I’m in Europe, and work for an American company. After a few issues in production, they tried to implement an on-call requirement for employees to check the alerts during their out of work hours (5am to 10pm or something stupid like that). I just reminded them that my country has the “Right to disconnect” law, which protects us from having to work outside our required hours.
They changed it to volunteer basis. I refuse to volunteer (because my off time is my time).
When I was younger, I also though I’d be cool to work in America, but once you learn a bit about their conditions, it’s a big nope. Much better lifestyle in small cities with an average salary in EU and the 23 days vacation + 13 - 14 bank holidays. Mental health checks out. 😄
About the Prod on calls, even if you “volunteer”, depending on the country and kind of job, they have to paid those “on call” hours even if there’s no calls at the end, and if there’s work required, the pay is higher.
I’m like you, I wouldn’t exchange my free time no matter what. 🤘
Years ago now I was asked to be on call for a week, 24/7 outside working hours. I was told it would be paid. Being naive I thought I’d be paid at my normal rate.
Turns out the on call rate was based on the likelihood of being called and this project was deemed to be low, after tax I got less than £10 extra for the whole week. It was something like 14 pence an hour.
They had a whole load of restrictions on my life as well, couldn’t be more than an hour from the office, couldn’t be drunk, had to answer the phone within a minute at all times and be able to get on my laptop within 5 minutes.
Refused to do it again after that first week and they ended up having to pay a contractor £400/week instead.
Were you in the UK? if so they robbed you. They need to pay at least minimum wage in the UK even for on call. You are also allowed rest breaks. What they did was unbelievably criminal. Hell if that overtime included times where you were asleep and you were still on call they still need to pay you the National minimum wage for those hours as well.
Only part that wasn’t illegal is the extra restrictions, as you are still working so you can’t exactly treat it as a day off.
sounds like illegal indeed, you could’ve sue them to the work administration or whatever there is in the UK (I’ve worked there, but never had any issues on the working department… there’s so little unemployment that if you’re unhappy just go somewhere else 🤷♀️)
I also wanted to go to the US to work. When I was done studying, and had a degree. Moving to NYC to work was a life goal until I researched the working conditions. Fuck that.
I’d say movies and tv series are the blame to the youth wish to live there… who hasn’t dreamed to be in the NY of “Friends” per example?
Then you start thinking that they had huge apartments and were almost never working and that doesn’t match with reality 🤣
Well, rent WAS cheaper back in the 90s, but NYC wasnt that cheap.
Western Europe? 28 vacation + 15 holidays(including NY) here.
Edit: typo
Yep, Western Europe, Spain more precisely. 23 days holidays but at least in my sector it is counting that the working days are Monday - Friday (meaning that you don’t need to include Saturdays in the counting).
Then 13 - 14 bank holidays. And then in my sector an extra 2 days for “personal matters”, like going to the doctor or bank or paperwork appointment.
I keep saying “in my sector” as I work in a normal office job, but teachers or other jobs may have more or differently distributed
Ah. 31 calendar day of vacation. Then you have more.
A few years back, a company where a friend of mine worked was bought up by an american company. I do not know why they didn’t do their research beforehand, but the new american owners announced they would be expecting the newly bought company to adopt an american work culture. Almost everyone quit. My friend is a programmer. He got a new job offer almost before he was out of the door.
American work culture: “We can’t make you slaves since we actually have to pay you, but could you at least work every waking moment and accept being looked down on if you don’t?”
That doesn’t fly here in Norway
*laughs at american company* You know what’s good about software companies? They don’t need expensive inventory. Most of company are devs. If devs leave you are left only with name. And if you want to start one, you just hire devs.
It’s amazing that I work for a large European company in America and am forced to accept calls or come into the plant 24/7.
It’s almost like it has to come from a government to make corporations behave.
I have colleagues that have their out of offices set to “I’ll be available by cell or email” or somesuch. Mine doesn’t say anything, and I don’t check it unless I want to. My vacation time is MY time.
