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

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

#61

Post by cjsthompson »

blfr wrote: post #41

"Driving Bentleys ruined me for BMWs and their poor make quality" Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US. Not even Switzerland's neighbours (Italy, France, Germany) with people coming from the same populations can reproduce it. All these great states are tiny (8M people) outliers. There are more people enjoying work-life balance in America than al…

France and Germany have a higher standard of living than the U.S. In fact except Greece, Italy and Spain all European countries have a higher standard of living than the U.S.. Face it you are the third world compared to Europe. Ooooh, those poor little jingoistic feewings are butthurt... :D

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

#62

Post by liquidwax »

simonw wrote: post #8

This appears to be copy and pasted straight from http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-b... - this link should point there instead.

That's the first line in the link. It says "From VOX" and links to the vox article.

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

#63

Post by alkonaut »

sampo wrote: post #51
jkot wrote: post #27

I think article skips anything negative. For start "lunch hour" is mandatory and in reality it means you spend extra hour at work. I would rather spend a hour with my kid than eating with my boss. Second the taxation leaves various compulsory "contributions": social, pension, wealth, tv, petrol etc. It is not 5% but more likely 50% of average salary. And third, I have totally different experience with american compan…

> For start "lunch hour" is mandatory and in reality it means you spend extra hour at work. I would rather spend a hour with my kid than eating with my boss. Her boss invited her to lunch for one time, just to demonstrate that lunch is supposed to be (in Switzerland) something else than eating a sandwich at your desk. If you read 4 sentences further, there is: "When I was on maternity leave, my husband came home for…

Taking the lunch break isn't optional however. Not sure exactly but I think I'm required to have a 40-45 min lunch break, which doesn't count towards my daily 8h of work.

In practice as I'm in a white collar job with flexible hours, this doesn't matter so much. I count as work when I check my email while commuting. If I take a lunch at my desk because something needs to be fixed, I count it as work. Simple as that.

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

#64

Post by rhino369 »

airza wrote: post #26
rsync wrote: post #13

In Europe, many, many people were essentially slaves. They were property of a small class of landed gentry who ruled over them with, at best, patriarchal indifference and at worst homicidal, spiteful authoritarianism. They were peasants. Then, over the course of about 200 years, some of these gentry got their heads chopped off or were stripped of their papal lands or were rounded up and put in front of a firing squad…

what? America had an actual slave class. Also indentured servants.

But the freed slaves were a disenfranchised minority and only shaped culture a little bit. When slaves were still in bondage, the European immigrants could go west for free and cheap land.

The cheap land and lack of landed gentry created a culture that values entrepreneurship. Even today America LOVES rags to riches stories.

You can also see that the black community today is considerably more liberal than the general population.

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

#65

Post by rsync »

gpcz wrote: post #50
rsync wrote: post #13

In Europe, many, many people were essentially slaves. They were property of a small class of landed gentry who ruled over them with, at best, patriarchal indifference and at worst homicidal, spiteful authoritarianism. They were peasants. Then, over the course of about 200 years, some of these gentry got their heads chopped off or were stripped of their papal lands or were rounded up and put in front of a firing squad…

If there isn't already an intricate system of landed class and privilege, who are "these folks over here" that give the money for the welfare and benefits?

The answer is "all of us", or at least in the very level and equal society that existed post-WW2.

As outcomes become less equal, a smaller and smaller proportion of individuals foot that bill. We should expect that as that intensifies, some of those folks are going to look around and start asking where their hereditary and class privileges are.

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

#66

Post by Vespasian »

blfr wrote: post #41

"Driving Bentleys ruined me for BMWs and their poor make quality" Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US. Not even Switzerland's neighbours (Italy, France, Germany) with people coming from the same populations can reproduce it. All these great states are tiny (8M people) outliers. There are more people enjoying work-life balance in America than al…

Well at least having 20+ days of paid vacation and (compard to the US) cheap health care is a thing in many european countries

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

#67

Post by dalke »

rsync wrote: post #38
airza wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what? America had an actual slave class. Also indentured servants.

Nobody would dispute or ignore that - of course that occurred to me when writing the original comment. I stand by my analysis since American slaves were (at the time) a small minority of the country that existed in a fraction of the geography and lasted for less than 90 years after 1776. No portion of americans were "systematically enslaved and disenfranchised for ... 2000 years" and no majority (or even large plural…

Sweden, Norway, and Finland did not have serfdom.

If your analysis is correct, shouldn't there be a large difference in the social welfare systems between those them and the Nordic countries with serfdom-like systems; the Danish stavnsbånd, from 1733 to 1788, and the Icelandic vistarband, from 1490 until 1894?, or between the Nordic countries and, say, The Netherlands?

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

#68

Post by notforeal »

cjsthompson wrote: post #61
blfr wrote: post #41

"Driving Bentleys ruined me for BMWs and their poor make quality" Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US. Not even Switzerland's neighbours (Italy, France, Germany) with people coming from the same populations can reproduce it. All these great states are tiny (8M people) outliers. There are more people enjoying work-life balance in America than al…

France and Germany have a higher standard of living than the U.S. In fact except Greece, Italy and Spain all European countries have a higher standard of living than the U.S.. Face it you are the third world compared to Europe. Ooooh, those poor little jingoistic feewings are butthurt... :D

As someone who lived in Portugal...nope

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

#69

Post by kuschku »

airza wrote: post #26
rsync wrote: post #13

In Europe, many, many people were essentially slaves. They were property of a small class of landed gentry who ruled over them with, at best, patriarchal indifference and at worst homicidal, spiteful authoritarianism. They were peasants. Then, over the course of about 200 years, some of these gentry got their heads chopped off or were stripped of their papal lands or were rounded up and put in front of a firing squad…

what? America had an actual slave class. Also indentured servants.

The medieval peasants were slaves, too – legally they were owned by their landlord.

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

#70

Post by MHordecki »

Locke1689 wrote: post #7
intrasight wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very expensive

Compared to San Francisco, or Oklahoma?

Rent is cheaper than SF. Average going rate for a 1 bedroom apt. in places like Zurich is slightly less than 2k (this includes utilites).

You can save big time by not having to use a car. Switzerland has an excellent public transport system. This also gives you a lot of freedom in terms of where you want to live (which also influences rent prices). There's an ubiquitous Zipcar-like service.

Imported goods are usually the same price as the rest of Europe ("Swiss" markup is offset by lower VAT most of the time).

Everyday goods such as food are much, much more expensive, though. Expect to pay about 20-25 CHF for a meal in a "hole-in-the-wall" kind of place. For a nice evening out for two, add a zero to this. Groceries cost accordingly, chicken breast go for 13-20 CHF per pound for example.

Still not the most expensive place I've lived in, so I can't complain.

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