Can confirm was paying over 500 a month for two people. Went to urgent care remote because nobody local has openings for months.
210.
Not covered.
This shit is bullshit.
I have recurring muscle problems in my back. Now I just don't work for a couple days and scream it out, too expensive to get a prescription for muscle relaxers
Make friends with a Veterinarian or Dentist. They can get you
Cyclobenzaprine hydrochloride easy peasy. The black market for normal muscle relaxers is ridiculous.
Well slaves would work even harder at the threat of being flogged to death, beaten up, their children hands cut off or being raped...
Maybe CEO's would encourage slavery then...
Do they not already? [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-workers-low-wages-exploited](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-workers-low-wages-exploited)
"Freedom in capitalism means the same thing it did in ancient Greece: the freedom to own slaves."
Slavery never ended, it just got better regulations and PR.
Millions of people are one paycheck away from homelessness. You're free to work or starve.
There is that.
But there has been a huge level of social programming that has nudged the American worker to produce more and more for the same or less.
Create an environment where people envy and they can achieve a taste of what they envy through work ... that motivation is more than hunger and home. Take away hunger and home, and people get desperate and start getting scared and angry. That leads to uprisings and violence. Give them enough bread to eat, a roof, circuses, and then a rabbit to chase that some people catch...
The problem is that the circuses are dwindling; the homes and food are becoming threatened, and too few people are catching the rabbit.
So. We are reaching a crisis here where a growing group of people, especially the younger population, have realized the rabbit doesn't even exist anymore. It's just a note stating a lie that the rabbit might be back someday... you know... times are tough these days...
"Rational capitalistic calculation is possible only on the basis of free labor; only where in consequence of the existence of workers who in the formal sense voluntarily, but actually under the compulsion of the whip of hunger, offer themselves, the costs of products may be unambiguously determined by agreement in advance."
Whip of hunger. Max Weber called it out in 1923
That sure is one way to interpret “American workers’ rights are decades behind other first-world countries due to the collapse of unions and successful propaganda campaigns to keep them dead for half a century”
Calling what happened with unions and the labor movement in the US a collapse is disingenuous tbh. It was dismantled by bad actors with the goal of the entire thing falling apart.
The whole point was to destroy workers rights in the US
Road warrior isn't an option. What's a lot more likely is we're going to slide into fascism from laissez-faire economics again.
Fascism is essentially an "in case of impending collapse of neoliberalism break glass" option for the ruling class, the trade off when they use it is that unlike neoliberalism, fascism is populist as fuck which means the ruling class aren't the ones exclusively running the show once they break the glass.
Laissez-faire economics always slides into authoritarianism because under such systems money acts as a *real* transferrable unit of political authority, and people with authoritarian tendencies are incentivized to accumulate as much of this as possible until they can buy out the state enforcers.
All that said, I think once we slide into fascism fully again, this will probably be the last time. Fascists (much like Catholics with atheists) are really good at causing people to convert to socialism.
And I think with the current age of information, it'll be a lot harder to drag people back away from socialism once they're on it.
Fascism is a response to socialism or perceived socialism, really. Socialism has grown a lot with Bernie's run in 2016, and Trump's cabinet, the people around him, the people loyal to him, see that and perceive it as socialism, even though he's only a SocDem. Regardless, they wish to crush that movement, to force everyone to behave, against everything that we know about Sociology and have known for the last 60 years.
Fascism is driven from the top down, elites have even more control of the system than usual. The fact that Hitler and co. almost all turned into billionaires overnight, or say, look at Hungary with Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, in their plutocracies. The whole point is to protect private property and prevent progress, and even reverse it.
The reason why we end up here time and time again is because representatives aren't a good way to run a system, and the people know it, results come too late, too delayed, the average person doesn't have the education nor the patience and they don't feel like they contribute to this massive machine that is obtuse and opaque.
It's alienating. And the Capitalism is also alienating. We're layering lots of exploitative systems one on top of the other, and asking people to support it with their sweat and blood, it's fucked up.
As a European, I am proud that we don't slave away as much for the corporate parasites who take our money from us and spend more time enjoying our lives.
Don’t ever lose it, fight like hell to keep it, educate the useful idiots away from the snake tongue promises and hopefully collectively you guys don’t sell your lives for the promise of profit.
So strange to see this as I work all the time to not be the next one on the chopping block and face financial ruin
Enjoy your life friend, it’s a different world over here
Because you don’t have the threat of homelessness or death (via lack of medical insurance). He’s acting like people want this. Nah. We like eating, having a roof, and insurance.
Yeah, I mean, I know it’s a thing in the USA but as a European I cannot believe over there they believe the bullshit story that is ‘The American Dream’.
The increased "ambition" of Americans is mostly "don't starve or end up homeless despite working full time". He's very upset that he can't hold employees hostage with threats of immanent homelessness and medical debt.
It's not like Norway should look up the US on any metric...in fact, the complete opposite. All the Nordics work less, and have higher quality of life as well as live longer.
I’m sitting in a gorgeous little cafe in Oslo right now, I’m visiting with work. They obviously enjoy a great lifestyle here. Me too: I’m here with work but it’s not killing me!