Either the government does it or you join a union. I am a member of a large construction trade union and it’s written into our contract that we cannot be denied time off and can’t be forced to be available during off hours or made to work overtime.
The catch is that if you want to advance in the company it really helps if you can make a little extra effort. You absolutely will never be penalized for sticking to the minimum requirements, but you also will never move up into management, which is perfectly fine with a lot of people.
I work in tech, in a datacenter, and godamn this whole industry needs to be unionized. Between all the servers/etc serviced from the hot aisle (which is constantly more than 100F), no structured cabling anywhere, and a lack of sane standards that actually serve a purpose… Yeah I should get a different job
Or start union. Or join one.
Not defending them, but I assume it’s the American bosses implementing what they think is normal.
If a company wants to keep policy in other countries it has to make it very clear to each branch, otherwise they will forget or not care about the policy.
Yes. It totally has to come from the government. No way companies alone will do any good for their employees and respect their time.
Take the 6 or 8 can holder plastic thingy (that turtles and fishes always get tangled up). In the EU, it is forbidden to use them. So, companies like Coca cola don’t implement them. But in the US, there are no laws stating that, so they continue selling with that shit.
Without the government backing them, employees are just numbers in sheets for companies. Nothing more.
Was there any extra compensation offered for the added duty?
There is no need for extra compensation. Our employees love the sense of pride and accomplishment when they volunteer to be on call off hours.
the EA way
I know it should be obvious but had to read twice to realize there would be a “/s” at the end. Some employers or at least HR/PR teams honestly believe that every word you just mocked is the actual nature of employment, while those same managers pull all kinds of BS to pinch every penny they can and then leave before the ship sinks if the company doesn’t turn into a monopoly zombie like EA.
(For those wondering how Electronic Arts is a “monopoly zombie”, think about how long most companies that become like EA - when it comes to being greedy and stingy - actually last. A few years at best. Yet EA has 50 years under it’s belt? That happened because they have/had a monopoly on official sports leagues, Maxis-created gameplay styles, the Star Wars IP (until Disney bought it), and the Mass Effect IP that they ruined the 3rd and onwards games of.
In short, don’t feed the zombie. Don’t buy Sports video games until the collapse of that genre kills the Madden and FIFA EA franchises, and buy games like NewCity, Urbek City Builder, Elysian Eclipse, Alterlife, or Cities Skylines if you liked Sim City/The Sims/Spore.
As for Mass Effect, maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see much hope for that franchise’s legacy. EA’s execs probably think “oh, we made a 33% profit off of those first two loss leaders” before anything else when you mention it in any way to them, which just feels like a punch in the gut to the tune of “your choices never really mattered” that are currently popular plot twists for games.)
Now lets talk about unpaid “internships.”
No, or at least not initially.
When I brought up the “Right to disconnect”, I also asked about overtime. They said it won’t be compensated, but they’ll think about it in the future.
Regardless, unless its really well compensated, I don’t plan on doing it. I’m not really pressed for money, so I value free time over money.
I think we all know the answer.
This is just how it is in Canada too, at least in Ontario we have a recent “right to disconnect” law. Whenever I work with US tech companies and have to leave for a meeting they’re like “oh we can just continue this on the weekend or after hours” and I’m just like okay but I work 9-4 so I won’t be there.
It’s the same in the US if you’re unionized. My union operates in Canada too and from what I’ve been told our contracts are pretty similar, apart from pay scale varying by district council and currency.
I’m unionized in Canada as well as a power sector worker, although I work in IT. The contract negotiations are very compensation-focused not necessarily focused on enhancing what is already law.
Le fameux droit à la déconnexion, je suis content qu’ils aient vite légiféré sur ça
I’m so tired
I worked 82 out of the last 93 days. I’m exhausted.
what would you do on your days off, currently an unemployed minor and im wasting my life
Hobbies. Whatever you enjoy doing. Go camping, traveling, play video games, hangout with friends, go to the beach, swim, bike, run, hike. If you lack friends join social groups, meet ups, Facebook groups etc. Fishing, hunting, sports. Artsy things. Take a course you’re interested in.
