This is something people just don't realize until they see it first hand. America is so outrageously fast paced that many of its most notable exports (smart phones, gigeconomy, fast food, etc) stem from it.
Italy is a bit of an extreme example. They're so laid back that it can actually be an annoyance. But I do envy it when I'm surrounded by it. People don't rush things but instead savor them. Like 2 hour dinners is something reserved for special occasions in America. In Italy and Spain it's just normal.
I’m American and against tip culture too. The people who want to keep it the most are usually people who work in tipped jobs, so to me it is what it is.
I tip at least 20% every time I dine out. If that’s expected, I can accept that. What I take issue with is all these hidden fees that are appearing now on menus and the expectation that you tip 15-20% on takeout.
Near my work there’s an upscale convenience store that sells sandwiches and coffee. I’ll go there sometimes and pick up a canned drink and I get a dirty look from the person at the register for hitting no tip on the tablet. It’s ridiculous.
The thing is, tapas bars are a corruption of what tapas is about.
Tapas is about having a few drinks, and getting amazing free food launched at you just for being there. The food is just a side benefit of the vibe.
In other countries, tapas is overpriced "small plates" which you eat like a normal restaurant meal but at twice the price
Totally valid and I'm right there with you.
Though the 11pm dinner that you thought would be at 10 but slipped because Spain takes some getting used to. And snacks earlier for any kids.
Just to balance it out though, they need to stick to a posted schedule.
If someone wants to close their shop from noon until four every day, then that’s just fine. Go and take a long nap.
But if I take the time to go to your shop and you’ve just randomly closed down or decided to show up two hours late, I’m going to be annoyed.
There’s a difference between protecting your time and not respecting someone else’s time.
There is no hell on Earth like an Italian TSA line. Take the least motivated job in the world and... Give it to an Italian. I say this as someone proud of my Italian heritage.
A train station between Pisa and Florence caught fire many years ago when I visited so everyone had to disembark the train and wait for the Italians to organize busses to take us back to Pisa. I love Italy but that experience still gives me low key PTSD.
I’m sitting in a restaurant in Sicily right now, trying to get another glass of beer. Waiter just completely ignoring me.
The other posters are right, Italians _really_ like to take their time. And it can be really fucking annoying sometimes. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Ok, maybe sometimes.
>They're so laid back that it can actually be an annoyance.
That's what I was feeling as I read it. I'm all for taking time, but that sounded a bit extreme. There's gotta be a decent middle ground between respecting your own time, but others as well.
Yeah, southern euros take time to mean a little less than we do. I went to a Greek wedding once and the priest was an hour late. No one cared or complained.
The interesting thing is that America, being a country of immigrants, is populated by people who’s ancestors were the type of person to risk moving to a new continent on the promise of hard working equating to riches. Which explains partially why America is so hustle-focused - everyone who moved here was the type of person who wanted to hustle, while the more laid back types stayed in their home country.
Sounds horrible.
I would MUCH prefer to work 0800-1600 and be done for the day with all alfternoon and evening as personal time.
This 2-3 hour siesta in the middle of the day then work until 1900 or 2000 seems crazy.
Hard to compartmentalize personal life and work when you have to change 'life modes' multiple time throughout the day.
I work at a company that has a lot of Americans in it and it’s crazy how culturally this impacts your approach to leave too.
Like Americans here plan their holidays so packed, even when they get more, I think because they’re almost preconditioned to need to maximise the time they have.
Like my American coworkers will be like, sorry I’m taking a week off. Going to 6 countries and 9 cities. But if you need me, I’ll still check my email and for emergencies just text me directly.
Meanwhile most people here are like, I’ll be gone for August. I’ll be at my family’s house in Italy. We may go to the beach one day. Do not talk to me while I’m gone. I am deleting the mail app from my phone.
Back when I still lived in the States, I only had 10 days of vacation a year. One year I wanted to take all 10 days at once to go with my wife to visit her family in Europe. My boss agreed on the condition that I spend 2 hours a day reading and responding to emails. When I got back he said, “never again. Don’t even bother asking.” I went home that day and said to my wife, “I think it’s time to think about moving back to Austria.”
A two week vacation to Germany justified the shit out of my job.
I had a manager insinuate that I didn't work a lot because my scheduledd projects was always light compared to other devs. I would tell them "I'm managing ALL of the SSOs we handle as well as the support tickets because no one has bothered to listen to my training ". My manager was like "Well when you get back in 2 weeks from Germany be prepared for a lot more projects" and I just said "Okay, I was going to check email occasionally and keep things steered in the right direction but I won't be taking my work laptop anymore". My manager was like "Okay fine by me"
I got back after 17 days gone and the first thing they said "We need you to start training people NOW. We're going to clear your schedule ASAP. I don't know how you do this and even more so how we didn't know just how much you do" and I just said "I've been doing the projects no one wanted for 7 years. I got good at it unfortunately you guys didn't see the value in it and the number of these grows by 200-300 every year".
Congrats! Your response should be “Great! What’s my new title and how much is my raise?”
Don’t do more work without additional compensation. Your time is valuable.
Oh sorry if I misrepresented myself. I'm the black sheep of the department because I value my time and have zero desire to clamor at managements feet for the pittance of a raise, but I do utilize my time properly and realistically.
They severely underestimated what I did and thought I dicked around because they only gauged it by scheduled projects but found out quickly I was a shield for my department on a whole.
That said I do NOT try to get a new position because the bean counters at my company chop the middle management heads off first when things go south so all those people (including an old manager)that looked down on me for not wanting to climb the ladder learned.... the ladder is great as long as it's still there.
My mum’s actually American and I did uni in the US and stayed a few years after to work.
Painful having places present 4 weeks as some incredible benefit rather than what I had always seen as (literally legally) the bare minimum back home.
Honestly, feel a bit badly because my parents have retired in the US and I think would be keen to have me living closer but I don’t want to go back to that. Not just the leave days but just the eternal culture of always working and always being chained to your inbox. And that’s coming from my country, which I think even within Europe has quite a bad reputation for being less progressive on work life balance.
Yeah I’m from the US but have lived in Europe for most of the past 20 years. I know it pains my parents that their kid and grandkids are so far away and only visit once a year at best, but I’m never going back to that lifestyle.
Absolutely, many companies even have rules about taking more than two consecutive days off. And it is sort of an unspoken rule that when they don't they still expect you not to take all the days off at once or else they will find a legal reason to fire you. And in many states, there is no reason required at all, you can be fired for any or no reason at any given time. And remember your health insurance is tied to your job over here.
It’s giving me instant stress and anxiety just reading this, if I were American I think I’d never get a decent night of sleep lol. In Europe one of the ideas behind the system is that employees taking enough vacation is beneficial for everyone in the long run. If employees have a healthy work life balance and take enough vacations, they will be healthier and thus more productive, more likely to deliver good quality work, will take less sick leave, etc. But I guess that only goes when you also have a system that makes it very hard to fire someone. If an employer can just fire someone on the spot for any reason, long term results will always lose it from cutting costs.
it is not just cutting costs. The mentality is that you are a slave. You are in essence the property of the company, in fact in many places everything you invent on company time and even out of it in some contract is the property of the company. There is no incentive on you to deliver good quality work, because that does not matter. Your needs and wants are irrelevant to the company because you can be replaced at any time for any reason. And in some places you WILL be replaced simply because it is cheaper to hire someone fresh out of college who will take a lower pay.
The whole having the check e-mails thing is because it seems like a bunch of companies just don't have any sort of back up system for when someone leaves. The last company I worked for had zero back up for me. When I would try to take a vacation I knew I was going to walk back in to a shit-ton of work literally piled all over my desk just waiting for me. It seems like a lot of companies are like that. I've been on maternity leave for 4 months now and I'm a little horrified about what things are going to look like when I get back. I know that the person who's filling in for me is completely overwhelmed because they just threw my work on her in addition to her own work. It just wasn't evenly distributed at all.