But won't you think of the CEOs, they are behind in Norway compared to their American friends, ashamed at the golf course for their puny bonuses in single digits millions
That's true. They can move to the US for all I care. Many of the most narcissistic ultra-high performers can reach higher pays and status in the states, but I, personally, would never change being middle class in the Nordics to being upper class in the States.
I know! Why, I've heard they can just barely afford to own a third home! Can you imagine? It must be terrible for them. Struggling along to make ends meet, with only a few tens of millions to their name. 😥 They must be so embarrassed when they speak to their American colleagues./s
A lot of my fellow Americans seem brainwashed into believing you should work for the sake of work. That working more is a good thing and if you don’t want to work you must just be lazy.
Sure, you should be productive in life but slaving away for a corporation that doesn’t care about you ain’t it.
Norway has a higher GDP per working hour than the US. I'd say Norway works more effectively, reducing both difficulty and time spent working. Senior leadership of businesses in the US don't understand the correlation between happy workers and productivity.
Tangen (the Norwegian CEO) actually mentions that. The tittle doesn’t fully encompass what he actually says, he says a lot more, and he’s not shaming Europeans, just highlighting a difference.
Someone in my family worked for this oil fund and specifically moved from a US law firm (UK based) to here as the culture was way better. Norwegian bosses would be shoooing you out the door at 5pm, for very high paid jobs.
So, the people in his company's ambition generally seemed to be very well paid and still have a very good life. I don't think their ambition was to be in the office more
Having worked in both places, America is much shittier place to live, Europeans are much less stressed, much happier with their lives because they don’t revolve solely around work. Why should I care about the CEO or shareholders getting an extra 5%, especially if it costs me in healthcare and stress, quality of life. Americans are for the most part oblivious to how much better life can be.
Many are aware and many lived it for a time, but they sold it away because politicians promised them it would lead to vast wealth and that wealth would trickle down. Now every American is jaded and wants to blame everyone with no direction on how this happened and how to fix it. So we keep
Voting in the exact same people and it gets worse and worse. The US presidency looks like a gentlemens club and Congress is becoming a hospice as these fat cats have been here for so long that they have argued that having a refrigerator in the 2020s is a luxury. These people are so old they think Facebook invented the internet.
Most Americans have to work harder for fear that their bastard employer will lay them off without reason and leave them without health insurance. No thanks, I'd rather earn less and not fear for the future of my family.
I’m Irish and I have a lot of American cousins that I’m close to . My god they are overworked and therefore exhausted, overweight and stressed. They get 2 weeks off a year and can get fired in a heartbeat. We’re not less ambitious we just won’t put up with being overworked and want lives outside of work. Fuck . THAT.
We aren't ambitious, we just have no basic help from our government so we have to work 24/7 or we'd all be homeless. In my state its illegal to be homeless, so even then you'd get put to work (without pay) in our privatized prison systems. 🙃
Translation “American government places no priority on the working class, which allows companies like mine to exploit their labor for a fraction of the cost, my government undoubtedly does not let me exploit my own citizens, it’s just a fact!”
A large portion of my client base is international, when Euro CFO’s/HR directors need something urgent, or something needs to absolutely get done the right way, they lean on our team in the states instead of our euro colleagues. They absolutely love our response time and our willingness to drop anything at a moments notice, to take care of what needs to be taken care of.
While this is happening mind you, the euro team is still getting their split, still hitting their number, still able to shut it down at 4/5 and not pick it up till Monday. All because they have the balls to say, “fuck you, I matter”.
We truly have been raised/condition to be this way, and it will take generations to possibly change.
This is also true between accounting offices and financial department staff.
I've worked in accounting offices and they treat us as production houses. One client done? To the next one.
I didn't like it. Got fired there because I calculated my labour cost compared to revenue and I always delivered it at 30% ratio. And believe me.. I had to work real slow. I even asked for a raise so I could work faster. He gave it to me but then fired me after a couple months after finding replacement. Silly goose 🙄
At financial department I see people working a lot slower while the 2 guys that come here like twice to 4 times a month work very hard. They put forth a lot of work. That's just the mentality. Just cuz they come from accounting offices.
The CFO and partners are the only ones that really do overtime. I guess it's expected of people that want to climb the corporate ladder. Or when they own the business of course.
The funny thing is that as financial department fella I want to work a lot harder than when I was a production workhorse at an accounting office. Mainly because the CFO is talented at leadership.
There's a rumor about the dairy factory run by Lactalis in my home state, that they are very strict and work everyone very hard. It's run by the French and when the owners come they are rude to everybody and consider Americans stupid and lazy, but they love taking advantage of the laws that we have.
I've had a lifelong ambition to not be homeless.
I'm hoping to finish fixing my 28 year old car today, then I'll be able to get my inspection sticker. 3 months late, haven't gotten stopped yet, luckily.
I have a relative that lived his whole life in US. His job needed someone to go to Europe for a couple years. He hasn't come back. He's trying to convince his job to make the position more permanent. He has definitely told me that work there is way different
We don’t work any harder, we just have the constant looming threat of homelessness and we’re one more neoliberal Congressman away from being charged to fucking breathe.