Life is too damn short to not do things ypu enjoy whenever you have the chance.
I’m not good at hobbies, I think I’m so brainwashed that work has become my hobby. Except the work I do as a “hobby” is my previous job (in a different department at the same company) that I haven’t officially done for 3.5 years, they’ve hired 3 consecutive replacements for me, weird that they keep quitting cuz there is too much pressure to get 65+ hours worth of work done a week. I guess they must have real hobbies, family, friends… It’s been suggested, after the exit interviews, that I might be the problem and created unrealistic expectations for the role.
I need a real hobby, but I haven’t been able to find anything as fulfilling as turning on the work computer after hours and getting shit done when there is nobody about to interrupt, there are no actual expectations or requirements and then I’m actually told I’m appreciated! Hobbies take so much effort.
You are allowing yourself to be exploited for no additional benefit to yourself except for words. Your quality of life isn’t improving by any measurable means by being appreciated. Think about this. If you were on your death bed right now, what would you reflect on that you did in your life that you remember most as the most important memories and what would you regret? Would you think to yourself, yah that time I spent doing that work was a life well spent? Would you regret not doing more things that were for yourself and you enjoyed? Or spending more time with loved ones? What is the most important to you that you do with this life? Life is honestly short and can be taken away at any given moment. For me the most important is doing things woth people I care about and creating memorable moments. I will not value the time I spent at work when I’m about to die. I work in order to live. Not the other way around.
Hike, cycle, do some sport or hobby you like. If you don’t have that, try everything that comes to mind at least once and see if you like it. You’ve got all the time in the world to do so!
I usually just catch up on sleep and chores. Maybe play some videogames if I have time leftover.
Same, friend. Bone tired. Good luck out there.
Me too! Swimming and hiking for two weeks straight in northern Italy is hard! Mountains tomorrow again…
Man, a lot of you Americans need to unionize. None of this happens at my work and it’s precisely because we’re unionized and have a contract that specifically says that our employer is bound by strict rules. Granted, we don’t get a month paid vacation, but we can’t be denied time off, can’t be compelled to be on call, can’t be forced to work overtime and we have PTO accounts, healthcare and a pension that get paid into on a weekly basis.
“but we get paid so much more” /s. I’ve heard this before from people in the tech sector, ignoring the fact that should the shit hit the fan we Americans have no social programs to assist us. I’d take half my pay to get what people in Europe are guaranteed.
Recently saw a yt vid by David Wen, USA vs Dutch worklife, who took a 50% paycut for a healthy work-life balance.
We try and then it’s taken over by corrupt lazy union bosses that don’t actually help or the company just fires you under an at will employment lie and hires scabs. The government has essentially been infiltrated by corporate American to pass legislation allowing them to break unions easier. Lobbying is our problem, not the lack of unions atm.
Over half of Congress would be indicted on corruption if we really gave a shit about threats to our society like the current political theatre claims.
It’s nice to see the latest upswing in labor actions in the US, but the labor movement isn’t what it used to be that’s for sure. Even the way the history of labor is taught now is completely whitewashed and decoupled from any notion of class conflict. Take the history of civil right’s organizers for instance and the connection with labor, MLK is the big one but also Randolph, the famous “I Have A Dream” speech at the March on Washington (“-for Jobs and Labor” is usually left out of the title nowadays.) Also the Jim Crow order is purely seen as a racist order, which is accurate, but the means by which it was designed to deal with the Populists in the late 19th century because of the threat they were as a political force. It’s even in the culture war shit that goes on now, Bud Light for instance, none of that “conversation” ever touched on the fact they were basically forced to first hire queer people because of Teamsters labor pressure and gay bar boycotting their beer.
I think the militant conflicts like Harlan country are pretty well known but again it’s like the class notions are removed in today’s recollections and how it’s taught. It’s focused on some individuals who wanted better wages vs the bad guy running the mine, not about the inherent conflicts between these workers and the owners by design of the economic system, and how that still pervades today. It’s seen as something from the past.