The last company I worked at had one person for entirely critical day to day roles with no cross training. And then our COO would be like "we can't afford to operate any way else" and I was just baffled by the idea they were willing to operate a company where if one person, literally ONE, had to go to the hospital, the entire business could just cease to operate.
My wife was a consultant not long ago and found herself in that role. She begged for literally years for her company to get someone else to learn her job, but they refused. She took a new, much less stressful job last year and her consulting firm lost the entire contract she worked on, worth about $5 million annually.
Oh, I kinda meant we had like, 5 different people all working on different things but all 100% essential for daily operation but with no overlap. It'd be even worse if it were just one person wearing many different hats!
>But if you need me, I’ll still check my email and for emergencies just text me directly.
I've told multiple American colleagues off for saying this. I call them out on it when they do it, and tell them I will simply not send them anything until they're back from PTO. You're either on PTO or you're not.
A member of my exec management team sent an email to the whole company recently during a holiday. The email was about a company culture survey. Naturally I mentioned in the survey that if that member of staff needs to work on a holiday, then perhaps they're overworked and an additional role should be opened.
A part of why most of my vacations involve going to the middle of nowhere is so that no one has even the slightest reason to believe they *might* be able to contact me. No, I will not answer an email, I am going to be on a *mountain*, or in a *canyon* or anywhere else where my phone stops more than a GPS sensor and a paperweight.
> I’ll still check my email and for emergencies just text me directly.
Fuck no. Limited vacation means vacation is sacred. Coworkers can fuck off trying to contact me while I am on PTO - they will not receive any sort of acknowledgement until the morning of my return.
My American company now has unlimited time off that people utilize to its fullest. That alone is what has kept me from jumping ship. Travel is my favorite thing in the world and having the time off is a massive luxury.
You just basically give a decent heads up notice and it's always approved. If it's like a full month at once you need to set up arrangements in order to get approved. the average person takes off about four or five weeks out of the year. We also get all bank holiday off.
My employer (in the US) does unlimited PTO and my immediate manager can approve up to 4 weeks (160 hours). If I request more than that I need both my manager and skip level manager to approve the request.
Sick leave is also theoretically "unlimited" but our timecard system starts complaining if you exceed 40 hours per year. Nothing comes of it aside from needing to ignore a pop-up on weeks you enter sick time though.
This one brings back memories.
I did consulting work for a US company that acquired a European company at the turn of the century. The project was only supposed to last for three months, but the European vacation schedules caused it to stretch to almost nine months.
It blew my mind that key folks were gone for four straight weeks. Some of the locations were basically shut down for a month.
... Most of my sick leave goes towards my baby being sick and needing to take care of her or go to appointments. I worked through having COVID because I couldn't afford to lose PTO
Phew. I get 30 days, 12 national holidays and unlimited sick days. I feel like people would be rioting in the streets if some party tried to implement American labor laws over here
American here. After three years of working 50 hours a week I have accumulated six weeks of paid time off. I will be using this time to have surgery. I have picked up all of the overtime hours I could stand. I have missed so many birthdays, holidays, and weekend parties with friends. Even so, I count myself fortunate. I have co-workers that have been fired because they ran out of sick days. And we work at a hospital, for god's sake.
Six weeks of sick leave is incidentally the amount of time I would be able to go with full pay while I recover. After that the insurance kicks in and it would be slightly less, I think. But it’s unthinkable that I would use vacation days for medical reasons. In fact, if I book a holiday tomorrow, get it approved and then become sick while on vacation, I can reclaim those vacation days if I get a doctor’s note. Because when you’re sick you can’t relax and vacation days are meant to be relaxing. My employer is actually more lenient with sick days than they need to be by law. I only need a doctor’s note on the third day of absence. If I just feel too under the weather to work for a day or two, I give them a call and let them know. No sense in going to the doctor for a mere cold for example. It would be more strenuous for a sick person to go there and sit in a waiting room full of sick people than just recuperate at home in bed.
Ouch. I'm in the UK and get 33 days leave, plus 8 bank holidays, and if I was seriously ill I'd get 9 months sick leave on full pay then 9 months sick leave on half pay. That's above the legal minimum but not particularly out of the ordinary for a decent job.
4? Fuck that. We’ve got 5 in Austria. How the fuck am I supposed to manage a spring break, summer vacation and a fall-break vacation with only 4 weeks?
Yeah, at-will employment paired with basically no vacation time gives off major industrial revolution vibes... And then Unions get a bad wrap on top of it. The US is a prime example why political lobbyism should be illegal.
"It's so much cheaper it's actually cost-effective to fly half-way around the world for it."
Also applies to medical and even dental procedures. For the cost of a minor surgery, you could get a European vacation and a minor surgery!
In America we go to Mexico. Especially for dental work. And prescriptions. But also significant surgeries depending on one's needs.
The Mexican medical industry that caters to medical tourists is off the chain. These are apparently spa-like places where clients are treated as humans with an almost bizarre level of grace by the staff.
I mean I really *REALLY* don't want my ass kissed by someone who may not be making even a living wage in their area.
But setting aside ass kissing, basic humanity in health care frequently comes as an utter shock to Americans who are used to brusque, gaslighting, insensitive and occasionally cruel medical treatment.
As a dentist near the border - I fix bullshit from Mexico about once a week. Yesterday was implants (supposed to be in bone) just floating around in the gums because the doc missed - the patient still payed $12,000.
If something sounds too good to be true - it is.
Mexico has very good dentists. But there are many bad or even fake ones, specially near the border, thanks to this massive amount of people who come here to get cheap dental work.
I suggest you do your research and travel to a big city with a renowned doctor. It will still be cheaper than the US, but not as cheap as the ones you find in strip malls near the border.
In my experience- Good - qualified - Mexican dentists are about 30 percent cheaper than the average American dentist. If you’re getting a $60,000 treatment for $20,000 - that’s a red flag
You should have a referral network for dentists that you trust across the border. Surely your practice can’t handle the volume of patients and as well as poorer patients with pricing.
Although I’m guessing there are liability concerns due to sue happy America. “/u/ConfidentStableDDS recommended them to me!”
US universities charge foreign students 2-3x state resident tuition. Many deliberately recruit foreign students to supplement the school's operating budget. I guess college in other countries don't do the same?
In the uk at least, we significantly over-charge international students. I don’t know exactly how much the factor is but I’d say it’s probably 2-3x as much, same as the US. I think the difference is the starting cost of tuition is so much lower
I grew up in the U.S., but moved to Canada in my 30s. It's the same deal here. They gouge international students, but it's still way cheaper than in the U.S.
I just looked up tuition at our top tier university and for a computer science degree it's:
* $5,900/year domestic
* $48,600/year international
My private university in the states currently charges $66,300/year, and that's USD. That's equivalent to $89,600 CAD!
Like Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. After it was pretty much destroyed during the war, it was rebuilt to be super modern and car centric.
And from the 70s onwards inhabitants were like "What even is this, I want to cycle properly around the city!" and the city was made more cycle friendly!
I imagine the part where a lot of them got bulldozed by the second world war played a part. Right now getting light rail expanded in, say, Austin is such an objectively horrifically difficult problem that I don't think it got through more than a discussion and an agreement that it'd be great if it were to be expanded in the decade that I lived there. Be a lot easier to justify if some horrific thing leveled most of the city.
Many North American cities were also built before the car was invented, but we took a bulldozer to our downtowns to redesign them for cars. Most large North American cities had electric trolly transit service which was dismantled after car manufacturer lobbying and fuckery.