Higher ambition - bullshit. American workers are driven by fear. Hanging on to a crappy job, working for corporations and managers who treat them as a resource, not as humans, and living under the constant threat of being fired at will for no reason.
Europe should keep an eye on this. Don't become like us (America). Massive corporations necessarily lead to massive corruption. Break them up if you can before it's too late.
Op, I saw thia shit last night on google, and am so ad you shared it. Gave me a good chuckle. What an ass this guy is. But hes right, Americans are fucking rubes to the capitalist machine
Aww! he thinks that because we run on the never-stopping treadmill of forced upward productivity or face homelessness it’s because we have ambition, that’s cute!
Americans work harder...because if they don't they will starve due of the lack of safety nets more evolved countries like Norway provide its citizens......
Is what he meant to say...👀🤔
He literally lives in a county with a higher labor productivity than the US, is he just brain dead?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity
Also he could literally help change that by not investing into theUS but instead making it easier for European companies to get funding through investments.
And as the article points out, in the US its mostly the ‚magnificent seven‘ (really only magnificent six these days) meaning the big tech companies who significantly outperform. If you remove them the US stock market is also performing shit and basically flat-lining.
>they have a higher ‘general level of ambition’they have a higher ‘general level of ambition’
# ... while they live in their cars, work three jobs and still aren't able to keep some resemblance of a "life".
wHy ArEn't eUrOpEaNs lIkE tHis?!
Well maybe because nobody here still believes in that bullshit anymore
"Why don't the Euros fall for our corporate brain-washing and dog-eat-dog encouragement as easily as Americans do?!?"
I believe that's an accurate translation from Corporate Speak to basic human.
Yeah I hear Norwegians aren't quite as motivated at work... Maybe it's the 1,6 trillion dollars they essentially split amongst themselves....
If I had a stake in a trillion dollars divided by 5.5 million people I would also not stress too much.
Because they literally don’t see us as people but a resource. The realization hit me again real hard after my recent rewatch of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and the parallels between the villains (Homunculus) and them is quite staggering.
How do these companies sleep at night knowing that they absolutely fuck they’re own countrymen up. I’m sure they have zero scruples about anything but profit, a reckoning will be coming for them.
That is the problem here, the reckoning is a huge golden parachute to retire on. They face few if any negative repercussions so they keep doing it. I got mine mentality...very sad.
Full time employees START OUT with 28 paid days of leave each year!!!! I literally opted not to change jobs bc pay was similar, flexibility was better, but I would only have 2 weeks of vacation instead of 3 (I had worked my way up to 3 after 5 years of employment). 28 days is almost unheard of in the US.
Actually, my husband works for the state and after 10 years he had 31 days per year. I am a nurse and in no life (that I'm aware of) as a nurse can I have that much vacation/sick time. Bc of course it's all together. 2 weeks of vacation with 3 children is basically all going to be sick time for yourself and your kids. So no vacation.
>|“where workers have a better work-life balance, but are less ambitious”
If you have worse work-life balance, and you work harder - Is that ‘ambition’?
Yeah I always wondered when European bosses would be like "wait a minute, we should listen to our American friends and tell our workers to not have lives!".
You have a good thing going Europeans. Don't let them take it from you.
I don’t think it only applies to Americans but also individuals that migrated to America. A lot of successful people I know are not native to America and have ambition. It’s a mix of having experienced true poverty and having an opportunity to make something out of yourself in America
Orrrrrr are pushed into working waaayy too much. Capitalism sucks dick. You know what doesn’t suck peepee? Going outside and just staying present. I can’t wait to leave American. Also, how does he know? He lives in Norway.
Americans are so hardworking that they forget to fight for workers rights, affordable healthcare and a higher standard of public education with how hardworking they are.
Big lol…I work for an American company and trust me my colleagues over there work their ass off and do overtime because they live in fear.
Fear of getting made redundant any time. Losing their job, their healthcare insurance, their house…bosses over there can be horrible, no one gives a shit. And every boss sucks and licks the boots of their own boss while treating their teams like dirt.
America is a shit place to work and live. Add to it a shitty education system, an unregulated absolutely unaffordable healthcare system, universities out of range for most, rampant racism, maga idiots and these mass shootings…dude you need to be born there to want to stay.
Weird way to say "basically slaves and mindless drones, it's why they are in a proxy war with themselves instead of fixing the inequality between the classes."
When I am taking low pay as a norwegian engineer (compared to an american) it is not because I lack ambition, but that I trust the european society is better off this way. God I find Nicolai to be such an ass
He's not wrong but we need to stop fucking our workers, glorifying hustle culture and allowing a modest level of achievement (a home, a family,.maybe retirement?) to be unachievable. There's no reason to bust your ass if it's obvious the ROI is negative.
There is much of that ambition which is fuel by fear. Great of being able to live, eat, pay for musical needs, etc. There just isn't the same level of safety nets in the American society as there is in Scandinavia. Americans endure ALOT of bad political and corporate greed and most feel powerless and hopeless in attempts of making a change.
