I prefer co-op games like the James Webb telescope. Thanks ESA for a perfect launch.
I’m a simple man, I see actual accomplishments of mankind being mentioned and I upvote.
Line go up is for smooth brained animals.
Rocket go up is for true gentlemen.
I love how in every topic about WFH there’s some dudebro going on about the economy suffering due to supposed lessened productivity and I’m like… Why should I care?
Don’t you even think about the billionaires, bro?
Less trickling down for me
You should care because that profit should be going to the workers who create the value. It doesn’t go to the workers, so you should continue not caring about productivity. Damn the man.
Oh no! We got so wrapped up thinking about general human well-being, we forgot about productivity!
But for real, if the economy isn’t for people then wtf is it for?
I’m a micro bro, don’t attempt to assuage me with your macro stats
I’m a micro bro
Sorry to hear that. I heard there are pills for it now.
my poor feelings!
It’s also bullshit. Worker productivity is overall slightly up with WFH. The economy suffered from the pandemic and everything that entails.
There’s no Americans bragging about that. Corporations and the government, sure. The rest of us are to busy living in pain
Most Americans have no clue what the rest of the world is like.
Most Americans don’t even understand the progressive income tax system we have, they will go so far as to decline raises because it’ll put them in a higher bracket and they think that will mean less take home pay. It doesn’t! You should always take a raise!
I believe I’ll someday move to a country that has good policies for everything from healthcare, to work life balance, and social safety nets, and I’ll never have to deal with the American nightmare again.
There’s actually a tricky spot for folks who get certain social services which are tied to income. A small raise can bump you out of eligibility for things like medicaid and food stamps, and thus can in fact result in higher expenses, less money in your pocket, and a lower quality of life.
Yep! The welfare cliff I believe it’s called. Evidence of a poorly designed welfare system, which I think some see as a feature not a bug sadly.
To be fair, the rest of the world isn’t easily accessible for most Americans
Education is broken because on purpose
It’s literally one Google search away. And if they want to travel, you’ll be able to speak English to basically everyone (under 40)
Right? I was like, “Who the fuck in the US is saying ANY of that?”
The media trying to manufacture consent.
there is lot them in youtube commnets , some here , most on twitter they wont stop bragging about how rich their elites are .
lower unemployment
Doesn’t matter, I can only have two, maybe three jobs at once so any more than that is irrelevant to me
higher growth
I get the same $8/hr whether the GDP goes up, stays the same or goes down. You can’t leave workers out of the distribution of wealth and then pretend that more wealth is good for workers
Don’t worry about it man. You are missing the point. Look at how many billionaires we have now! All that money is going to trickle down any time now!
I don’t understand how the hell people even work jobs that don’t make minimum of $30/hour at least in California and even parts of the East Coast. Like your rent is $1600-$2200. At 0.8*3200 for $ 20/hour with taxes your take home is $2560 for a 40 hour work week. So what are you just not eating that month?
How about healthcare transportation medical 401K literally anything? Pruning of benefits didn’t happen because of corporate greed it happened because people just accepted what they were offered. In the Midwest where apartments might be closer to $700-$900 a month some of this works but on the coasts rent is usually twice that. And a car to get most places is $400 a month with insurance supposing you have the credit.
I work in IT and programming, and Id love to do physical labor and talk to real humans rather than salamanders in silicon valley. But the jobs I see don’t even break $30 an hour. Yet it costed me $27 for ham and cheese and altoids, not even including bread where I live in the bay area. It is fucking expensive.
I feel like America is doing so many things ass backwards greed first. But it’s not like I have the experience of living overseas or in Canada or otherwise so I don’t have much to compare it to, so it’s safer by default to live with the devil you know than the one you don’t.
27$ for ham? How much are we talking about? 500g or 1kg? (about 1 or 2 pounds)? Deli or conveniece?
Half a pound. Deli.
Christ 250g of deli hame for $27? So probably about 22-25€?
That’s probably a ½-¼ more expensive than good ham from a local italian shop in Germany…Good god.
