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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)

#101

Post by RUG3Y »

santaclaus wrote: post #71
Strom wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before anyone thinks Switzerland is some bastion of democracy, I'd like to point out that they've been very conservative in some areas. Women didn't have federal voting rights until 1971, and received nation-wide local voting rights fairly recently in 1991. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_Switzerlan...

There is also a fair amount of xenophobia inherent in the Swiss national identity. I know Germans who have lived there for 10+ years and are still considered outsiders.

Preserving a distinctly Swiss culture and society is what allows them to remain successful.

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

#102

Post by drdeadringer »

nwomack wrote: post #16
petercooper wrote: post #6

But in Switzerland, my husband's company gave employees six weeks of vacation a year. And yet, I find people get used to it and consider it normal rather than a great thing. I give my employees 36 days of paid vacation per year (7.2 weeks) and, yep, got complaints the other day when I suggested making December 22nd a mandatory holiday day(!) :-)

I think the complaint here (if I understand you correctly) is that you are giving a vacation day and then making a certain day mandatory to use it. This practice is common among companies and extremely infuriating and in my opinion should be illegal. Better to have 35 days paid and make december 22nd a company holiday.

My first "real" job out of university had this. Every time I looked at how much PTO I had, I had to remember that it was dupe because I had to knock off Federal holidays in order to calculate how much PTO I could actually use whenever I wanted.

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

#103

Post by myhrvold »

anotherboffin wrote: post #54
musha68k wrote: post #37

Somewhat expected in the more conservative midwest (the author is comparing her Zürich experience with living in Chicago) but apparently "unlimited vacation" seems to become increasingly common in the Bay Area at least.

Unlimited vacation sounds nice, but from what little I read on it, it wasn't really unlimited. Rather, it seems to be based on what's acceptable at your workplace and how much work you can get done. Hopefully someone with first-hand experience or more knowledge will elaborate a bit on this.

Yes -- unlimited vacation is a perk of flexibility rather than number of days off.

Since you're responsible for getting your work done, you can take any manner of time off provided that the results hold up. This past year, I prolly tallied anywhere from 4-6 weeks off, technically speaking. Unplugged though, a handful of days at most. (Otherwise, mostly on vacay but maybe a few hrs worth of work a day sprinkled in morning / evening.)

Because I own my area of work + results though, during decent chunks of this time I still answer emails when I can, try to unblock people etc. So it means that I get to travel more and see other places, or work in other offices (would say 'remote' here but some are in places like NYC & Seattle so hardly remote in that sense of the word!)

Then, when I am around town in San Francisco, I make a point to check in with people in person, often through the evenings. And work part of the time on Sat/Sun to unblock people if I need to review or provide someone else the context to do so.

For my role I have made this work and love it, but this unlimited option is not for everyone. And there is a cap to how much you can realistically be away and still get things done.

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

#104

Post by Bartweiss »

zigzigzag wrote: post #78
ci5er wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Swiss model does seem to scale. The population has scaled from 6.2 million in 1970 to about 8.2 million today. GDP per capita also went up significantly during this time, and outpaced GDP per capita growth in the USA. While that is certainly adorable (and, seriously, good for them!), "scale" in GP is referring to: "Will it work for 450M people at the same time?" -- or in China's case: "Will it work for 1.3B peo…

That's obviously unknowable, but I present evidence that the model has scaled. I see no reason why China couldn't become as wealthy as Switzerland if it followed the same models (but I doubt it will any time soon).

But I think the claim being made is "scale in size only works with a larger scaling somewhere else". Pointing to growth in Switzerland doesn't do much to argue with the idea that this model only works when you have massive regions with less wealth to absorb exports and services.

To simplify absurdly, average global global wealth per person is ~$24,000. If everyone in China had median Swiss wealth, that would be half the world's wealth. If everyone in China had mean Swiss wealth, that would be more wealth than exists in the entire world.

So at least in the short term, no. China can't become as wealthy as Switzerland. Global wealth has doubled over the last ~40 years - even if China captured every penny of the next doubling, it would still take >50 years to match Switzerland under any realistic model. Swiss wealth is inescapably a product of inequality, in the sense that there doesn't exist enough wealth to raise everyone to their level.

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

#105

Post by marktucker »

louisswiss wrote: post #32
germinalphrase wrote: post #4

While this sounds lovely, can anyone with experience speak to the difficulty of finding sponsored work in Switzerland? For instance, my wife is a social worker in the U.S. and speaks conversational German - but this is not likely to be considered a "high need" type of job for which a company would hire a foreign worker.

As a non-EU/Swiss citizen you can only be employed in Switzerland if the company can demonstrate that no suitable EU/Swiss candidates could be found for the job role. Exactly how this works I am not too sure, but anecdotally it is very difficult unless you are in top-management or a highly specialised field.