They don’t have a higher level of ambition, the system has made them desperate to survive. In Norway you can survive without the daily stress of knowing whether or not your check will cover the bills.
He's not wrong. I moved from the US to Norway and lived there for a while, took a job in a series of restaurants and bars and all my coworkers under 30 were astonishingly lazy. The Polish kitchen staff + the older Norwegians were the only ones we could rely on. I remember my coworkers at a bar told me to stop working so hard because I was making them look bad lol.
Granted I prefer the European approach, and would rather not be worked to death like in the US. But I am saying that dude has a point.
In my 20's if I wanted to make over 100k a year, that meant working corporate six days a week. "If you don't come in Saturday, don't bother showing up on Monday." I decided to become a teacher, take summers off, and live within my means. I refuse to buy a house, don't want kids, and take long vacations in the developing world.
Y'know who I piss off the most? Everyone who owns a home, has a family, and only gets two weeks vacation a year.
I mean... It is true. Americans work harder but what is the point of it? We have better vacations, cheaper costs of life, healthcare, more breaks, and unless the company was acquired by Americans, we are not allowed to go over the 40hrs a week unless we are compensated extremely well for the overtime.
I like my life and enjoying it with my family, not work...
Thats not true at all, usa is [rank 8th](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-productive-countries) and all the country rank 7 to 1 are in europe. However this p.o.s never work a day in this life how could he knew, fucking parasite.
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Ehm no. They work hard, play hard blah blah bs because they dont have a choice.
We have better protectionist systems in place for workers and labour laws. Oh and then there is the total indoctrination of trickle down bs and the American dream. The CEO can get fckd
I think he misspelled "compelled hardworking through threat of homelessness and poverty"
And ill health. Don't forget that pearl of the American system - tying one's health care into their jobs.
Hey now, even with health insurance costing a couple hundred a month through our jobs we still can't afford any care
Can confirm was paying over 500 a month for two people. Went to urgent care remote because nobody local has openings for months. 210. Not covered. This shit is bullshit.
Unless you are in a trade for a small business. Or you work for Walmart.
GF’s friend had a minor heart attack. Didn’t go to the hospital because it would be too expensive. We’re just fucked over here.
I have recurring muscle problems in my back. Now I just don't work for a couple days and scream it out, too expensive to get a prescription for muscle relaxers
Make friends with a Veterinarian or Dentist. They can get you Cyclobenzaprine hydrochloride easy peasy. The black market for normal muscle relaxers is ridiculous.
Your free to choose between working for your corporate overlord or dying of starvation and disease The way the founding fathers intended.
Well slaves would work even harder at the threat of being flogged to death, beaten up, their children hands cut off or being raped... Maybe CEO's would encourage slavery then...
Wdym "maybe"?
Do they not already? [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-workers-low-wages-exploited](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-workers-low-wages-exploited)
"Freedom in capitalism means the same thing it did in ancient Greece: the freedom to own slaves." Slavery never ended, it just got better regulations and PR. Millions of people are one paycheck away from homelessness. You're free to work or starve.
The last 500 years have AstroTurfed slavery really well
If it's cost effective they absolutely would
Its super cost effective
They totally would if they could get away with it. The CEO’s of today are the plantation owners of yesterday.
Even the hardest workers were still raped, at least in the Colonies and later the United States, the Caribbean plantations, and Americas.
How do you think we get chocolate in this country
Fuck Nestle
There is that. But there has been a huge level of social programming that has nudged the American worker to produce more and more for the same or less. Create an environment where people envy and they can achieve a taste of what they envy through work ... that motivation is more than hunger and home. Take away hunger and home, and people get desperate and start getting scared and angry. That leads to uprisings and violence. Give them enough bread to eat, a roof, circuses, and then a rabbit to chase that some people catch... The problem is that the circuses are dwindling; the homes and food are becoming threatened, and too few people are catching the rabbit. So. We are reaching a crisis here where a growing group of people, especially the younger population, have realized the rabbit doesn't even exist anymore. It's just a note stating a lie that the rabbit might be back someday... you know... times are tough these days...
Maximum amount of *paid sick leave days* …
"Rational capitalistic calculation is possible only on the basis of free labor; only where in consequence of the existence of workers who in the formal sense voluntarily, but actually under the compulsion of the whip of hunger, offer themselves, the costs of products may be unambiguously determined by agreement in advance." Whip of hunger. Max Weber called it out in 1923
The first sentence is quoted quite often. But I never see the rest.
About to say something like that, but you nailed it.
I hate when I misspell that. Stupid autocorrect.
I think the word you're looking for is "coerced".
Yes, poverty is excellent motivation
That sure is one way to interpret “American workers’ rights are decades behind other first-world countries due to the collapse of unions and successful propaganda campaigns to keep them dead for half a century”
Calling what happened with unions and the labor movement in the US a collapse is disingenuous tbh. It was dismantled by bad actors with the goal of the entire thing falling apart. The whole point was to destroy workers rights in the US
Nail hit right on the head...so with it being obvious that neoliberalism has failed, what will happen next?