What people do is pile into apartments. Yeah, to live alone may cost let’s say $2000/month rent. But you can pile 4+ people into a four bedroom apartment that costs $5000, split it four (or more) ways, and they’re paying $1250/month. Some of them have significant others, so then you wind up with two people in one room each paying $625/month. (Just random numbers, but that’s the general idea of it.)
The people I know who do it hate it, but it’s what they can afford while staying in the area they like (and/or were born in, have a community in, etc.).
Good lord that’s no way to live.
God please let me move to Europe I don’t even care what language I have to learn I just wanna be able to live without worrying about affording a doctor appointment.
If you work in academia, you don’t need to learn a new language. English is the working language. Also the 5 weeks of holiday is nice, but what really helps is the working day.
I started as a bioinformatician a month ago. I come in to the office at 0830 have coffee from 09:00 til 09:45 with my boss and colleagues, work a bit, have lunch from 12:00 untill 13:15, work a bit, go home at 15:30. That’s my day.
Work in IT.
Start at 9:00
Lunch 13:00-14:00
Go home at 18:00
Commute (if construction does not tear up the main crossing) is around 30min 1-way with bus or a 15-20min bicycle ride.Experience: About 5 years without college/uni.
if construction does not tear up
It’s München time
Entirety of Germany in my experience. Germans love their Baustelle
I think IT might not be as easy as you think. Academia is a bit more open.
IT isn’t quite high skilled enough to get in. They’d almost certainly need an employer to say they couldn’t find a European to do the job, which is exceedingly unlikely.
I don’t know if I quite get what you are saying…
You mean it from the perspective of a US based company?I think he’s saying it’s harder to get a work visa taking a job in IT, as the EU company would have to first prove that they couldn’t find a European citizen to take the job before they can start hiring foreigners.
It hasn’t been my experience though, we hire lots of foreigners on work visas. Many from India and former Soviet countries especially.
I’m not in a big corp so I can just assume:
Do some countries require to proof local citizens are not worthy enough so you need to import work force from abroad?Yeah, many countries do this. It’s common in Europe but the US does it also.
Yeah, that’s what I was saying.
In Spain we do have non-EU people, but oftentimes they come here, live in Spain “irregularly” at some point, and then manage to get residency through means other than an employer sponsoring them. That might not be the case everywhere though.
Work in IT. Start at 9:00 Lunch 13:00-14:00 Go home at 18:00
IT Job I left:
- start at 8
- coffee 10-1030-ish (sometimes like 11)
- lunch at 12-13
- second coffee 15-1530
- leave at 1647, home by 1720 by train – tools down, muthafuckas
- voluntary standby for 1/4 time and immediate double-time for callouts, sanctity of personal time otherwise.
- union, 9x9 work term, no abrupt firings.
- EXACTLY on the median base salary for my job+region, which includes dot-coms.
- in north america, no less.
Experience: About 5 years without college/uni.
Experience: my soul.
Both of y’all are melting American brains trying to do the math on figuring out what times you’re talking about.
Most Americans have no clue that 13:00 is 1:00pm because 12+1 is too difficult, and God help you if you say 22:00, because 22-12 might as well be euclidean geometry.
Maybe you don’t need the language for work. But you will need te learn the language eventually for other day to day interactions.
Or the paper works outside of the labs.
Don’t know about other countries, but in Norway you always have the option of getting websites and government information in English. Everyone speaks it including cashier’s, cleaners etc.
The same thing is not true in Germany and Spain.
Dutchie here, we do the same. Everybody speaks (some form of) English, almost everything is also available in English.
This is true but also keep in mind that Dutch is still leading in most cases. E.g. if you have a contract that’s both in English and Dutch, if issues arise the Dutch translation will usually be the one that is followed
Dutch is still leading in most cases.
Sint Maarten should check-in and tell us about the English-Dutch separation and the class system it all but foments. It’s 90% fascinating if 10% disappointing.
The Dutch speak better English than some parts of England.
Removed by mod
My experience is purely based on Germany and I hate it even as a native. Plus having ADHD and paper being a chore doesnt help at all…
Also most folks (in my experience of south west Germany) of age >40-50 have little experience with English and can’t converse beyond the most basics.
but in Norway [:] English. Everyone speaks it
Scandinavia is absolutely killing it for bilingualism, among so many other ways they’re killin’ it – no, really, other countries should just study them for clues in general. My experiences (just Sweden, Denmark and bonus Iceland, so far) is that they say Hej and listen for your “hello”, flipping over into beautiful and perfect English without hesitation. Their language programmes are just fucking astounding, really.
