. Yes America has social security but it's not a ton of money compared to other national pensions and if you're young you worry about it not being around at all by the time you need it. * Unemployment - You should probably ha…

And not to mention: * Healthcare - Health insurance is often a luxury in America. The elderly have Medicare, but there is (currently) no safety for most citizens. * Public transportation - Many US cities don't have adequate bus service. Just anyone who lives outside NYC or a college town will need a car.

You guys are doing it again -- idealizing the other side of the fence as if everything was all rainbows and unicorns in Europe.

In Germany and many European countries, you pay for healthcare and it costs a lot -- you simply don't have the option of not having healthcare and the cost is proportional to your income rather than your health condition. Also note that the employee caries the full cost of health insurance as opposed to the employer usually covering it in skilled professions in the US.

The social security model is also somewhat similar: you pay (high) social security taxes and get money back based your contributions.

Unemployment, also like in the US, is pretty sane if you're a full-time employee and are fired. You don't get it for several months if you quit on your own and if you haven't payed unemployment taxes, you get put on unemployment that's just at the edge of livable (housing costs + about $500/month).

And note, those taxes come after the lower salary. A pretty common take-home salary for a European software developer would be $3000-4000/month.

And really, how many 20-somethings that complain about the cost of living are doing it because they're stashing away too much in their retirement fund?

Public transit is a valid one, but then, the two highest paid areas for software developers in the US, New York and San Francisco, also have quite good public transit. (Not to mention that a one-month pass costs $100-200/month depending on the area.)

The truth is that I've heard people say that while they eat out every day, have a new car every couple years, live in swanky places and spend money on a constant stream of new gadgets. Americans also have a weird fetish that you don't find other places about buying homes in their 20s. While there are some valid reasons that make the total cost of living in Europe comparatively lower, I'm really not convinced that's the core of the difference. It's just that people quickly grow into their incomes and start seeing things as essential that aren't.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#202

Post by ronaldj » Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:02 PM UTC

nolok wrote: post #182

wheels wrote: post #141

This was one of the major draws for me for moving to Europe in my early 20s (from the US). After working one year in the US and having one week of vacation, it was bordering on surreal to have 6. That said, most Americans wouldn't like the European pay scales. While a developer gets 3-6 times the vacation in Germany, they make half as much money. For me it was a great trade; I still had a middle class income and spen…

Question to non-french here, does your advertised salary include the employer's tax ? For exemple here in France, on the salary my employer pays, it's divided pretty much like this: 40% employer's taxes, 20% employee's taxes, 40% final amount of money you put in the bank when all is said and done. BUT my negociated salary, the one I signed on, never included employer's taxes, so for a 100€ salary I never discussed 10…

In the US advertised salaries don't include personal income tax (local and federal), insurance, social security, medicare, 401k, and any other fees you might incur.

At the top of your paycheck you would see your 'advertised' earnings for that period and then at the bottom you have your take home net pay. Depending on your location, you loose around 20% of your 'advertised' pay to taxes and other mandatory things. If you contribute to a 401K you loose even more.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#203

Post by jasonkester » Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:04 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #165

jasonkester wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about your choice of words up there, and you might just come up with your solution. Force. As in, my employer is forcing me to take shorter vacations. My employer is forcing me to work my vacations around their schedule. That's not what he's doing. He's coercing you. It's different. He's implying that if you take the vacation you want, there might not be a job waiting when you get back. The answer to that is "f…

> "Quit thinking in those terms and you'll live a much happier life." I agree in principle, but it's not always so simple. When you're young, have no kids, no mortgage, no car loan, etc, it's pretty easy to just say "fuck off, see ya" when your employer acts abusively. When you have all of the above, that becomes more difficult. Relocating is more often than not the norm in this industry, and you don't exactly want t…

For what it's worth, I'm pushing 40 and have a house and kid, and I wrote the comment you're replying to.

I don't consider losing my job to be traumatic in any way. It's nearly impossible to find good developers, so if you have a bit of skill you don't ever need to worry about the consequences of being unemployed.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#204

Post by rmc » Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:04 PM UTC

theBobMcCormick wrote: post #44

joezydeco wrote: post #10

I'm wondering how much of it is because people neglect to negotiate their vacation time when changing jobs. Most American workplaces start you out with 2 weeks and then usually add a week or so after so many years of seniority. When you change jobs, how many of you ask for that same amount of vacation time at the new company? Or do you just accept that you're new and don't want to push things by asking for more at th…

I've got a co-worker who negotiated extra time of when he started here (3 weeks instead of the normal 2). Normally, we get an extra week of vacation after 5 years of employment. Unfortunately, they screwed him out of it because he already had 3 weeks, which is the normal amount for someone with 5 years of tenure. :-(

So if he worked there for 10 years he would have gotten 10 x 3 = 30 weeks holiday, however had he not negotiated he would have gotten 5 x 2 + 5 x 3 = 25 weeks.