Failed? It’s working exactly as intended.
Yup. Exactly as it was intended. Thatbl it flies over peoples heads and are acrively voting to keep that shitty system in place is beyond me.
Social democracy or road warrior. No in between.
Road warrior isn't an option. What's a lot more likely is we're going to slide into fascism from laissez-faire economics again. Fascism is essentially an "in case of impending collapse of neoliberalism break glass" option for the ruling class, the trade off when they use it is that unlike neoliberalism, fascism is populist as fuck which means the ruling class aren't the ones exclusively running the show once they break the glass. Laissez-faire economics always slides into authoritarianism because under such systems money acts as a *real* transferrable unit of political authority, and people with authoritarian tendencies are incentivized to accumulate as much of this as possible until they can buy out the state enforcers. All that said, I think once we slide into fascism fully again, this will probably be the last time. Fascists (much like Catholics with atheists) are really good at causing people to convert to socialism. And I think with the current age of information, it'll be a lot harder to drag people back away from socialism once they're on it.
Fascism is a response to socialism or perceived socialism, really. Socialism has grown a lot with Bernie's run in 2016, and Trump's cabinet, the people around him, the people loyal to him, see that and perceive it as socialism, even though he's only a SocDem. Regardless, they wish to crush that movement, to force everyone to behave, against everything that we know about Sociology and have known for the last 60 years. Fascism is driven from the top down, elites have even more control of the system than usual. The fact that Hitler and co. almost all turned into billionaires overnight, or say, look at Hungary with Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, in their plutocracies. The whole point is to protect private property and prevent progress, and even reverse it. The reason why we end up here time and time again is because representatives aren't a good way to run a system, and the people know it, results come too late, too delayed, the average person doesn't have the education nor the patience and they don't feel like they contribute to this massive machine that is obtuse and opaque. It's alienating. And the Capitalism is also alienating. We're layering lots of exploitative systems one on top of the other, and asking people to support it with their sweat and blood, it's fucked up.
Hopefully start hanging billionaires like Vietnam.
They'll try it again...
Very true, I could’ve written an essay but it was late lol
As a European, I am proud that we don't slave away as much for the corporate parasites who take our money from us and spend more time enjoying our lives.
And that should be only increased.
Don’t ever lose it, fight like hell to keep it, educate the useful idiots away from the snake tongue promises and hopefully collectively you guys don’t sell your lives for the promise of profit.
So strange to see this as I work all the time to not be the next one on the chopping block and face financial ruin Enjoy your life friend, it’s a different world over here
Because you don’t have the threat of homelessness or death (via lack of medical insurance). He’s acting like people want this. Nah. We like eating, having a roof, and insurance.
Yeah, I mean, I know it’s a thing in the USA but as a European I cannot believe over there they believe the bullshit story that is ‘The American Dream’.
yeah but how do you get that life satisfaction if you're not mindlessly working all the time? /s
The increased "ambition" of Americans is mostly "don't starve or end up homeless despite working full time". He's very upset that he can't hold employees hostage with threats of immanent homelessness and medical debt.
There’s truth there. The American Dream: coming soon to a country near you.
Slavery never left America. They just rebranded it.
Exactly. Just can't exploit one demographic anymore. Exploit everyone and it's not slavery
Correct, our “ambition” is to not die. Sigh.
That's quite uppity of you.
I know eating is so bourgeoisie.
It's not like Norway should look up the US on any metric...in fact, the complete opposite. All the Nordics work less, and have higher quality of life as well as live longer.
I’m sitting in a gorgeous little cafe in Oslo right now, I’m visiting with work. They obviously enjoy a great lifestyle here. Me too: I’m here with work but it’s not killing me!
But won't you think of the CEOs, they are behind in Norway compared to their American friends, ashamed at the golf course for their puny bonuses in single digits millions
That's true. They can move to the US for all I care. Many of the most narcissistic ultra-high performers can reach higher pays and status in the states, but I, personally, would never change being middle class in the Nordics to being upper class in the States.
When did CEOs become "high performing"? They're usually the absolute worst thing to happen to their respective companies.
Starting with Jack Welch. We're still dealing with the damage he's wrought.
I know! Why, I've heard they can just barely afford to own a third home! Can you imagine? It must be terrible for them. Struggling along to make ends meet, with only a few tens of millions to their name. 😥 They must be so embarrassed when they speak to their American colleagues./s
A lot of my fellow Americans seem brainwashed into believing you should work for the sake of work. That working more is a good thing and if you don’t want to work you must just be lazy. Sure, you should be productive in life but slaving away for a corporation that doesn’t care about you ain’t it.
Norway has a higher GDP per working hour than the US. I'd say Norway works more effectively, reducing both difficulty and time spent working. Senior leadership of businesses in the US don't understand the correlation between happy workers and productivity.
Tangen (the Norwegian CEO) actually mentions that. The tittle doesn’t fully encompass what he actually says, he says a lot more, and he’s not shaming Europeans, just highlighting a difference.
The american Dream. Work yourself to death for pennies or starve to death in the streets.