That’s objectively bullshit that is given the lie by the fact that unionized workers, on average, are far better paid and have much better benefits than their non-union equivalents.
You clearly know next to nothing about union organizing and are spouting a bunch of bullshit disinformation that’s been fed to you by big money interests.
Is that your fault? No, not really. You’ve been fed a metric shitload of bullshit all your life and you have never been told the truth and as such can’t be blamed for your ignorance.
The truth is that under the NLRB --and the Biden NLRB is the most labor-friendly in living history-- you have the right to organize and cannot legally be fired for doing so and if you are, you have grounds for a lawsuit that plenty of non-profit attorneys will help you prosecute on principle.
Just to fight against the hive mind that America is a uniform hell scape. People from my team routinely dip with only a few days notice for vacations and sometimes because they feel like they need a day off.
Frankly I don’t take my PTO but that’s more of a personal problem than my work’s. I was a workaholic through college because frankly I’m not outstandingly smart.
This was my father in-law. He developed sepsis from the foot they had to keep doing surgery on. On his hospital bed where he is hooked up to just about every machine possible, this man was on his laptop doing work and on a cell phone talking to this engineer and that engineer. After his foot was amputated, even on disability he was being called 24/7. He was the most important person in the region, he memorized every fiber optic line and location. His boss was treating him like shit to get him to quit, he didn’t like dad for some reason, so he pushed dad constantly and shamefully. Once dad died, they had the nerve to call us asking if he had any documents that could help them with a project, he was doing the job of 4-5 college graduates and they were barely managing. He only had his high school degree but the man knew his shit. He had an interview lined up at a new higher paying job, he was one week away, and he spent the last few months of his life crying from stress, hating his job, and just in near constant despair, the only thing that he was looking forward to was mine and my wife’s wedding. Corporate America is a vampire and not the sexy kind, the nosferatu kind.
I’m sorry for your loss.
In some countries, Summer is something you have - not just the name of a season you can see from your office window.
Please tell me
Which ones because certainly not my country?
Brazil, Spain, Egypt, Denmark, Argentina…
Big part of me clearly knows there is no such thing as a binary right and wrong in life, yet… this is a crystal clear example somehow — and not the only one.
My boss is having his wedding tomorrow. He was supposed to start his vacation earlier this week. He definitely showed up to meetings I GUARANTEE he didn’t need to be in on the first day he was supposed to be gone. Man, we’ve been here longer than you. We can handle it. You’re awesome, but don’t let upper management bully you. Us senior devs sure don’t. Fuck em.
That’s crazy to me. Our manager went out on a boat last week on Friday, and we haven’t heard shit from him since. Hell, we’d probably tattle on him to our skip level if we did because our skip would be furious to hear people are working during vacation. I’m a software engineer in the US, and unfortunately stories like yours are all too common here :/
My boss assured me he couldnt make the client meeting last week because he was on vacation. So he phoned in on Teams from the boat dock where he was staying with his family.
And that was self imposed, hes the company owner! Some people just cant let go.
That big part of you is fetishizing nuance and mistaking it for wisdom
Nuance doesn’t stand on its own, there is no sense saying something has merit because it has nuance. I can give 10 examples of things that would be moronic if you tried to add nuance into them. “Nazism bad”. “The crime of loitering shouldn’t exist”. “The planet is getting hotter”
England: We had a really good deal going but we can’t have that because we are committed to racism. We hereby leave the European union without doing any research at all as to the secondary effects of our decisions.
I live and work in Japan, but I’m still in this picture and I hate it… Though my work-life balance has progressively gotten better. I don’t, however, let my subordinates do that; I want them to have real time off. If they answer a slack or something, it’s helpful, but I’d rather they didn’t think about work in their off time. I try to be the leader I wished for.
I still think of work in Japan as endless hours spent at your desk, waiting for your boss to leave so you can leave a bit after, with little recognition and complete loyalty (or at least feigned loyalty) to your bosses and the company as a whole. Is it still the case today?
Some companies are still like that. Moreover, some people are just like that… and that’s the crux of the issue. Social pressure is huge in Japan, so it’s hard for people who want no part in that to stop when others keep doing it (even if no one orders or even expects them to).