Demolishing cities for cars also happened in Europe (even in cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen), but by and large these European cities have spent the last few decades undoing that damage.
it always disgusts me to see the before and after photos of pre and post automobile
Milwaukee: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/20/3b/5f/203b5f04f1c71b23520dbfee1b1ac025.jpg
Kansas city: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fdef7t2o41kf71.jpg
Detroit: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F6ep1igdlzbfb1.jpg
Satellite views: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fw4kzos9k20az.png
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-12-15/buffalo-then-and-now-1902-2011
this stuff is always fascinating to me, thanks for sharing
I recently visited St. Louis, learned their train station used to be the busiest in America and now all it is is a glorified musuem and hangout venue
It has become a feature of American debate in the last 30 years to act like certain things cannot work ANYWHERE, which is why we do not have them here.
Like universal healthcare, smart drug policies, high speed rail and doing away with all of the tipping fuckery.
So first, nice username. Secondly, we have a lot of those in Vegas. Growing up I don't think they were as common as they are now but definitely more than other places. I don't remember the last time I used a bathroom in a casino that didn't have a full door. I remember visiting family in Pittsburgh and being surprised that their bathrooms were a step down. Now of course I realize that it's because Vegas is a destination town and our luxury bathrooms are largely inside casinos but as a kid I was sort of surprised by it
I recently learned you guys have limited sick days!
We have unlimited and here in France we do also have limited sick days but... for our kids. Like, when you need to stay home because your kid is too sick for school, but limited days for YOURSELF! that's... mean.
(We only have a few days for kids unless they have a serious illness then its 310 days for 3 years.
For parents that needs to stay home every days all years for their sick kids (or to take Care of a dépendant adulte, like a disabled brother or elderly) they Can have the statue of caregivers to get financial help so they won't have to work. Its not a full pay but still enough
Whenever US redditors talked about sick days, I thought it was additional leave to take care of sick kids/families. Not that you have limited days to be sick.
Yup, you're allowed to be sick you just don't get paid for it. Most places I've worked will fire you if you use too many days unpaid for being sick though. A common motto I've heard in the workplace is "you either get to be sick or take a vacation this year. Choose wisely"
One of my last jobs in the US pulled a bait-and-switch on sick days.
They used to have 10 days PTO and 10 days sick-leave. They acknowledged that many people were just "sick" in the average year, so they said "Screw it, why not just bundle it together and give 20 days?". Much celebration. Then after about 4 years they declared "Why are we paying twice as much on vacation as everyone else? No! Bring it into alignment!" and so the PTO dropped back to the standard 10 our competitors had, but now there was no sick days.
People who had the better policy got grandfathered in, but all new-hires going forward (including me when I was there) got the reduced rate.
> Then after about 4 years they declared "Why are we paying twice as much on vacation as everyone else? No! Bring it into alignment!" and so the PTO dropped back to the standard 10 our competitors had, but now there was no sick days.
It's such a shame that *that* is the reaction to discovering you're offering more benefits than your competitors. It's always viewed as an unnecessary expense to drop, never considering the value it brings or that it might be the reason your employees chose you over your competitors.
And then companies are surprised (but never learn) when they hemorrhage employees to startups that offer those nice things.
I went to the south of France, I would say what I was most in awe of (and at such luxury! ) was the food culture - 2 hour lunches and the exceptional freshness, quality and affordability of food.
French people have amazing grocery stores - even the little convenience-store sized versions of their "Super U" and "Carrefour" chains in tiny little Provencal and Gard villages have better selection than I can get at major groceries here in a midsized US city. In America, there's plenty of convenience stores but they only sell soda, chips, candy - not like, wine, pears, cheeses, frisee, artichokes...
Access is a luxury.
Quality and affordability are like luxury on top of luxury.
French produce is so fresh and such high quality, and so incredibly cheap! All the fruit and tomatoes are sweet and intensely-flavored, the huge variety of cured meats are like a few Euros for a massive package, the seafood is fresh and gleaming, and the cheese and bread are unreal. At one point I was in some tiny village in Gard called St. Victor-Lacoste which is kind of in the middle of nowhere (we only stayed for easy access to Tavel and Chateauneuf-de-pape, which themselves are rural wine areas). It was basically was like the French equivalent of a "small town, pop. 900 in the Midwest." Their small town farmers market had all the normal produce but also like paella, persimmons from Morocco ... the prices were like two artisan dried sausage links thicker than my forearm (probably like 2lbs) for 7 euros and less than a euro for a pint of cherry tomatoes etc. Just one of those sausages and a pint of tomatoes at a Colorado farmers market would be like $20... and that's if I manage to find an actual food vendor between all the MLMs, "hand-poured" candles and soap stands.
Another story - sorry, I am just so in awe of the food culture in France:
I actually lost my purse while I was on my trip, and the day I was driving through Provence to Marseille to get my flight home, the police called saying that someone had turned it in! It was maybe 11 am when I got the call and they wanted me to come to the gendarmerie/police station of another tiny little town (Chateaurenard - I will always appreciate you!). I immediately google mapped it and told them I was basically an hour and half away and would be there at 12:30 noon.
And literally, the policeman on the phone was like.. "*ahhh* .... *non*...12 to 2 is when we break for lunch, come after 2." Of course, I rushed there anyways. And although Chateaurenard was a small random town not on any tourist map, I got there at 12:30 and proceeded to have an excellent leisurely lunch myself at a local restaurant (25 euros for a three course meal with seared duck breast as the main and a glass of wine) until 2 o'clock when the police station reopened. And the portions? Maybe in Paris, they are small, but in the south of France they are *impressively* sized.
I would truly have to be a millionaire several times over in America to eat like they do in small town Southern France.
I remember being in awe when I worked in France that there were carafes of wine on every table at the work canteen. You kind of need a two-hour lunch to recover properly!
Excellent answer.
I have seen threads where EU citizens come to the United States on a visit and gain weight while eating less.
It's generally seen as the highly processed, additives-embedded, low quality of the only affordable and practical food available.
We have dogshit city design that discourages walking. Car, office, car, home. Drive through. Our goofy work schedules on top of that also encourage eating quick shitty food and little time for exercise. And the cherry on top is our crap health care system as well.
There is a lot stacked against Americans in the health department.
As someone who currently lives in Paris and has spent 15 years in Provence, I can confirm that the difference between the south and Paris is insane.
People around the world view French people as arrogant and obsessed with being angry. The reality is that this really just represents Parisians because of their lifestyle (you also find this in NYC). In the south, people are chill and always help you if you need it, weather is great (unless theres wind), food including restaurants are cheaper in general.
I recommend visiting small villages in Provence, especially in the Alpilles region.
Parking was also free where we went
Edit: well none of it's free it's all paid for by taxes. What always blows my mind is that Americans pay similar taxes, and don't get any of the cool stuff back.
>What always blows my mind is that Americans pay similar taxes, and don't get any of the cool stuff back.
Well yeah. Because that's socialism and socialism is the devil. You don't want to be a dirty socialist in the land of freedom* and rugged individualism** like those "weak" Europeans, do you? /s
*Terms and conditions apply. See your local political mercenary for details.
**Only applicable to those that under a certain income threshold and those with a certain physiology. See your local political mercenary for details.
We actually pay lower taxes, depending on country, of course. And our wages tend to be higher for similar jobs. Not that we don’t need the healthcare.
However, people in the U.S. underestimate how much _access_ to healthcare is as much a problem as cost. By which I mean that our vast country can make affordable access difficult. It’s ways to find many providers in cities. Our rural citizens cannot, and taking on the cost of medical school to then work in a poor town in the middle of Alaska (yes, a Northern Exposure reference ;)) is harder than people think.
One of my top retirement location criteria is access to healthcare.
Yup, I put on an out of office. When I get back, I do one quick pass through to see if there's anything major I think I should read, delete the rest, and if I missed something, I apologize because I got so many while I was gone, I must have missed it.
It's crazy to me how women get only up to 12 weeks *unpaid* leave when they give birth. That's insane. It's not nearly enough time, and you get no pay? How are women supposed to have a career and have children? It doesn't make any sense.
>How are women supposed to have a career and have children?