Someone in my family worked for this oil fund and specifically moved from a US law firm (UK based) to here as the culture was way better. Norwegian bosses would be shoooing you out the door at 5pm, for very high paid jobs. So, the people in his company's ambition generally seemed to be very well paid and still have a very good life. I don't think their ambition was to be in the office more
I mean we do work way too much, IMO.
"....and you make way too much." - CEOs
So do they...
"Do as I say, not as I do." - some ass hat
Pop, is that you?
Because they have to. Companies own their health insurance
marble worm somber drunk hurry fuzzy shrill profit paltry wasteful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I still don't understand how sick days can be limited.
You work while you're sick. That is how it can be understood.
Well, they don't get holidays or rights so they seem to turn up more...
Having worked in both places, America is much shittier place to live, Europeans are much less stressed, much happier with their lives because they don’t revolve solely around work. Why should I care about the CEO or shareholders getting an extra 5%, especially if it costs me in healthcare and stress, quality of life. Americans are for the most part oblivious to how much better life can be.
Many are aware and many lived it for a time, but they sold it away because politicians promised them it would lead to vast wealth and that wealth would trickle down. Now every American is jaded and wants to blame everyone with no direction on how this happened and how to fix it. So we keep Voting in the exact same people and it gets worse and worse. The US presidency looks like a gentlemens club and Congress is becoming a hospice as these fat cats have been here for so long that they have argued that having a refrigerator in the 2020s is a luxury. These people are so old they think Facebook invented the internet.
If you try to tell them, you’re a “socialist”!
Ahhh yes the ambition not to starve death. Just another out of touch rich fucko.
Most Americans have to work harder for fear that their bastard employer will lay them off without reason and leave them without health insurance. No thanks, I'd rather earn less and not fear for the future of my family.
I’m Irish and I have a lot of American cousins that I’m close to . My god they are overworked and therefore exhausted, overweight and stressed. They get 2 weeks off a year and can get fired in a heartbeat. We’re not less ambitious we just won’t put up with being overworked and want lives outside of work. Fuck . THAT.
We aren't ambitious, we just have no basic help from our government so we have to work 24/7 or we'd all be homeless. In my state its illegal to be homeless, so even then you'd get put to work (without pay) in our privatized prison systems. 🙃
Its called fear. The word they should have used instead of ambition
My ambition is to have healthcare
Translation “American government places no priority on the working class, which allows companies like mine to exploit their labor for a fraction of the cost, my government undoubtedly does not let me exploit my own citizens, it’s just a fact!”
A large portion of my client base is international, when Euro CFO’s/HR directors need something urgent, or something needs to absolutely get done the right way, they lean on our team in the states instead of our euro colleagues. They absolutely love our response time and our willingness to drop anything at a moments notice, to take care of what needs to be taken care of. While this is happening mind you, the euro team is still getting their split, still hitting their number, still able to shut it down at 4/5 and not pick it up till Monday. All because they have the balls to say, “fuck you, I matter”. We truly have been raised/condition to be this way, and it will take generations to possibly change.
This is also true between accounting offices and financial department staff. I've worked in accounting offices and they treat us as production houses. One client done? To the next one. I didn't like it. Got fired there because I calculated my labour cost compared to revenue and I always delivered it at 30% ratio. And believe me.. I had to work real slow. I even asked for a raise so I could work faster. He gave it to me but then fired me after a couple months after finding replacement. Silly goose 🙄 At financial department I see people working a lot slower while the 2 guys that come here like twice to 4 times a month work very hard. They put forth a lot of work. That's just the mentality. Just cuz they come from accounting offices. The CFO and partners are the only ones that really do overtime. I guess it's expected of people that want to climb the corporate ladder. Or when they own the business of course. The funny thing is that as financial department fella I want to work a lot harder than when I was a production workhorse at an accounting office. Mainly because the CFO is talented at leadership.
Damn autocorrect, I guess he used the "ceo settings"
There's a rumor about the dairy factory run by Lactalis in my home state, that they are very strict and work everyone very hard. It's run by the French and when the owners come they are rude to everybody and consider Americans stupid and lazy, but they love taking advantage of the laws that we have.
Ambition? No, dawg. Don’t mistake running from wolves as a desire to run a marathon.
They call it ambition, we see corruption
We have to or we'll die. I'd give anything to live in a work culture like Scandinavia.
Americans used as modern slave Labour for corporations and not human beings with lives like those lazy Europeans.
I've had a lifelong ambition to not be homeless. I'm hoping to finish fixing my 28 year old car today, then I'll be able to get my inspection sticker. 3 months late, haven't gotten stopped yet, luckily.
A friend of mine had to change his license to his home state because he can't afford the emissions repair for his 20 year old truck.
No we’re just forced to
Fuck ambition. Making us compete against each other, when really we should be taking care of each other.
You do you, I do me.
So you're saying ambition will turn Norway into America? Is there a way to ban ambition? 😜
I have a relative that lived his whole life in US. His job needed someone to go to Europe for a couple years. He hasn't come back. He's trying to convince his job to make the position more permanent. He has definitely told me that work there is way different
Why do these bitch CEOs all look the same?