Spain’s fine in the touristy spots, but Spanish itself is VERY accessible as a language, so it’s kinda moot like France.
In Germany I will have to rely heavily on the kindness of strangers as I will never grok the language.
They’re exposed to English every day from multiple sources. You aren’t allowed into university unless you can read and write English to a high level. Your text books are in English at university and classes open to exchange students are taught in English. All English media is subtitled. And school lessons in English start when they’re 6. No mystery, just practice.
never needed german knowledge to do standard burocracy stuff
im in the country for almost 10 years now without speaking a word. not true.
Seven hour day with an hour and fifteen minute lunch. What kind of magic is this? What’s the catch?
The catch is that you live in Europe and cops won’t beat you to death.
sOcIaLiSm
Those are summer hours. In the rest of the year I’ll be expected to work an additional 45 minutes. Officially we only get 30 minutes for lunch, but no-one cares. When our contact in admin is in we keep it to 45 minutes.
Well this might be an anomaly but the company I worked for in the Philippines gave you a dedicated hour for lunch and two 15-minute breaks, plus two hours weekly for any of the workshops/learning opportunities they provide.
Removed by mod
lol i work a third of that
In what country do you work?
Norge
I work in the public sector. If I start my day at 06.00, I can leave at 14.30 👌 Perfect for me since I am an early riser and the days are slowly getting darker and darker again
Yeah I have flex time, but the daycare doesn’t.
just wanna be able to live without worrying about affording a doctor appointment.
If you avoid the flatlander areas, Canada may be for you. We also speak English; just, without the accent. :-P
(unless you live on the island that’s an hour’s ferry from France)
Speaking a language without an accent is like wearing clothes without a material
Idk I’m from the central US and I had a German foreign exchange student tell me we didn’t have a mimicable accent. I know it’s not true but it was interesting to hear that from someone who’s familiar with everyone around her speaking in a completely different way, even when using English.
Or typing without a font.
That said, I think they were having a dig at how some Americans believe they have “no accent” because they (think they) sound like movie people.
Dutch American Friendship Treaty.
Nah, man. Stay where you are, we don’t want any 'muricans (assuming you are). Fix what you have instead.
We’d love to fix what we’ve got if that were a reasonable option. For most people, it’s not.
See, politics are so broken here that it’s really just a dick measuring contest to see who can wax the best poetic. And then even when we do get a decent president—because let’s be clear, Biden isn’t a good president—they often cater to corporations long before they even think about making things better for the working people.
At this point, fixing our political system would require either:
- A voting miracle, voting not on party lines but on the actual merits of the candidates, or at least voting for the actual best candidate in the primary of the “least” evil party.
- A revolution, either through ratification of a new constitution or actual war.
Most people in America are too uninformed for number one to be realistic within less than an entire generation. Sure, newer generations are far more informed and are actually changing the voting landscape in some ways, but it’s not going to be enough to change everything while we’ve still got boomers voting for politicians who don’t have their best interests in mind. It will take years, if not decades, to get that far.
Meanwhile, most people don’t want to be involved in a revolution. Even if everything is peaceful (which it likely wouldn’t be), and we’re able to ratify the new constitution without many issues (which there would be a ton of), that still leaves us with a tumultuous period of transition. Not many people would really want to live through that. I admit that most people probably would because there’s not much of a better choice during that transition, but I guarantee there would be a huge spike in emigration from the United States.
Moving to Europe or Canada is just the best option for a lot of Americans who feel they can’t deal anymore with our broken politics, substandard workers’ rights, and/or dwindling human rights for LGBTQ people. My family has tossed the idea around of moving to Canada, since it’s close, or even Germany despite the fact that my husband and partner make decent money. We just can’t keep up sometimes, and as a polyamorous household of three AMAB people, two of whom are married, we’re worried for our rights, too.