You actually have to go drinking with your boss after work, you dont get to go home until he does.
I have quit jobs to go on vacation
Me too! It’s nice to have some time off before you start a new one
So unrealistic… No way the guy on the bottom got the time off to go to surgery.
Imagine how mad my former boss was when I was in the hospital for 4 days because the heart issues I didn’t know about were causing me to nearly pass out at work. Then I got a note that let me off for 3 weeks to let the new meds take effect before I went back.
Don’t get me started on how half ass the diagnosis ended up being either. Got a heart transplant 5 years later after seeing a different doctor.
Had you gotten a new heart rhythm, by the way? Was it hard to accommodate to your new heart?
Same guy, my other instance seems to be down.
I’m not sure what you mean by a new heart rhythm. Once I got a healthy heart I’ve been at a normal sinus rhythm, rather than dealing with tachycardia and a bad arrhythmia, if that’s what you mean. My rate is a bit elevated than a normal person’s because the nerves that more closely control that get cut during the transplant (if my understanding is correct).
Otherwise, I did some physical therapy for a few months and have to take anti-rejection medication for the rest of my life, but I’m better than before by far.
I mean did you feel something strange in beating of your new heart?
Nothing strange, no. More of a realization of how out of wack my old heart was before the surgery. Once I got through some of my therapy, I felt normal again for the first time in a long time and not long after i felt even better than my old normal.
I used to be the second guy, and then realized the system I was working in. America can fuck itself (and it is), I’m off to Europe later this year.
Already chose a country?
Duh! Europe!
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Gosh you are so funny,
Obligatory [email protected]
whoosh
I’m an American with unlimited time off. Took 3 weeks to travel after 4 months at the company. Not every company operating here is a POS.
Is your company the exception or the rule?
Not OP, but probably yes. Unlimited PTO is not uncommon in tech.
Of course if you try to do some shenanigans like taking two months off they will simply fire you.
From what I understood from my American colleagues, unlimited PTO is mainly a way for companies to stop employees from accumulating it and getting it paid out. So now not only can you not really take more vacations than before, but you also miss out on getting them paid out instead.
Yep, that’s pretty much it.
Unlimited PTO is only good if you’ve proved yourself indispensable to the company, and can leverage that. Of course if you’re indispensable then it’s hard to take a lot of vacation!
I was talking about the rest of the population. Not just the tech sector.
I replied to the wrong comment, sorry, I was replying to the person asked if the 3 weeks were paid.
Doesn’t matter when generalizing. Many high tech/start ups operate in this manner.
Of course it matters.
Echo chambers dont like the truth. They like their meme.
It’s not an echo chamber. In a lot of Europe holiday time is protected by law. This is not the case in the US. Just because a few people like you get paid time off beyond what the law dictates doesn’t suddenly make everything even. You got yours, which is great, but what about the millions of others who don’t?
One of my current projects, the PM for the US company went off for maternity leave, and I was surprised she was back like a few weeks later. It’s basically a year standard here, and 18 months isn’t completely unusual depending on employer benefits for top-up on your salary.
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I’m happy you got yours
With that business cell, I’m assuming you are answering calls on your time off.
There’s definitely some startups and tech jobs in the US that operate on a more relaxed basis, but most startups in general fail and only exist because of the low interest rates VC firms can fund them with. A lot of the large tech companies are happy to outsource where it’s possible from a business perspective, to companies in places that allow for cheaper and more exploitable labor. Countless encounters with that in my career, this past week a Tableau support ticket that was first assessed by a woman working from home late at night in Bangalore with her kids crying in the background, and they didn’t even give her a proper headset. Whenever you get a support tech from a US tech company in another country ask about their work.
not as many as Walmarts that don’t
We did a year of unlimited time off. I took 2x1-week and 1x2 week and a few days here and there.
At the end of the year they announced no time off except Christmas and Thanksgiving days during Nov thru Jan and you can’t take more than a week off at the time.
