The vast majority of US workers are way beyond the Point of Diminishing Return. US labor laws are shit and the Europeans are enjoying life.
The average european has a good life, but the average person doesn’t exist outside of statistics.
I used to work 84h weeks as a European, overtime is taxed at a higher rate so the take home is lower than a regular working hour. But if you really want something out of life (like buying a house) you have to sacrifice everything if you’re just a normal worker.
Hell i sacrificed it all only to lose it to economic troubles and later again due to covid.
I’m not doing that again even though all my employers try to get me to work overtime, some even fired me for refusing to work overtime past the contractual 3h per week.
I somehow ended up making a decent wage at my current job, but i dislike the job so badly it’s not even funny anymore.
In what country is overtime taxed at a higher rate? People say this all the time but the same income tax rules apply to overtime. There is no higher overtime tax in the EU. Yes the average tax rate might be higher on overtime hours on your payslip, but that’s not because of a separate overtime tax, your overtime earnings falls in your highest or even a higher bracket because the earnings are added on top of your base salary. While the average tax rate of your base salary is lower because it covers multiple lower tax brackets and a tax break could have been applied. But if you earned the same money as a normal salary without overtime you’d be paying the same total tax amount. So no there is no higher tax for overtime it’s just how progressive income tax works. There are countries in the EU that give a tax break on overtime.
That’s literally one of my colleagues from back in the day. He was business development manager - all Gary V hustle shit and then some - like literally. Stayed late, kept doing rah rah speeches that everybody should commit their all for the cause, always agonized over every sentence in replies as if its a matter of life and death. When I was passed over for promotion I was told I’m not going hard unlike that guy. Well, that guy died of a heart attack two years later a little over 31yo - closed the deal and went to the gym to pump some iron while pumped on strong coffee - just dropped dead after doing a set. What’s scary is that dude was three years younger than me - just how wrecked your body should be for that happen?
They are getting paid a ton of overtime for working more than the max of 36 hours, right? Right?
40 hours is the normal expected work week in the US. But most states don’t have overtime pay requirements until after 48 hours of labor in a single week. Some states require an unbroken 8 hour rest period inside each 24 hours but not much more than that.
Working excessively is a source of purpose and validation for many people. It also serves as distraction from their own personal lives. Trouble is, for those of us who have a more relaxed attitude and know better, we’re expected also be the same.
This is the behavior of so many Americans in corporate America, they are beyond saving. I just pretend to be like them to keep my job
When one of my jobs didn’t give raises one year we all decided to make our own raise…by coming in 30-60 minutes late, taking an extra 30-60 minute lunch, and leaving early.
I was still there another 1.5 years and nobody seemed to notice…so, yeah.
good for you guys. also damn that is some terrible management
One of my jobs it was my first week in an office, which everyone knows means you got fuck all to do. After 7 hours there (2 of which were me fucking around on the computer pretending like I had stuff to do), after asking my manager what I should be working on multiple times, I finally said "well, if you have nothing for me, mind if I take off and we’ll pick it up tomorrow?
After three days of this he had a sit down talk with me that “people had noticed” me leaving and they had a strict 8 hours in office policy there. I was completely dumbfounded by this, that he himself had said I was cool to leave and had fully admitted there was nothing for me to do, but also proved he was not the least bit willing to confront his boss, even with something as small as “well he had nothing to do”.
Needless to say it did not work out, and I’m much happier at another company that treats me like a grown up
for a couple years I was in a management position, doing half of a manager’s job (we didn’t have somebody for that position so it was half me and half my boss who is the owner)
anyways I always treated people like adults from the start, and my best two employees are the juniors I brought up from basically no experience. except for knowledge, they’re honestly better than a couple of my seniors (and they’re both intermediate now because of their reliability). I hate that I actually have to treat some of my seniors as children because otherwise they miss stuff / don’t know what to do. like dude you have ten years in the industry, you should know if you change [this] then you need to recheck [that]
and part of treating people like adults was judging them on results, not time at desk. which was made quite a bit more necessary due to the fact that I was managing an in-office team remotely haha
crazy how treating competent people like adults will get you great results, though. almost like if they care, they’ll do good work. unfortunately it seems the company has outgrown that now
I refuse to believe that anybody who claims they are working 80 hours per week are actually productive or efficient for all 80 of those hours. If anything, I think their employers are the ones getting screwed by paying some guy a shit ton of overtime to do theoretically the exact same amount of work that two people working 40 hours could do just as well, if not better.
Everyone should strive to work as little as possible. This was the promise of the future that our ancestors broke their backs to provide for us, and these fucking corporate drones just can’t help but maintain the status quo for internet clout.