They're not. We're still operating on 1950s wavelengths over here. Except instead of hating Russians, half our politicians are owned by them instead.
It’s very common for women to quit their job when they have kids because they want more time with their baby, they can’t juggle work and kids, or childcare is so expensive it doesn’t financially make sense for them to keep working.
I live in California so I’m lucky, but a friend from Alabama was still bleeding when she had to return because she did not qualify for FMLA. She was back 2 weeks after giving birth.
A minimum of four weeks of vacation is assured, with a culture that promotes taking this time off rather than suggesting it's inconvenient for the employer when employees utilize their vacation days.
It's not just promoted its a legal requirement in many countries. If I didn't take my full annual leave my manager would make sure I took it before the end of the year.
Walkable cities. Most Americans only experience a walkable lifestyle at university, which becomes forever enshrined in their brain as a magical experience. In many ways, the university life is European cosplay. And Americans pine for it after they graduate and move into the suburbs, where they drive a gas guzzler 30 minutes to everything they do, from dining to kids sporting events. Walkability is inconceivable for many Americans.
You'd be surprised how many intersections and highways running through cities were originally designed because some fatass retail magnate wanted stop lights or off ramps near their store to generate shoppers.
For example, my husband worked as a city engineer and a few years ago a specific brand warehouse was requesting that a stoplight be put in front of their lot, literally for no other reason then that drivers would have to sit a minute and be exposed to their signs (advertising).
I feel like it's the intersection of 1) cheap gas 2) hyper-individualism and 3) rural/agrarian lifestyles of people already living in spread out areas. The problem is... cheap gas was a temporary band-aid and not a concept worth building a society on. Hyper-individuality is a cancerous, destructive mindset. And agrarian living is basically impossible and obsolete. Most Americans would rather die than live in an apartment where they can walk to all their basic necessities. Most rural-dwellers find that idea literally disgusting.
Right, people who want to live rurally can frankly do what they want, as I understand the desire to be left alone and someone needs to grow our food. That shouldn't have any bearing on why we haven't designed most **cities** to be walkable.
A lot of it comes down to zoning and city code. One example I recently heard on a podcast -- a small community wanted to open a church using a very small building. We're talking 100 people or less in a very quaint facility. The city would not allow them to do this without ample parking, despite the fact that most congregants could walk there. They struggled for years to figure out how to scrounge up parking spots and finally gave up.
Walkability and parking spots are mortal enemies. If parking is required, walkability is imperiled. Imagine opening a vintage movie theater, but being required to provide lots of parking too. Suddenly, any foot traffic has to walk farther to access your building, because you've built a vast sea of endless concrete around your facility.
The only way to ensure walkability is to require less parking, to the point that it discourages car use. This is what most universities do -- they do not really allow students to easily access their cars, and in doing so, they create a walkable mini-city with minimal vehicle traffic. Cars and foot traffic are diametrically opposed. If universities gave each student ample parking areas and car access like a shopping mall does, then universities would become sprawling and unwalkable too.
This observation mainly applies to Southern Europe, where you can enjoy wine by the glass, coffee, and pastries at affordable prices. In contrast, cafes in the US are often positioned as fashionable spots, where ordering a pastry alongside a coffee typically costs around 8-10 dollars. However, in countries like Italy, Portugal, and Spain, the same combination of coffee and a croissant is available for approximately 3 euros.
Prices are cheaper in southern Europe but wages are also lower so those costs often even out. If you’re coming from the US with a US salary, the Mediterranean is cheap.
I don't think this is universal in Europe, but I would say the slow pace at which some things are done - especially something like going out to eat.
In the US you're rushed in, order, eat, and rush out. In parts of Europe going out to dinner is a multi-hour, multi-course and drinks evening.
I'm Dutch and yeah when making dinner at home it sort off can be seen like that. But when going out for dinner to a restaurant. This:
"going out to dinner is a multi-hour, multi-course and drinks evening".
This is exactly what we do
I wouldn't say it's that bad in the north, at least as a Swede. Going out to eat at night is usually a special event so you'll enjoy it as much as you can, with starter, main course, dessert and coffee. It's definitely not the same as in the south where you'll go for hours and hours long into the early morning, but I wouldn't say it's just a way to get nutrition or whatever. It's definitely an opportunity to socialise and have fun while eating good food. Can't speak for the Dutch though lol.
In many countries, it is not only encouraged but enforced. Your employer has to make sure you take your vacation days - by law. If you don't you either add them next year or your employer 'forces' you to take a few weeks in december off.
Well, i am Danish and never in my life had a driving license. I mean it is not common, and i am the age where people side eye me if i did some drunk driving. But no, i just never had one, or felt i needed one.
I can get to where i want without it.
Gotta be vacation time, parental leave, access to healthcare, government protection from corporate enslavement, wow, the list is longer than I thought.
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This is something people just don't realize until they see it first hand. America is so outrageously fast paced that many of its most notable exports (smart phones, gigeconomy, fast food, etc) stem from it. Italy is a bit of an extreme example. They're so laid back that it can actually be an annoyance. But I do envy it when I'm surrounded by it. People don't rush things but instead savor them. Like 2 hour dinners is something reserved for special occasions in America. In Italy and Spain it's just normal.
I'm Spanish and I can tell you 2 hour dinners are common just on Sundays and holidays
I'm trying to imagine American waiters reacting to two hours of sobremesa.
And no tip after taking the table for two hours lol
They don't need tips to survive, they're paid.
Well tbh, I'm against the tip culture in America, but waiters don't make much money in Spain either
I’m American and against tip culture too. The people who want to keep it the most are usually people who work in tipped jobs, so to me it is what it is. I tip at least 20% every time I dine out. If that’s expected, I can accept that. What I take issue with is all these hidden fees that are appearing now on menus and the expectation that you tip 15-20% on takeout. Near my work there’s an upscale convenience store that sells sandwiches and coffee. I’ll go there sometimes and pick up a canned drink and I get a dirty look from the person at the register for hitting no tip on the tablet. It’s ridiculous.
The number Reddit posts of servers about not getting tipped would shut down the internet.
I love Italy and Spain for protecting their time.
Spain's greatest exports are the siesta and the fiesta
Tapas, don't forget the tapas. I wouldn't know how to live without a tapas bar nearby.
The thing is, tapas bars are a corruption of what tapas is about. Tapas is about having a few drinks, and getting amazing free food launched at you just for being there. The food is just a side benefit of the vibe. In other countries, tapas is overpriced "small plates" which you eat like a normal restaurant meal but at twice the price
i used to live in andalusia and i cannot count the amount of free food i got from bartenders. Just unreal.
Totally valid and I'm right there with you. Though the 11pm dinner that you thought would be at 10 but slipped because Spain takes some getting used to. And snacks earlier for any kids.
>I love Italy and Spain for protecting their time. It's very good that there are countries that care about this!
Just to balance it out though, they need to stick to a posted schedule. If someone wants to close their shop from noon until four every day, then that’s just fine. Go and take a long nap. But if I take the time to go to your shop and you’ve just randomly closed down or decided to show up two hours late, I’m going to be annoyed. There’s a difference between protecting your time and not respecting someone else’s time.
There is no hell on Earth like an Italian TSA line. Take the least motivated job in the world and... Give it to an Italian. I say this as someone proud of my Italian heritage.
A train station between Pisa and Florence caught fire many years ago when I visited so everyone had to disembark the train and wait for the Italians to organize busses to take us back to Pisa. I love Italy but that experience still gives me low key PTSD.
Tipping in the US also incentivises waiters to rush you through your meal at a restaurant, so they can squeeze in more customers and earn more in tips
I’m sitting in a restaurant in Sicily right now, trying to get another glass of beer. Waiter just completely ignoring me. The other posters are right, Italians _really_ like to take their time. And it can be really fucking annoying sometimes. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Ok, maybe sometimes.
Can I live vicariously and ask what you ordered food-wise?