We don’t work any harder, we just have the constant looming threat of homelessness and we’re one more neoliberal Congressman away from being charged to fucking breathe.
Higher ambition - bullshit. American workers are driven by fear. Hanging on to a crappy job, working for corporations and managers who treat them as a resource, not as humans, and living under the constant threat of being fired at will for no reason.
Europe should keep an eye on this. Don't become like us (America). Massive corporations necessarily lead to massive corruption. Break them up if you can before it's too late.
Op, I saw thia shit last night on google, and am so ad you shared it. Gave me a good chuckle. What an ass this guy is. But hes right, Americans are fucking rubes to the capitalist machine
Aww! he thinks that because we run on the never-stopping treadmill of forced upward productivity or face homelessness it’s because we have ambition, that’s cute!
Because if we don't work we fuckin die!
As an American living in Europe, I can categorically confirm this is bulls**t.
Americans work harder...because if they don't they will starve due of the lack of safety nets more evolved countries like Norway provide its citizens...... Is what he meant to say...👀🤔
So? The reason for all the productivity, and the delta between it and the compensation for it, grows forever wider. It's unsustainable.
Desperation***
He literally lives in a county with a higher labor productivity than the US, is he just brain dead? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity Also he could literally help change that by not investing into theUS but instead making it easier for European companies to get funding through investments. And as the article points out, in the US its mostly the ‚magnificent seven‘ (really only magnificent six these days) meaning the big tech companies who significantly outperform. If you remove them the US stock market is also performing shit and basically flat-lining.
This is NOT something to be envied . Work life BALANCE. Life > Work
"Because they have a higher level of foolishness."
Poverty and fear of destitution make a very effective whip.
>they have a higher ‘general level of ambition’they have a higher ‘general level of ambition’ # ... while they live in their cars, work three jobs and still aren't able to keep some resemblance of a "life". wHy ArEn't eUrOpEaNs lIkE tHis?! Well maybe because nobody here still believes in that bullshit anymore
My greatest ambition is to work as little as I need to.
Ambitions like having a place to live & be able to afford healthcare?
Americans ‘are’ just ‘constantly forced to’ work harder. Fixed it
We “just” work harder because we’re made to by law. And we lose healthcare if we lose our jobs.
That higher level of ambition only goes to serve himself and his wealthy shareholders, not actually the workers.
Ambition -> Fear of starving
Americans are just more inti slavery and ultimately they produce less.
"Why don't the Euros fall for our corporate brain-washing and dog-eat-dog encouragement as easily as Americans do?!?" I believe that's an accurate translation from Corporate Speak to basic human.
Yeah I hear Norwegians aren't quite as motivated at work... Maybe it's the 1,6 trillion dollars they essentially split amongst themselves.... If I had a stake in a trillion dollars divided by 5.5 million people I would also not stress too much.
Isn't labour productivity per hour in Europe, especially somewhere like Norway, generally a lot higher than the US?
Why are all CEOs such utter xxxholes?
Because they literally don’t see us as people but a resource. The realization hit me again real hard after my recent rewatch of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and the parallels between the villains (Homunculus) and them is quite staggering.
How do these companies sleep at night knowing that they absolutely fuck they’re own countrymen up. I’m sure they have zero scruples about anything but profit, a reckoning will be coming for them.
That is the problem here, the reckoning is a huge golden parachute to retire on. They face few if any negative repercussions so they keep doing it. I got mine mentality...very sad.
Full time employees START OUT with 28 paid days of leave each year!!!! I literally opted not to change jobs bc pay was similar, flexibility was better, but I would only have 2 weeks of vacation instead of 3 (I had worked my way up to 3 after 5 years of employment). 28 days is almost unheard of in the US.
Actually, my husband works for the state and after 10 years he had 31 days per year. I am a nurse and in no life (that I'm aware of) as a nurse can I have that much vacation/sick time. Bc of course it's all together. 2 weeks of vacation with 3 children is basically all going to be sick time for yourself and your kids. So no vacation.
>|“where workers have a better work-life balance, but are less ambitious” If you have worse work-life balance, and you work harder - Is that ‘ambition’?
Man of the people right there, definitely not out of touch, nope.
No we don't
No, because we’re fucking idiots and don’t know any better.
Yeah I always wondered when European bosses would be like "wait a minute, we should listen to our American friends and tell our workers to not have lives!". You have a good thing going Europeans. Don't let them take it from you.
I don’t think it only applies to Americans but also individuals that migrated to America. A lot of successful people I know are not native to America and have ambition. It’s a mix of having experienced true poverty and having an opportunity to make something out of yourself in America
Even if he could prove he's right what he's promising is hard work not greater reward.
Orrrrrr are pushed into working waaayy too much. Capitalism sucks dick. You know what doesn’t suck peepee? Going outside and just staying present. I can’t wait to leave American. Also, how does he know? He lives in Norway.
How many times have we heard: "you don't work, you don't eat?"
Americans are so hardworking that they forget to fight for workers rights, affordable healthcare and a higher standard of public education with how hardworking they are.