Most salaried positions don’t get overtime and I think that’s usually who is working these hours.
sometimes the problem is finding competent people
there’s stuff I can do in eight hours of OT that would take some of my peers the better part of a week
I used to bust my ass to do that stuff, back when I was fairly compensated for it. I’m not anymore, so I don’t, and that stuff now doesn’t get done on the schedule desired by people above. not my problem
I work 40hs per week and I have very little time to live… how do americans work 80hs?!! Are your days doubled? At what time you take a shower/eat/sleep?
I’ve done 60+ hour weeks working mon-fri (with an hour of commute by car) and the answer to “how do you have time to do anything else” was “well you don’t”. I’m lucky that my girlfriend was at home doing all the cooking, washing, stuff like that so I could just come home, take a shower, eat and go to bed. Didn’t get enough sleep ofc but you can handle that for some time without being all fucked up. Gets to you over time though.
Halfway through residency that shit had gotten real old, but if I tell a boomer my dream is to work 4x 10hr days a week with no nights and no weekends they look at me like a gangrenous appendage. I want my fucking life back.
The story of early 21st century America was told from its bathrooms.
This is the common wisdom nearly everywhere I’ve worked, and doing overtime at all only happens when absolutely necessary.
The only people doing anything close to that were on call.
Bobby you fucking moron
not really, most people on the grind are working towards having f u money and early retirement
“Fuck you money”, like in the pilot episode of Billions? Do you think you’ll be a billionaire too, like the insider trader from your TV show?
every time I call you guys as dumb as trump voters I see comments like this and begin to think you’re somehow even dumber.
lol yep you do
This guy is going to make a CEO so much money.
You know you don’t have to be a CEO to make so much money :)
thanks! i live an incredibly high quality life thanks to the system that exploits me, i literally live a better life than kings did 150 years ago
i literally live a better life than kings did 150 years ago
Is that supposed to be a flex?
why wouldn’t it be? i have access to unlimited music, unlimited tv shows, essentially unlimited entertainment, my choices of food are near unlimited, i have access to dentistry and medical assistance light years from where it was at, etcetcetc
I have all that, too, and I am unemployed. Granted, there are some luxury things I can’t get or sometimes tight months and I pirate a lot, but I do still live a better life than kings of the 19th century without grinding myself down.
Also I already fell for the same trap the promise of “hard labour earns you stuff”, worked myself into two burnouts with no reward worth the consequences, so fuck it, I’m done. And you need to wake up. You’re not working for yourself and everything you strive for can get ripped from you by some unforseen shit. On their deathbed, no one ever regretted not having worked more.
You’re not working for yourself and everything you strive for can get ripped from you by some unforseen shit
The grind is not the grind for your boss, it’s for you, if you got hit by lifestyle inflation I can understand why you’re feeling ripped off.
Also I already fell for the same trap the promise of “hard labour earns you stuff”, worked myself into two burnouts with no reward worth the consequences
If you’re grinding for no reward then you should stop or move to a company that appreciates you
You also seem to have gotten half the memo, there are productivity nutters on linkedin who love working and love going all out 100% all day every day, but for the rest of us we generally have 2 goals:
-
Fuck You Money
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FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early)
If you’re not really interested here’s a brief 1 minute video on it taken from a movie:
A Level Of Fuck You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGC9FY65HBo
If you’re interested:
Why You Need F-You Money
Shortly after 9/11 my company kicked me to the curb.
Six months earlier our division president had taken me to a congratulations lunch for a record breaking year. We were explosively growing and embarrassingly profitable. Over a bottle of fine wine we discussed my very bright future.
https://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/
I have F U money, so if I lose my job unexpectedly I’ll be fine for the next 2 years and because I’ve got so much experience and skills in my industry it won’t take that long to find something else. I’m also happy because I’ve left 2 crappy workplaces for an amazing one with a great boss that appreciates the hard work I put in and that I’m grateful for every day
Next step after that is FIRE, this is a bit of an intro to it but there’s tons of info all over the net:
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/
Again some people go to the extreme with this lifestyle and make their own food and live off grid but for most of us it’s just a matter of spend less than you earn, save/invest the rest
and once I’ve got my house paid off in a few years my average expenses per month will be down to pensioner levels while I earn 10x as much, as I do like working at that point the next goal is:
Barista FIRE is where the returns from your invested assets cover most, but not all of your living expenses, and you do work that you find enjoyable to make up for the difference and fund the rest of your lifestyle.
:)
The grind is not the grind for your boss
It is, because your boss gets a far bigger share from whatever worth you produce than you. If the grind was for yourself, you’d get the biggest share of profits you worked for.
Risking your health isn’t worth having your boss profiting most off of your work.
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What is the point of so much unlimited everything when we are limited ourselves? No one can “reap” all the benefits so what’s wrong with taking it easier?