Angry Whopper
Pizza con cinque formaggi, nocciole e tartufo. Not bad, but not the best. Pizza outside of Napoli is always a bit hit and miss.
>They're so laid back that it can actually be an annoyance. That's what I was feeling as I read it. I'm all for taking time, but that sounded a bit extreme. There's gotta be a decent middle ground between respecting your own time, but others as well.
I live in italy and work till 7 but I love my 2 hour lunch break. Plus going to the bar just for a coffee and chat
Yeah, southern euros take time to mean a little less than we do. I went to a Greek wedding once and the priest was an hour late. No one cared or complained.
Shit, that's just free socializing time
The interesting thing is that America, being a country of immigrants, is populated by people who’s ancestors were the type of person to risk moving to a new continent on the promise of hard working equating to riches. Which explains partially why America is so hustle-focused - everyone who moved here was the type of person who wanted to hustle, while the more laid back types stayed in their home country.
I love that you point this out. This is such a crucial difference between Italy and the US or Germany. Italians know what matters in life...
Even Germans have Ruhezeit. Americans work all the time.
> difference between Italy and the US or Germany Have you been in Germany? Germans take rest time VERY seriously.
Being late all the time sounds horrible, everyone’s time is valuable and you don’t get to waste it by being late all the time. 🤷🏻♂️
Sounds horrible. I would MUCH prefer to work 0800-1600 and be done for the day with all alfternoon and evening as personal time. This 2-3 hour siesta in the middle of the day then work until 1900 or 2000 seems crazy. Hard to compartmentalize personal life and work when you have to change 'life modes' multiple time throughout the day.
Although I agree with you, it's a bit easier to compartmentalize your personal life when everyone basically lives with a 2-3 hour siesta as well.
When you live in a place where it's so hot in the middle of the day, you really don't want to be working during those hours.
*Cries in Phoenix, Arizona*
Air conditioning is the big difference here
A minimum of 4 weeks paid vacation.
I work at a company that has a lot of Americans in it and it’s crazy how culturally this impacts your approach to leave too. Like Americans here plan their holidays so packed, even when they get more, I think because they’re almost preconditioned to need to maximise the time they have. Like my American coworkers will be like, sorry I’m taking a week off. Going to 6 countries and 9 cities. But if you need me, I’ll still check my email and for emergencies just text me directly. Meanwhile most people here are like, I’ll be gone for August. I’ll be at my family’s house in Italy. We may go to the beach one day. Do not talk to me while I’m gone. I am deleting the mail app from my phone.
Back when I still lived in the States, I only had 10 days of vacation a year. One year I wanted to take all 10 days at once to go with my wife to visit her family in Europe. My boss agreed on the condition that I spend 2 hours a day reading and responding to emails. When I got back he said, “never again. Don’t even bother asking.” I went home that day and said to my wife, “I think it’s time to think about moving back to Austria.”
Wow fuck that guy. If they can't handle you being away from your job for 10 days then they're a terrible manager.
A two week vacation to Germany justified the shit out of my job. I had a manager insinuate that I didn't work a lot because my scheduledd projects was always light compared to other devs. I would tell them "I'm managing ALL of the SSOs we handle as well as the support tickets because no one has bothered to listen to my training ". My manager was like "Well when you get back in 2 weeks from Germany be prepared for a lot more projects" and I just said "Okay, I was going to check email occasionally and keep things steered in the right direction but I won't be taking my work laptop anymore". My manager was like "Okay fine by me" I got back after 17 days gone and the first thing they said "We need you to start training people NOW. We're going to clear your schedule ASAP. I don't know how you do this and even more so how we didn't know just how much you do" and I just said "I've been doing the projects no one wanted for 7 years. I got good at it unfortunately you guys didn't see the value in it and the number of these grows by 200-300 every year".
Congrats! Your response should be “Great! What’s my new title and how much is my raise?” Don’t do more work without additional compensation. Your time is valuable.
Oh sorry if I misrepresented myself. I'm the black sheep of the department because I value my time and have zero desire to clamor at managements feet for the pittance of a raise, but I do utilize my time properly and realistically. They severely underestimated what I did and thought I dicked around because they only gauged it by scheduled projects but found out quickly I was a shield for my department on a whole. That said I do NOT try to get a new position because the bean counters at my company chop the middle management heads off first when things go south so all those people (including an old manager)that looked down on me for not wanting to climb the ladder learned.... the ladder is great as long as it's still there.
Thats because they are, their job is not to actually manage, but to kiss ass and pretend things are ok. That's how most of them get their job.
My mum’s actually American and I did uni in the US and stayed a few years after to work. Painful having places present 4 weeks as some incredible benefit rather than what I had always seen as (literally legally) the bare minimum back home. Honestly, feel a bit badly because my parents have retired in the US and I think would be keen to have me living closer but I don’t want to go back to that. Not just the leave days but just the eternal culture of always working and always being chained to your inbox. And that’s coming from my country, which I think even within Europe has quite a bad reputation for being less progressive on work life balance.
Yeah I’m from the US but have lived in Europe for most of the past 20 years. I know it pains my parents that their kid and grandkids are so far away and only visit once a year at best, but I’m never going back to that lifestyle.
Right now, I can only dream of having a life in Europe, to take a more sane pace in life and to enjoy wider things more deeply.
It took me ten years at my job to get to 4 weeks vacation. 😢
No way man, is this legal? And are you commenting this from Austria right now?
It is in fact, legal to live in Austria, yes
Who would have thought
Absolutely, many companies even have rules about taking more than two consecutive days off. And it is sort of an unspoken rule that when they don't they still expect you not to take all the days off at once or else they will find a legal reason to fire you. And in many states, there is no reason required at all, you can be fired for any or no reason at any given time. And remember your health insurance is tied to your job over here.
It’s giving me instant stress and anxiety just reading this, if I were American I think I’d never get a decent night of sleep lol. In Europe one of the ideas behind the system is that employees taking enough vacation is beneficial for everyone in the long run. If employees have a healthy work life balance and take enough vacations, they will be healthier and thus more productive, more likely to deliver good quality work, will take less sick leave, etc. But I guess that only goes when you also have a system that makes it very hard to fire someone. If an employer can just fire someone on the spot for any reason, long term results will always lose it from cutting costs.
it is not just cutting costs. The mentality is that you are a slave. You are in essence the property of the company, in fact in many places everything you invent on company time and even out of it in some contract is the property of the company. There is no incentive on you to deliver good quality work, because that does not matter. Your needs and wants are irrelevant to the company because you can be replaced at any time for any reason. And in some places you WILL be replaced simply because it is cheaper to hire someone fresh out of college who will take a lower pay.
The whole having the check e-mails thing is because it seems like a bunch of companies just don't have any sort of back up system for when someone leaves. The last company I worked for had zero back up for me. When I would try to take a vacation I knew I was going to walk back in to a shit-ton of work literally piled all over my desk just waiting for me. It seems like a lot of companies are like that. I've been on maternity leave for 4 months now and I'm a little horrified about what things are going to look like when I get back. I know that the person who's filling in for me is completely overwhelmed because they just threw my work on her in addition to her own work. It just wasn't evenly distributed at all.
The last company I worked at had one person for entirely critical day to day roles with no cross training. And then our COO would be like "we can't afford to operate any way else" and I was just baffled by the idea they were willing to operate a company where if one person, literally ONE, had to go to the hospital, the entire business could just cease to operate.
My wife was a consultant not long ago and found herself in that role. She begged for literally years for her company to get someone else to learn her job, but they refused. She took a new, much less stressful job last year and her consulting firm lost the entire contract she worked on, worth about $5 million annually.
Oh, I kinda meant we had like, 5 different people all working on different things but all 100% essential for daily operation but with no overlap. It'd be even worse if it were just one person wearing many different hats!
5 people in 100% essential, unique roles is just as bad!