For most people, moving to a different country is a fresh start, and the majority of them will do their utmost to make sure they respect the country they come into. There will always be some that don’t, especially when they’re coming from a country like America, but for the most part, all we want is basic rights that other people have and not having to worry about putting food on the table some days.
Edit: commas and grammar
My family has tossed the idea around of moving to Canada
Come to Canada! It’s 70% awesome and the rest is prairies and Republicans! Lend your income to our tax system and help out my neighbours and my family and also get some healthcare (still recovering from covid, but it’ll mend). Yay!
Don’t want to brag, but I took my compulsory 2-week vacation in July. I’m having another week of vacation in the middle of August and I’m taking a whole month off in the middle of October when my second child is born (dad-vacation, in addition to the 18 months that the mom has as paid maternity leave). Oh and all of this is fully paid.
That sounds really good, where do you work?
I’m guessing Norway, Finland, or Sweden.
Czechia and Slovakia have very similar paternity and maternity leaves.
Or France
Or Germany.
I’ve had about 6 or 7 weeks of paid vacation this year already. A week long winter vacation and 4 week summer vacation and random days off in the middle of the week every now and then. The good thing about christian culture even though almost no-one is religious here is that we still get a day off for their holidays.
Which European country do you live in?
I don’t know which country he lives in but it could be Germany since I know that it’s like this in Germany.
Sounds very much like it. Paid leave for dads is what a few of my co-workers did.
I had a few days off in spring, recently had my 2 weeks and another coming in october.
Not much but it’s sufficient to me (but more is always better).
I recall going to the UK after brexit, to a house party with family friends. I was hounded with how do you function with only a 2 week holiday. I then shared i had 4 weeks after 5 years. They were so confused that we could function with less than 6 weeks of vacation.
Burn out in the USA is a real thing. Our politicians will never vote for a mandatory vacation for anyone other than them selves
It’s amazing how submissive American men are.
If you complain about it some Americans will just call you lazy. lol. Same thing with the cost of healthcare. They’ll just tell you to get a better job or better healthcare. They never speak about the root cause of the problem.
We are voting to give ourselves an increase on per diem, but we are also cutting food stamps benefits.
Dude we dont even get presidents day off.
It took me way too long to realize chasing a high pay, high stress career wasn’t worth it. I envied my friends and family for being able to enjoy weekends, evenings, and holidays when I couldn’t. I missed my best friends bachelor party, I missed Christmas and New Years parties. If i didnt miss them entirely i would show up late or leave early from every occasion. I realized I was going to reach the end of life never having lived it.
Yup, I gave up my 70 hour work weeks. My 50 hour weeks grew my salary and position, then my 60 hour weeks put me in charge of massive projects, which drove me to 70 hours during a couple ERP implementations. I took a paycut overall, but now I work 40 hours.
By law in Germany you cannot work more than 40 hours per week. There are some exceptions but usually it’s downright illegal for employers to request it.
I’m currently working a job in IT at a lower than median salary, but I also can fuck around (within boundaries of reason), adapt my work schedule to myself and work from home 100% of the time. I wouldn’t have it any other way. My team and managers are some of the chillest people I’ve met
IT and WFH here also. On an average week I do maybe a handfull of hours of actual work and I earn about the same as a doctor. I’d still prefer to do no work at all and I get major anxiety every time I have to go back to work after summer vacation.
Big relatable
This is exactly what I’m looking for right now. The hurdle is that it’s getting harder to find non-contract jobs in IT anymore. So every hour I take off from work is an hour coming out of my pocket. Either way I’ve come to accept that my sanity and free time are things worth paying for.
Does everyone have healthcare?
For a meager $18000/year with copays and premiums. Murica!
Don’t forget they won’t help you until you spend a couple of thousands out of pocket first.
Canadian here, no, not at all. I had a family doctor but they retired, the new doctor was already full up so I am left without a family doctor. If I need medication it has to be paid for out of pocket, any dentistry that is not life altering (cleaning, fillings, braces/retainers/corrections) has to be paid for out of pocket. Therapy? Out of pocket. Glasses, hearing aids, you guessed it.