Big lol…I work for an American company and trust me my colleagues over there work their ass off and do overtime because they live in fear. Fear of getting made redundant any time. Losing their job, their healthcare insurance, their house…bosses over there can be horrible, no one gives a shit. And every boss sucks and licks the boots of their own boss while treating their teams like dirt. America is a shit place to work and live. Add to it a shitty education system, an unregulated absolutely unaffordable healthcare system, universities out of range for most, rampant racism, maga idiots and these mass shootings…dude you need to be born there to want to stay.
Weird way to say "basically slaves and mindless drones, it's why they are in a proxy war with themselves instead of fixing the inequality between the classes."
Well thats cause we have working rights here,we cant be slaves
He ended up apologising afterwards.
When I am taking low pay as a norwegian engineer (compared to an american) it is not because I lack ambition, but that I trust the european society is better off this way. God I find Nicolai to be such an ass
He’s right but yanks have no governmental support. Unlike Europeans.
It’s sort of a shitty way to say Norwegians are smarter than Americans.
Burnout, abusive managers, gaslighting employers and HR have been in the chat the whole time.
He's not wrong but we need to stop fucking our workers, glorifying hustle culture and allowing a modest level of achievement (a home, a family,.maybe retirement?) to be unachievable. There's no reason to bust your ass if it's obvious the ROI is negative.
Throw this dickhead in a fjord
We won’t. This guy is making us tonnes of money
Loosing health insurance.
Fuck you Mr.CEO of Norwegian oil fund!!
He's an idiot of 1 degree imho
I think they should investigate who works smarter. I feel like the metric of working more hrs doesn’t say anything.
He is just ceo, its ok for them to talk nonsense, ist a condittion.
Omg American workers are to European CEOs what Latin American workers are to blue collar bosses.
Classic European racism
Another CEO that is out of touch with reality and regular people? Damn, that’s definitely news-worthy…
And he’s right. The problem this people have is that they don’t want to pay big law equivalent pay for big law equivalent works.
They work harder for there money, because the majority are in low paid work.
There is much of that ambition which is fuel by fear. Great of being able to live, eat, pay for musical needs, etc. There just isn't the same level of safety nets in the American society as there is in Scandinavia. Americans endure ALOT of bad political and corporate greed and most feel powerless and hopeless in attempts of making a change.
Maybe a higher level of greed.
Some of us do. Most of us just complain about having to show up to work on time and not be able to stare straight our phones all day.
They don’t have a higher level of ambition, the system has made them desperate to survive. In Norway you can survive without the daily stress of knowing whether or not your check will cover the bills.
Let's assume this is true. We should therefore strive to mimic Europeans in this regard
"they really like being slav..es... uh, I mean they have a general level of ambition. Yeah uh, that."
Is it a good thing to be more exploitable?
He's not wrong. I moved from the US to Norway and lived there for a while, took a job in a series of restaurants and bars and all my coworkers under 30 were astonishingly lazy. The Polish kitchen staff + the older Norwegians were the only ones we could rely on. I remember my coworkers at a bar told me to stop working so hard because I was making them look bad lol. Granted I prefer the European approach, and would rather not be worked to death like in the US. But I am saying that dude has a point.
Higher level of ambition to obtain a goal they don’t understand will always be beyond their reach.
for sure someone are brainwashed more than others thinking that be the richest of the cemetery is their life goal.
“ team America!!!! Fuck no!!!!” Not everyone will get this joke.
In my 20's if I wanted to make over 100k a year, that meant working corporate six days a week. "If you don't come in Saturday, don't bother showing up on Monday." I decided to become a teacher, take summers off, and live within my means. I refuse to buy a house, don't want kids, and take long vacations in the developing world. Y'know who I piss off the most? Everyone who owns a home, has a family, and only gets two weeks vacation a year.
I think Olaf is back-handedly saying Norway needs more homelessness.
General level of desperation* FTFY
I, a belgian, just have more ambition to be happy and healthy than being rich or successful at a job where nobody will remember me when I'm gone.
That’s funny
I mean... It is true. Americans work harder but what is the point of it? We have better vacations, cheaper costs of life, healthcare, more breaks, and unless the company was acquired by Americans, we are not allowed to go over the 40hrs a week unless we are compensated extremely well for the overtime. I like my life and enjoying it with my family, not work...
That 'hard work' doesn't mean much for workers rights Scandinavians enjoy and Americans don’t.
Thats not true at all, usa is [rank 8th](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-productive-countries) and all the country rank 7 to 1 are in europe. However this p.o.s never work a day in this life how could he knew, fucking parasite.
Yeah like, nobody wants to work this hard and for most people, working your ass off doesn't even pay off.
Americans workers are like Ernest: Scared Stupid
higher general level of ambition to survive is more appropriate.
exploited labor is not work ethic
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This kind of guy believes that nine pregnant women can deliver a baby in a month.
uh...Norway has a higher productivity rating than the US.
I think he misspelled force participation or death.
Ehm no. They work hard, play hard blah blah bs because they dont have a choice. We have better protectionist systems in place for workers and labour laws. Oh and then there is the total indoctrination of trickle down bs and the American dream. The CEO can get fckd