Also, sometimes I think we would benefit from not having unlimited anything. It has also given way to so many shitty uninspired content, like profession yappers rambling on youtube/twich for hours, slop shows from companies that cancelled good ones cause they weren’t profitable enough, shitty cashgrab videogames cramming in as many dark patterns as possible etc. Filtering the good stuff can be exhausting, and filtering the fake info is exhausting too. Is more really better or just different?
I’m not complaining about medicine tho.
What is the point of so much unlimited everything when we are limited ourselves? No one can “reap” all the benefits so what’s wrong with taking it easier?
We do take it easier though, unfortunately the average person is unaware of how much more difficult life was 100 years ago so we can’t compare. I wouldn’t want to go back to even the 90’s, pre-fibre internet, slow computers, no spotify, I love listening to music so I had to wake up at 7am in the morning on Saturday to listen to the music TV show. I had to listen to the friggin radio man! It sucked!
Is more really better or just different?
We have different challenges living as kings and queens than we do before but we really are in a much better place than even 30 years ago, pre-smart phone, pre-computer, pre-wikipedia, pre-google
An example is obesity is now a bigger problem than hunger because we have access to so much cheap great tasting empty calories
But it’s certainly better to be obese than starving, you can stop being obese by simply working on yourself, can’t really do much about starvation if you’re poor and can only afford 1 meal every 2 days.
The other issue is the rise of social media and the infected spreading doomerism (see: this thread as an example), doomerism spreads faster than positivity, in the same way people prefer to read about bad things happening than good.
So you can afford a few streaming services and have access to a supermarket?
If you live in a society that cares about its citizens you also have free healthcare.
That’s a very low bar to clear dude.
I have all of those and still feel exploited as fuck by this capatilist bullshit.
why do you americans always go to healthcare but don’t even look at my name
So you can afford a few streaming services and have access to a supermarket?
do you need me to spell out every single major technological leap in the last 100 years for you or can type a few words in a search engine which searches all the worlds information and brings you results instantly?
edit: would also like to point how just how much tech and innovation is involved in “a few streaming services” and supermarkets
this was 30 years ago! 1989!
The overall takeaway is that much of America’s greatness lies in the ordinary. “He toured New York City, he saw the Statue of Liberty, Trump Tower — he wasn’t impressed,” Mack said. “He saw NASA. Again, no big deal. But it was a grocery store that made him realize that communism is a lie.”
supermarkets were only invented 100 years ago!
First, I’m Australian.
Second, even very poor people like myself have access to those. They are common now.
I am still exploited by capitalism and I feel it every day.
Some guy in 2175 is laughing at you
why would some guy in 2175 be laughing at me?
edit: if you could put more effort into your posts beyond 1 vague and shitty line that’d be appreciated
if you could put more effort into your posts beyond 1 vague and shitty line that’d be appreciated
k
Yup, and you do so through the pain and suffering of billions of those less fortunate than you who slave away to provide you that quality of life that you deny to them.
the system exploits you!
i live a fine life actually
the system exploits other people!
🤣
believe it or not the system has also improved the lives of billions of people:
Two centuries ago, the majority of the world population was extremely poor. Back then, it was widely believed that widespread poverty was inevitable. But this turned out to be wrong. Economic growth is possible, and poverty can decline. The world has made immense progress against extreme poverty.
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief
wow incredible😀
Really any cursory glance at how the World Bank defines “extreme poverty” and the cause of “poverty reduction” reveals this for the farce that it is. The World bank defines “Extreme poverty” as earning less then $3 a day.
Around 2 billion people on this planet remain subsistence farmers. They grow food, that they then eat, they may sell some food to buy things but for the most part these people do not really make any money. When subsistence farmers are forced off their farms to look for a work, they suddenly become wage earners and are removed from “poverty”.
Being moved from a subsistence farmer to a 12 hrs a day sweatshop slave is not poverty reduction. The real term for it is much more enlightening: proletarianization.
It’s great that poverty seems to decline. However, have you ever wondered what caused/causes poverty on the first place?
Spoiler alert: it’s not caused by people that are not grinding enough
Did kings have to grind?
And yet you sound like a basement dweller who has a special sock
Yeah, they are working towards it, but they are never going to get f u money that way.
These days your best shot at getting f u money is to be born into it or win the lottery.
my grind wasn’t for fu money, but early retirement / being comfortable with the mortgage
separating from my partner ruined the early retirement plan, but at least I could keep the house and still afford a decent enough lifestyle without too much worry
I knowingly traded an extra 10 hours a week for half a decade so I could be financially stable, and for most of that time, I enjoyed the work, so it was worth it. but I’m there now, and it’s time to cut back. don’t have fuck you money. don’t have early retirement. but I’m stable and happy enough.