They couple this with a company wide raise but if they don’t change the policy after the moratorium ends in January I think I’d rather earn less and have more time off.
Yes, but were you paid during those three weeks?
Paid?
Point of Sale?
it’s not just europe, I live in Latin America we have 3+ weeks of payed time off, the us job market is the weirdo
That’s why they are the best country in the world and us lazy people are third world shitholes /s
I’ve always found the term Paid Time Off as a degenerative term. Like they are doing you some kind of favour.
It’s a holiday, please kill that PTO term.
The pto thing is because most office/tech jobs let you take unpaid time off too. Just means you won’t make your full salary for the year based on the number of unpaid days you take.
The fact that’s also a thing blows my mind.
We don’t have that option here. Between the holidays and things like special leave, I’ve never been not paid for taking time off.
You can take a years unpaid career break which is kinda cool as your job is guaranteed when you return.
Yeah it’s pretty shit. Since some places they only offer 1 or 2 weeks vacation a year if you want a longer one you end up needing to take the unpaid time off.
I don’t even know how anyone copes with that. I get 30 days plus public holidays.
The meme seems to imply that Europeans all get 3+ MONTHS off a year. How do businesses operate if they’re always missing a quarter of their staff?
You hire more people.
Sounds like one of those bullshit jobs. The further you get from actually making something the less valuable skilled workers are to production.
If the same job can be done by more people working fewer hours it’s a “bullshit job”? Elaborate.
Have you heard about shifts? I hear they’re all the rage in production.
Productivity and profits have steadily risen for decades while wages have hours worked have increased.
So business obviously were able to survive and thrive with more employees taking a larger slice of the profits. The businesses would be able to operate just fine.
The meme is clearly exaggerating for comedic effect. Standard is 4 to 6 weeks PTO across Europe.
Exactly. And the exaggeration is the same for the American part, I’m sure that even an American would take a whole half day off for kidney surgery.
Almost everyone has vacation in the summer (winter is cold and shit) so most office work slows down heavily during a few weeks and then picks up again during and after August…
Retail and stuff like that is obviously different.
Took my 3 weeks in July. It worked out well because our suppliers also slowed down significantly. The huge amounts of vacation the memes and braggarts claim just seemed ridiculous.
It was exaggerated for comedic effect.
Here we get 25 days (5 work weeks) each year by law. Some get more; I don’t know the average amount of days. Apparently you get 28 days if you don’t get overtime compensation.
In general 4 consecutive weeks are used during the summer months.
You also get paid more during vacation, for some reason.
All other EU countries have a minimum of 20 paid days.
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A one man fight is essentially banishment. Too many of our countrymen are brainwashed to believe that working yourself to death is a point of pride, and here we are. Many of us want better for ourselves and especially our kids, but bootlickers keep us all in shit city.
Not only that, the powers that are in control of the country have intentionally limited our ability to collectivize, they have reduced our wages as much as they can to keep us desperate, they have reduced our time off to keep us tired. They do not want us to fight and they have structured it such that we won’t until we are all entirely broken.
Work from home is an issue because we realized we can have lives again, and maybe we could even work less!
But then we have more time to focus on things that matter, like protesting and unionizing.
and ALL media is completely in the bag
You’re assuming too much of Americans. We exist in late-stage capitalism and are desperately trying to survive.
it’s more of a competition fetish, and disgust for any cooperation
America bad! Europe good! I was really hoping we left this tired joke on Reddit.
Yes.
I’m more middle-left, but this place seems to be going a bit far towards anti-capitalist socialism and anarchy. Capitalism isn’t the problem, greed is. That can be fixed with restrictions on what corporations can get away with - not ad hominems against the founders and CEOs.Edit: 3 months of capitalist bullcrap later, I’m a socialist now…
That said, fuck Spez. That was an executive decision made solely by him.
Also, far anti-corporateism should probably be expected in a community that consists solely of people (mostly geeks) ‘on strike’ because a big company ruined their old platform…
capitalism isn’t the problem, greed is
Lol. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie, as certain bearded guy said.