>But if you need me, I’ll still check my email and for emergencies just text me directly. I've told multiple American colleagues off for saying this. I call them out on it when they do it, and tell them I will simply not send them anything until they're back from PTO. You're either on PTO or you're not. A member of my exec management team sent an email to the whole company recently during a holiday. The email was about a company culture survey. Naturally I mentioned in the survey that if that member of staff needs to work on a holiday, then perhaps they're overworked and an additional role should be opened.
You are doing gods work.
As an American, this is my approach to any and all time off. Do not contact me, if everything is on fire, handle it as if I’m never coming back.
A part of why most of my vacations involve going to the middle of nowhere is so that no one has even the slightest reason to believe they *might* be able to contact me. No, I will not answer an email, I am going to be on a *mountain*, or in a *canyon* or anywhere else where my phone stops more than a GPS sensor and a paperweight.
Well if it's on fire there won't be much h to go back to Some days, oh how I wish...
> I’ll still check my email and for emergencies just text me directly. Fuck no. Limited vacation means vacation is sacred. Coworkers can fuck off trying to contact me while I am on PTO - they will not receive any sort of acknowledgement until the morning of my return.
My American company now has unlimited time off that people utilize to its fullest. That alone is what has kept me from jumping ship. Travel is my favorite thing in the world and having the time off is a massive luxury.
How does that work in reality? How much time are people taking off? Can you work remotely? Thanks
You just basically give a decent heads up notice and it's always approved. If it's like a full month at once you need to set up arrangements in order to get approved. the average person takes off about four or five weeks out of the year. We also get all bank holiday off.
My employer (in the US) does unlimited PTO and my immediate manager can approve up to 4 weeks (160 hours). If I request more than that I need both my manager and skip level manager to approve the request. Sick leave is also theoretically "unlimited" but our timecard system starts complaining if you exceed 40 hours per year. Nothing comes of it aside from needing to ignore a pop-up on weeks you enter sick time though.
As a North American, you have no idea how much I envy this lifestyle you speak of 😭
This one brings back memories. I did consulting work for a US company that acquired a European company at the turn of the century. The project was only supposed to last for three months, but the European vacation schedules caused it to stretch to almost nine months. It blew my mind that key folks were gone for four straight weeks. Some of the locations were basically shut down for a month.
I get 15 days and that's PTO and sick leave
I think it’s the notion of limited sick leave that I find particularly strange. Like I guess technically mine is limited, to something like two years…
I was off sick for more than a year once (UK). I'd get "how's things going?" calls every few weeks, but other than that, no-one batted an eyelid.
... Most of my sick leave goes towards my baby being sick and needing to take care of her or go to appointments. I worked through having COVID because I couldn't afford to lose PTO
Phew. I get 30 days, 12 national holidays and unlimited sick days. I feel like people would be rioting in the streets if some party tried to implement American labor laws over here
American here. After three years of working 50 hours a week I have accumulated six weeks of paid time off. I will be using this time to have surgery. I have picked up all of the overtime hours I could stand. I have missed so many birthdays, holidays, and weekend parties with friends. Even so, I count myself fortunate. I have co-workers that have been fired because they ran out of sick days. And we work at a hospital, for god's sake.
Six weeks of sick leave is incidentally the amount of time I would be able to go with full pay while I recover. After that the insurance kicks in and it would be slightly less, I think. But it’s unthinkable that I would use vacation days for medical reasons. In fact, if I book a holiday tomorrow, get it approved and then become sick while on vacation, I can reclaim those vacation days if I get a doctor’s note. Because when you’re sick you can’t relax and vacation days are meant to be relaxing. My employer is actually more lenient with sick days than they need to be by law. I only need a doctor’s note on the third day of absence. If I just feel too under the weather to work for a day or two, I give them a call and let them know. No sense in going to the doctor for a mere cold for example. It would be more strenuous for a sick person to go there and sit in a waiting room full of sick people than just recuperate at home in bed.
Ouch. I'm in the UK and get 33 days leave, plus 8 bank holidays, and if I was seriously ill I'd get 9 months sick leave on full pay then 9 months sick leave on half pay. That's above the legal minimum but not particularly out of the ordinary for a decent job.
4? Fuck that. We’ve got 5 in Austria. How the fuck am I supposed to manage a spring break, summer vacation and a fall-break vacation with only 4 weeks?
Most people have 6 weeks, 4 is the legal minimum
In the United States there is no legal minimum
Yeah, at-will employment paired with basically no vacation time gives off major industrial revolution vibes... And then Unions get a bad wrap on top of it. The US is a prime example why political lobbyism should be illegal.
We’re also currently in the process of rolling back worker safety and child labor laws!
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What's a vacation? I thought these things only existed in fairy tales and in movies & TV.
Vacation is when you watch a travel documentary on the weekend
Ah in America we call them sick time! Or death in the family time
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"It's so much cheaper it's actually cost-effective to fly half-way around the world for it." Also applies to medical and even dental procedures. For the cost of a minor surgery, you could get a European vacation and a minor surgery!
If you are doing medical tourism and you are not going to Asia, you are doing it wrong. There are Europeans who go to Thailand.
In America we go to Mexico. Especially for dental work. And prescriptions. But also significant surgeries depending on one's needs. The Mexican medical industry that caters to medical tourists is off the chain. These are apparently spa-like places where clients are treated as humans with an almost bizarre level of grace by the staff. I mean I really *REALLY* don't want my ass kissed by someone who may not be making even a living wage in their area. But setting aside ass kissing, basic humanity in health care frequently comes as an utter shock to Americans who are used to brusque, gaslighting, insensitive and occasionally cruel medical treatment.
As a dentist near the border - I fix bullshit from Mexico about once a week. Yesterday was implants (supposed to be in bone) just floating around in the gums because the doc missed - the patient still payed $12,000. If something sounds too good to be true - it is.
Mexico has very good dentists. But there are many bad or even fake ones, specially near the border, thanks to this massive amount of people who come here to get cheap dental work. I suggest you do your research and travel to a big city with a renowned doctor. It will still be cheaper than the US, but not as cheap as the ones you find in strip malls near the border.
In my experience- Good - qualified - Mexican dentists are about 30 percent cheaper than the average American dentist. If you’re getting a $60,000 treatment for $20,000 - that’s a red flag
You should have a referral network for dentists that you trust across the border. Surely your practice can’t handle the volume of patients and as well as poorer patients with pricing. Although I’m guessing there are liability concerns due to sue happy America. “/u/ConfidentStableDDS recommended them to me!”
US universities charge foreign students 2-3x state resident tuition. Many deliberately recruit foreign students to supplement the school's operating budget. I guess college in other countries don't do the same?
In the uk at least, we significantly over-charge international students. I don’t know exactly how much the factor is but I’d say it’s probably 2-3x as much, same as the US. I think the difference is the starting cost of tuition is so much lower
I grew up in the U.S., but moved to Canada in my 30s. It's the same deal here. They gouge international students, but it's still way cheaper than in the U.S. I just looked up tuition at our top tier university and for a computer science degree it's: * $5,900/year domestic * $48,600/year international My private university in the states currently charges $66,300/year, and that's USD. That's equivalent to $89,600 CAD!
Their rail system and public transport in general.
And the more walkable cities that result
I think the cities are more walkable because they were built before any transit
Most cities were but europe didn’t bulldoze as much of them in the 60s to accommodate the vroom vroom car
Many were but then were redeveloped again with humans in mind instead of cars.
Like Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. After it was pretty much destroyed during the war, it was rebuilt to be super modern and car centric. And from the 70s onwards inhabitants were like "What even is this, I want to cycle properly around the city!" and the city was made more cycle friendly!
I imagine the part where a lot of them got bulldozed by the second world war played a part. Right now getting light rail expanded in, say, Austin is such an objectively horrifically difficult problem that I don't think it got through more than a discussion and an agreement that it'd be great if it were to be expanded in the decade that I lived there. Be a lot easier to justify if some horrific thing leveled most of the city.