That's just to get the work visa. If you are married to a Swiss, for example, and get a visa via family reunion, companies can employ you without having to make this argument.

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

#106

Post by RUG3Y »

arjie wrote: post #40
6DM wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would if we didn't spend so much money in military and defense. Edit: My reasoning is the result of seeing this type of information everywhere, I could be wrong: http://dy00k1db5oznd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/...

The rest of the world can do a lot of things when America develops drugs for them, protects them from harm, and designs new technology so humanity can progress. The peace that America has wrought across the world is unprecedented and, in doing so, she has made the world a safer place to trade than ever before. And trade greatly benefits nations like Switzerland. I'm not claiming they're freeloaders. This benefits us…

I'm sorry but America is wreaking havoc on the world with it's military.

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

#107

Post by PaulRobinson »

musha68k wrote: post #37

Somewhat expected in the more conservative midwest (the author is comparing her Zürich experience with living in Chicago) but apparently "unlimited vacation" seems to become increasingly common in the Bay Area at least.

I have a former colleague that on looking for a new role was offered "unlimited vacation".

He asked what the limit was. "Unlimited", they replied. "Honestly?", he ventured. "Yes, unlimited".

"OK, then", he said, "I'd like to book the entire year off".

"Oh no, you can't do that!", they replied.

"I thought so. So what's the limit?", he asked again. "There is no limit", they replied. "But you just said I couldn't have a year off", he pointed out. "It has to be reasonable", they said.

This went back and forth. In the end "unlimited holiday" in the UK for this firm was 28 days. That is the statutory legal minimum in the UK. If he went over this, it would likely be accepted at the time, but "noticed" in performance/salary reviews, etc.

So, in short, unlimited vacation is a con, and you should try the above yourself. It'll lead to an interesting conversation, although it may harm your chances of getting an offer if you time it wrong.

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

#108

Post by jerven »

valuearb wrote: post #88
JackFr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to your point, in general, but Switzerland is hardly a good example: > when America develops drugs for them, "Switzerland is home to many pharmaceutical companies, including very large groups, such as Novartis and Hoffmann-La Roche. In 2013, 41 life science companies had their international headquarters (and 29 more their regional headquarters) in Switzerland. The pharmaceutical industry in Switzerlan…

Those drugs were developed with stolen money, their banking system is the worlds harbor for frauds, thieves and dictators funds, and gets to lend all that money out at cheap rates. Mining tunnels is cheap compared to a real military. Pax Americana means they, like all european countries, don't spend a fraction of what we spend on defense.

Offence! the US army has an unequaled capacity for actually running an offence war (or 2) anywhere in the world. No other military has even a fraction of that capacity. Basically the US really needs defence from Canada and Mexico, no one else can attack the US in any sensible way.

Even if european countries spend 3% of their GDP on defence like in the cold war all that money would be spend on soldiers that can defend and very little on those that can attack. Not nearly enough logistics!

The US not needing defence can spend on offensive capabilities instead. This it does, plus scale benefits mean that the US is the undisputed winner in any war.

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

#109

Post by lol214365 »

6DM wrote: post #35
csomar wrote: post #18

In my opinion this is missing an important thing: Does the Swiss model scale? For example, the Singapore model can't scale. It's based on rich people and corporations arbitraging the international fiscal system. You can't have another Singapore without having another East Asia and West with it. Swiss is definitively a privileged place that is benefiting from the overall wealth of Europe and many other countries. We c…

I think it would if we didn't spend so much money in military and defense. Edit: My reasoning is the result of seeing this type of information everywhere, I could be wrong: http://dy00k1db5oznd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/...

52% of the budget goes to entitlements. 16% goes to defense.

That chart you posted is simply not correct. I think they confused discretionary spending with total spending.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...

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

#110

Post by PaulRobinson »

myhrvold wrote: post #103
anotherboffin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlimited vacation sounds nice, but from what little I read on it, it wasn't really unlimited. Rather, it seems to be based on what's acceptable at your workplace and how much work you can get done. Hopefully someone with first-hand experience or more knowledge will elaborate a bit on this.

Yes -- unlimited vacation is a perk of flexibility rather than number of days off. Since you're responsible for getting your work done, you can take any manner of time off provided that the results hold up. This past year, I prolly tallied anywhere from 4-6 weeks off, technically speaking. Unplugged though, a handful of days at most. (Otherwise, mostly on vacay but maybe a few hrs worth of work a day sprinkled in mor…

Your work/life balance sounds utterly horrific and I am glad I don't have "unlimited vacation" like this. I feel depressed just reading it.
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