Sure you could have a job with health coverage but that is up to the discretion of your employer, they can drop your coverage and all you can do is nothing. Canadian health care is an absolute embarrassment and should never be celebrated as some achievement over the only country with a worse system than ours.
Might depend on province. I’m in BC, never had issue with Doctor. Bi Yearly vision checks, if you don’t have employer plan you signup for pharmacare and based on income once you hit a threshold all meds are free. Or free from the start with a disability status application. And I do celebrate our system even though it is not perfect, I had Cancer. Biopsy, CAT, PETS, FMRI, surgery, chemo and radiation, hospital stay all free. cost me $70 parking pass at cancer center. If that was in the USA id be looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars owing
HA
Caring about health? Proof of aliens
i do!
also im a student and getting paid monthly to do so.
I usually just take a week over summer then the other 6 weeks at other times of the year. Hotels, fights and stuff pretty much double their prices over the summer.
This is the way.
As an american, who gives a shit about all that stuff when your family savings can be wiped out, home foreclosed upon, and bankrupted just because you get sick or suffer an injury!? Even if you plan and do everything right, it could still happen to you, through no fault of your own.
So, IMO until we have universal healthcare like every other modern nation, they all beat us…
or you can just move to a different country. Ez.
I can’t speak for others of course, but I don’t want to move away from family…
Sorry, didn’t see your email cos it’s actually fuckin illegal to send me it if I’m not working
I used to work for a French company. My colleagues in France would take the whole damn month of August off, and then complain that North Americans never worked.
TBF my experience with Japanese and American workers is that you spend a lot of time in the office, but aren’t particularly productive. Hardly surprising, given there’s loads of evidence that suggests a strict enforcement of leisure time, actually increases productivity.
No one works at 100% if they work 70 hours a week and check their emails during the weekend.
Or as I once put it to a boss, when he asked me why I was leaving the office at 1700 on the dot, I finish my work in 8 hours, my colleagues need 9.
Absolutely. I worked for one office where one founder would literally come around doing “bed checks” multiple times a day. I’m talking about a guy with a net worth well over $100 million, seriously connected to federal politics, major local influence on universities and government. This guy spent no less than 15 hours/week checking to see who was sitting in their seats. That was one of his top priorities.
Of course, this bled down to supervisors that he promoted. And as a result, the entire office was full of the most mediocre workers I’ve ever dealt with. Just sit at their desk doing nothing except ready to schmooze the boss. Many were afraid to use the bathroom, go to lunch, etc. Total nonsense.
My old boss told me that he didn’t care how many hours I worked as long as I got the job done.
Months later I got called into the office and put on a PIP with the reason being that I left early. I worked from 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM.
I ended up going back to the company I was at before then. They have the same policy but actually don’t care. My current boss has told me multiple times to get off the computer and go home. Last time I had to leave early, she told me to make sure I factored in traffic.
That’s the thing - if you have plenty of vacations and a short work week, then you tend to actually do work during your working hours. If you’re in the workplace for 70 hours every week all year, then naturally you can’t do useful work for most of these hours. Which is why it looks like you never work as you have to rest at work.
I’d rather have 30 incredibly intense and productive hours than 60 completely chill no stress do a little of this a little of that hours.
My old job was 60-70 hours of incredibly intense productivity (was working for a Japanese corporation) and I learnt at a rate well above what other workers would due to the intensity, but then I had a breakdown from burn out. Keeping that tempo for fewer hours is the best of both worlds. Employers need to be focused on output rather than time logged.
I agree. There’s also that benefit you forgot to mention that you have 30 hours more free time to spend however you like, instead of somewhat “free” time that you have to spend at work.
I’m definitely cutting off my nipples this summer
How very Ichi the Killer.
But the real killer is average life expectancy.
Check out the southern US states for that, especially Mississippi. It’s soul crushing that people think that’s okay.
And the rocket scientists over in the Mississippi legislature thought it was a good idea to turn down Medicaid expansion funds from the ACA. I honestly have a hard time figuring out how self destruction they let themselves be.
According to Wikipedia, 74.7. Hawaii is the highest with 81.6. That’s fascinating, on average people in Mississippi are living 7 fewer years. That’s a lot.