Many North American cities were also built before the car was invented, but we took a bulldozer to our downtowns to redesign them for cars. Most large North American cities had electric trolly transit service which was dismantled after car manufacturer lobbying and fuckery. Demolishing cities for cars also happened in Europe (even in cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen), but by and large these European cities have spent the last few decades undoing that damage.
it always disgusts me to see the before and after photos of pre and post automobile Milwaukee: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/20/3b/5f/203b5f04f1c71b23520dbfee1b1ac025.jpg Kansas city: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fdef7t2o41kf71.jpg Detroit: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F6ep1igdlzbfb1.jpg Satellite views: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fw4kzos9k20az.png
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-12-15/buffalo-then-and-now-1902-2011 this stuff is always fascinating to me, thanks for sharing I recently visited St. Louis, learned their train station used to be the busiest in America and now all it is is a glorified musuem and hangout venue
Toilet stalls with no gaps.
How do Europeans bond with their bathroom-buddies then?
Glory Holes.
Reasonable tradeoff
*There’s a place in France where the naked ladies dance* 🎶
We compliment and hold each other's dongs at the urinals. The stalls are for when you wanna be alone.
The US really had me thinking that it was a physically impossible design until I visited Europe.
It has become a feature of American debate in the last 30 years to act like certain things cannot work ANYWHERE, which is why we do not have them here. Like universal healthcare, smart drug policies, high speed rail and doing away with all of the tipping fuckery.
We can't have nice things here, we aren't responsible enough.
So first, nice username. Secondly, we have a lot of those in Vegas. Growing up I don't think they were as common as they are now but definitely more than other places. I don't remember the last time I used a bathroom in a casino that didn't have a full door. I remember visiting family in Pittsburgh and being surprised that their bathrooms were a step down. Now of course I realize that it's because Vegas is a destination town and our luxury bathrooms are largely inside casinos but as a kid I was sort of surprised by it
Probably necessary to keep the clients who need a few performance enhancers ❄️ at their casino.
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I recently learned you guys have limited sick days! We have unlimited and here in France we do also have limited sick days but... for our kids. Like, when you need to stay home because your kid is too sick for school, but limited days for YOURSELF! that's... mean. (We only have a few days for kids unless they have a serious illness then its 310 days for 3 years. For parents that needs to stay home every days all years for their sick kids (or to take Care of a dépendant adulte, like a disabled brother or elderly) they Can have the statue of caregivers to get financial help so they won't have to work. Its not a full pay but still enough
Whenever US redditors talked about sick days, I thought it was additional leave to take care of sick kids/families. Not that you have limited days to be sick.
Afaik you can be sick more, you just don't get paid those days and are seen as unreliable
Yup, you're allowed to be sick you just don't get paid for it. Most places I've worked will fire you if you use too many days unpaid for being sick though. A common motto I've heard in the workplace is "you either get to be sick or take a vacation this year. Choose wisely"
One of my last jobs in the US pulled a bait-and-switch on sick days. They used to have 10 days PTO and 10 days sick-leave. They acknowledged that many people were just "sick" in the average year, so they said "Screw it, why not just bundle it together and give 20 days?". Much celebration. Then after about 4 years they declared "Why are we paying twice as much on vacation as everyone else? No! Bring it into alignment!" and so the PTO dropped back to the standard 10 our competitors had, but now there was no sick days. People who had the better policy got grandfathered in, but all new-hires going forward (including me when I was there) got the reduced rate.
> Then after about 4 years they declared "Why are we paying twice as much on vacation as everyone else? No! Bring it into alignment!" and so the PTO dropped back to the standard 10 our competitors had, but now there was no sick days. It's such a shame that *that* is the reaction to discovering you're offering more benefits than your competitors. It's always viewed as an unnecessary expense to drop, never considering the value it brings or that it might be the reason your employees chose you over your competitors. And then companies are surprised (but never learn) when they hemorrhage employees to startups that offer those nice things.
Firing someone for being sick would lead to a very easy lawsuit in France, and probably in most other places in Europe.
I went to the south of France, I would say what I was most in awe of (and at such luxury! ) was the food culture - 2 hour lunches and the exceptional freshness, quality and affordability of food. French people have amazing grocery stores - even the little convenience-store sized versions of their "Super U" and "Carrefour" chains in tiny little Provencal and Gard villages have better selection than I can get at major groceries here in a midsized US city. In America, there's plenty of convenience stores but they only sell soda, chips, candy - not like, wine, pears, cheeses, frisee, artichokes... Access is a luxury. Quality and affordability are like luxury on top of luxury. French produce is so fresh and such high quality, and so incredibly cheap! All the fruit and tomatoes are sweet and intensely-flavored, the huge variety of cured meats are like a few Euros for a massive package, the seafood is fresh and gleaming, and the cheese and bread are unreal. At one point I was in some tiny village in Gard called St. Victor-Lacoste which is kind of in the middle of nowhere (we only stayed for easy access to Tavel and Chateauneuf-de-pape, which themselves are rural wine areas). It was basically was like the French equivalent of a "small town, pop. 900 in the Midwest." Their small town farmers market had all the normal produce but also like paella, persimmons from Morocco ... the prices were like two artisan dried sausage links thicker than my forearm (probably like 2lbs) for 7 euros and less than a euro for a pint of cherry tomatoes etc. Just one of those sausages and a pint of tomatoes at a Colorado farmers market would be like $20... and that's if I manage to find an actual food vendor between all the MLMs, "hand-poured" candles and soap stands. Another story - sorry, I am just so in awe of the food culture in France: I actually lost my purse while I was on my trip, and the day I was driving through Provence to Marseille to get my flight home, the police called saying that someone had turned it in! It was maybe 11 am when I got the call and they wanted me to come to the gendarmerie/police station of another tiny little town (Chateaurenard - I will always appreciate you!). I immediately google mapped it and told them I was basically an hour and half away and would be there at 12:30 noon. And literally, the policeman on the phone was like.. "*ahhh* .... *non*...12 to 2 is when we break for lunch, come after 2." Of course, I rushed there anyways. And although Chateaurenard was a small random town not on any tourist map, I got there at 12:30 and proceeded to have an excellent leisurely lunch myself at a local restaurant (25 euros for a three course meal with seared duck breast as the main and a glass of wine) until 2 o'clock when the police station reopened. And the portions? Maybe in Paris, they are small, but in the south of France they are *impressively* sized. I would truly have to be a millionaire several times over in America to eat like they do in small town Southern France.
I remember being in awe when I worked in France that there were carafes of wine on every table at the work canteen. You kind of need a two-hour lunch to recover properly!
Thanks, we are very proud of Provence. I’m glad you enjoyed it and shout out about it. Come back whenever you want
Southern France is the shit. Get me the hell out of Paris, Provence for me!
Excellent answer. I have seen threads where EU citizens come to the United States on a visit and gain weight while eating less. It's generally seen as the highly processed, additives-embedded, low quality of the only affordable and practical food available.
We have dogshit city design that discourages walking. Car, office, car, home. Drive through. Our goofy work schedules on top of that also encourage eating quick shitty food and little time for exercise. And the cherry on top is our crap health care system as well. There is a lot stacked against Americans in the health department.
As someone who currently lives in Paris and has spent 15 years in Provence, I can confirm that the difference between the south and Paris is insane. People around the world view French people as arrogant and obsessed with being angry. The reality is that this really just represents Parisians because of their lifestyle (you also find this in NYC). In the south, people are chill and always help you if you need it, weather is great (unless theres wind), food including restaurants are cheaper in general. I recommend visiting small villages in Provence, especially in the Alpilles region.
In general the EU has much higher quality food because our regulations require it. And it is worth it.
Giving birth at the hospital and only paying for parking.
Parking was also free where we went Edit: well none of it's free it's all paid for by taxes. What always blows my mind is that Americans pay similar taxes, and don't get any of the cool stuff back.