I cannot see how you consider that he got a bad deal.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#205

Post by zdw » Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:05 PM UTC

orijing wrote: post #198

zdw wrote: post #3

One result of this is that businesses chuck human redundancy out the window. Often there's only one person who can do a business critical task, and as they can't really be gone from work for that long, the business gets by. From an business uptime perspective, forced "downtime" of employees through vacation is actually a good way to force the creation of backup systems for business process.

That really makes me think though: If they chucked redundancy out the window, that makes you the only person who can do a business critical task. Shouldn't that give you enormous leverage to negotiate with your employer? It often takes a lot of time and effort to get someone new up to your level. If they can't afford another couple weeks of vacation for you (in exchange for you staying on board instead of having to b…

Replacement cost is often quite high for any employee, even someone working a basic job, as training is expensive.

Thus why many employers don't do training other than the bare minimum - why train someone who might use the training to go elsewhere. This is the "keep them dumb and stupid" approach to employee retention.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#206

Post by fady » Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:13 PM UTC

american - working for a company i love, but i find it hard to even write long articles on HN because of the fear of "slacking"..i would love to elaborate more and explain why im slowing starting my own web design co for my traveling laptop days i so dream about....

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#207

Post by geebee » Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:15 PM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #191

brown9-2 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until today I have never heard of a US company forcing employee's to use "forced shutdown" days - which I'm interpreting to mean the company telling people they have off on a certain day - as vacation days, and this is the second time (at least) it's been mentioned in this thread. How common is this exactly? Because this sounds like a company that is really, really screwing it's employees.

There are two types. The 'shutdown', or technically in my companies case the 'plant shutdown', and the 'furlough' day. At my company, the factory has 7,000 employees in one location. So many people took vacation between Christmas and New Years that the factory simply can not operate. The solution was either to only give that time off for a select group of people (pissing off most of the factory guys), or to make ever…

I was very bummed that Sun forced me to take off the week of 4th of july for the same reason. I wanted to take a week in San Diego at the beach. That's crowded any time in the summer, but after labor day, when school resumes, the weather is actually nicer in early fall (they call it "june gloom" in san diego, coastal fog is still common in early-mid summer), rentals are way easier to get, and hotel prices drop dramatically. Instead, Sun was forcing me to take my beach week at the most expensive and slightly less desirable time of year. And when you only get two weeks at all, that's pretty crappy.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#208

Post by dsmithn » Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:16 PM UTC

wheels wrote: post #141

This was one of the major draws for me for moving to Europe in my early 20s (from the US). After working one year in the US and having one week of vacation, it was bordering on surreal to have 6. That said, most Americans wouldn't like the European pay scales. While a developer gets 3-6 times the vacation in Germany, they make half as much money. For me it was a great trade; I still had a middle class income and spen…

I've managed to get the best of both worlds, working for a German company in America. 28 paid days off, plus 7 holidays.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#209

Post by gaius » Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:17 PM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #181

Silhouette wrote: post #88

The thing I find most interesting about this discussion is that we have not yet seen anyone from the US proudly claiming that by working harder they are more productive than the rest of us. I have seen similar conversations several times on various on-line forums in the past, and there was always a defensive/proud mindset from a significant group, even as those of us outside the US wondered if they realised how much…

It's a death spiral. Work harder / longer - shift to extreme right-wing politics - slowly lose status as the "greatest nation in the world" - grit your teeth and work even harder / longer...

Left wing/right wing is a ridiculous argument. How much vacation do they get in North Korean factories?

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#210

Post by chrisaycock » Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:18 PM UTC

wheels wrote: post #201

chrisaycock wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not to mention: * Healthcare - Health insurance is often a luxury in America. The elderly have Medicare, but there is (currently) no safety for most citizens. * Public transportation - Many US cities don't have adequate bus service. Just anyone who lives outside NYC or a college town will need a car.

You guys are doing it again -- idealizing the other side of the fence as if everything was all rainbows and unicorns in Europe. In Germany and many European countries, you pay for healthcare and it costs a lot -- you simply don't have the option of not having healthcare and the cost is proportional to your income rather than your health condition. Also note that the employee caries the full cost of health insurance a…

You guys are doing it again -- idealizing the other side of the fence as if everything was all rainbows and unicorns in Europe.

I used to live in Britain. After having gone to doctor a few times there, I'd rather have the customer-pays model of America. I was just pointing-out that it's (obviously) expensive over here.