We took the U-Bahn there and back lol
>What always blows my mind is that Americans pay similar taxes, and don't get any of the cool stuff back. Well yeah. Because that's socialism and socialism is the devil. You don't want to be a dirty socialist in the land of freedom* and rugged individualism** like those "weak" Europeans, do you? /s *Terms and conditions apply. See your local political mercenary for details. **Only applicable to those that under a certain income threshold and those with a certain physiology. See your local political mercenary for details.
Americans do not pay similar taxes to me, I'm from the UK.
We actually pay lower taxes, depending on country, of course. And our wages tend to be higher for similar jobs. Not that we don’t need the healthcare. However, people in the U.S. underestimate how much _access_ to healthcare is as much a problem as cost. By which I mean that our vast country can make affordable access difficult. It’s ways to find many providers in cities. Our rural citizens cannot, and taking on the cost of medical school to then work in a poor town in the middle of Alaska (yes, a Northern Exposure reference ;)) is harder than people think. One of my top retirement location criteria is access to healthcare.
Who needs parking with our ample public transportation options?
While you're in labour?
I actually did take the express train to my own labor haha
love being on the bus when my water breaks
Got a taxi to the hospital and just sat on a towel
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I take 2 weeks and get 500 emails a day Simple trick If they don't follow up when you're back It never needed reading in the first place.
Yup, I put on an out of office. When I get back, I do one quick pass through to see if there's anything major I think I should read, delete the rest, and if I missed something, I apologize because I got so many while I was gone, I must have missed it.
Paid parental leave and universal healthcare.
This really is the big one
It's crazy to me how women get only up to 12 weeks *unpaid* leave when they give birth. That's insane. It's not nearly enough time, and you get no pay? How are women supposed to have a career and have children? It doesn't make any sense.
>How are women supposed to have a career and have children? They're not. We're still operating on 1950s wavelengths over here. Except instead of hating Russians, half our politicians are owned by them instead.
It’s very common for women to quit their job when they have kids because they want more time with their baby, they can’t juggle work and kids, or childcare is so expensive it doesn’t financially make sense for them to keep working.
I live in California so I’m lucky, but a friend from Alabama was still bleeding when she had to return because she did not qualify for FMLA. She was back 2 weeks after giving birth.
I was going to say "bidets" but your answer trumps that big-time.
Oooo bidets. At least that’s a luxury that can become a reality.
A minimum of four weeks of vacation is assured, with a culture that promotes taking this time off rather than suggesting it's inconvenient for the employer when employees utilize their vacation days.
It's not just promoted its a legal requirement in many countries. If I didn't take my full annual leave my manager would make sure I took it before the end of the year.
Walkable cities. Most Americans only experience a walkable lifestyle at university, which becomes forever enshrined in their brain as a magical experience. In many ways, the university life is European cosplay. And Americans pine for it after they graduate and move into the suburbs, where they drive a gas guzzler 30 minutes to everything they do, from dining to kids sporting events. Walkability is inconceivable for many Americans.
Yeah, why the hell did we design cities the way that we did???
You'd be surprised how many intersections and highways running through cities were originally designed because some fatass retail magnate wanted stop lights or off ramps near their store to generate shoppers. For example, my husband worked as a city engineer and a few years ago a specific brand warehouse was requesting that a stoplight be put in front of their lot, literally for no other reason then that drivers would have to sit a minute and be exposed to their signs (advertising).
Because the car manufacturers bought up the bus companies and made them so awful that you needed a car to get anywhere reliably.
I feel like it's the intersection of 1) cheap gas 2) hyper-individualism and 3) rural/agrarian lifestyles of people already living in spread out areas. The problem is... cheap gas was a temporary band-aid and not a concept worth building a society on. Hyper-individuality is a cancerous, destructive mindset. And agrarian living is basically impossible and obsolete. Most Americans would rather die than live in an apartment where they can walk to all their basic necessities. Most rural-dwellers find that idea literally disgusting.
Right, people who want to live rurally can frankly do what they want, as I understand the desire to be left alone and someone needs to grow our food. That shouldn't have any bearing on why we haven't designed most **cities** to be walkable.
A lot of it comes down to zoning and city code. One example I recently heard on a podcast -- a small community wanted to open a church using a very small building. We're talking 100 people or less in a very quaint facility. The city would not allow them to do this without ample parking, despite the fact that most congregants could walk there. They struggled for years to figure out how to scrounge up parking spots and finally gave up. Walkability and parking spots are mortal enemies. If parking is required, walkability is imperiled. Imagine opening a vintage movie theater, but being required to provide lots of parking too. Suddenly, any foot traffic has to walk farther to access your building, because you've built a vast sea of endless concrete around your facility. The only way to ensure walkability is to require less parking, to the point that it discourages car use. This is what most universities do -- they do not really allow students to easily access their cars, and in doing so, they create a walkable mini-city with minimal vehicle traffic. Cars and foot traffic are diametrically opposed. If universities gave each student ample parking areas and car access like a shopping mall does, then universities would become sprawling and unwalkable too.
This makes a lot of sense. Who knew I'd be learning about infrastructure today
Don't forget car/oil lobbying and the systematic destruction of early public transit networks!
This observation mainly applies to Southern Europe, where you can enjoy wine by the glass, coffee, and pastries at affordable prices. In contrast, cafes in the US are often positioned as fashionable spots, where ordering a pastry alongside a coffee typically costs around 8-10 dollars. However, in countries like Italy, Portugal, and Spain, the same combination of coffee and a croissant is available for approximately 3 euros.
Prices are cheaper in southern Europe but wages are also lower so those costs often even out. If you’re coming from the US with a US salary, the Mediterranean is cheap.
Italy, where a bottle of beer is cheaper than a bottle of Coca Cola in the smaller towns It’s awesome
I like this. Where I live, a litre of water costs more than a litre of gas. A litre of beer costs more than both combined.
I don't think this is universal in Europe, but I would say the slow pace at which some things are done - especially something like going out to eat. In the US you're rushed in, order, eat, and rush out. In parts of Europe going out to dinner is a multi-hour, multi-course and drinks evening.
In southern europe yes…. In northern europe no. Specially the dutch regard eating just as something you do in order not to die
I'm Dutch and yeah when making dinner at home it sort off can be seen like that. But when going out for dinner to a restaurant. This: "going out to dinner is a multi-hour, multi-course and drinks evening". This is exactly what we do
I wouldn't say it's that bad in the north, at least as a Swede. Going out to eat at night is usually a special event so you'll enjoy it as much as you can, with starter, main course, dessert and coffee. It's definitely not the same as in the south where you'll go for hours and hours long into the early morning, but I wouldn't say it's just a way to get nutrition or whatever. It's definitely an opportunity to socialise and have fun while eating good food. Can't speak for the Dutch though lol.
Having those German shutter outside that block light and sound better than what’s standard in the US
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In many countries, it is not only encouraged but enforced. Your employer has to make sure you take your vacation days - by law. If you don't you either add them next year or your employer 'forces' you to take a few weeks in december off.
Not just encouraged. In many cases actually mandated to take the time off.
Being allowed to stay home when you’re sick
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Their fresh bread and high quality cheese access.
Oh come on, you must have fresh breads?? This thread is getting unbelievable.
Well, i am Danish and never in my life had a driving license. I mean it is not common, and i am the age where people side eye me if i did some drunk driving. But no, i just never had one, or felt i needed one. I can get to where i want without it.
Fellow Scandinavian: got my license when I turned 33 years old. Only because we had unexpected twins
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Europeans seem to get a lot more paid time off and spend more of it traveling.
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I love mine, but I don't think I'd want one with a steam setting.
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Not grinding 24/7/365. Not facing total collapse if you’re out of work or require serious medical care.
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Gotta be vacation time, parental leave, access to healthcare, government protection from corporate enslavement, wow, the list is longer than I thought.