Work ethic is a valuable feature that companies look for in their employees. But the devil is in the details.
Yes, an excellent work ethic can get you special projects because you're reliable, dedicated, and disciplined. But at which point does putting your job first start to take a toll on you?
That's exactly what Twitter users are trying to find out in this viral thread. Inspired by Samuel Pollen's humorous tweet about the differences between European and American out-of-offices, people from all over the world are sharing what's expected of them in the workplace.
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Pollen's initial tweet, the one that started this discussion, was born out of his own work. "I live and work in the UK, and I have a lot of US clients," he told Bored Panda. "They send emails at all times of day, and never go on holiday. Conversely, our Swedish clients disappear all summer! So it was very much informed by my direct experience."
However, he wouldn't describe its subject matter as work ethic. "You can have a great work ethic and still appreciate the importance of family time, your health, and proper rest and relaxation," Pollen said. "But there are many legal and cultural factors at play. The cliché is that Europeans work to live, and Americans live to work. That elides many different individual experiences, but there’s a great deal of truth in it. Things like having a set number of sick days seem completely absurd to people on this side of the Atlantic!"
There are numbers to back up these statements, too. For example, Brits tend to put in fewer work hours than Americans (OECD data places average hours worked per year in the U.K. at 1,538 and in the U.S. at 1,779).
Then there's desk dining—the sad act of having your lunch where you work. A 2015 survey found that only 1 in 5 Americans actually spends their lunch break away from their desks, with most eating their midday meal while they continue to work. Plus, millions of Americans are skipping lunch altogether to continue working.
My German brother in law, working in Germany, once found himself locked out of his office. He hadn't taken a vacation in three years and Personnel decided that this behaviour was bad for his health.
Actually I'm (German) jealous of some Skandinavien work places. They practice 6h per day (instead of 8h) 5b days a week and studies show, that you can accomplish the same amount of work in that time. They get paid full time. And I know for a fact that it is true, I can be as productive in 6 hours (or even more productive) than in 8h.
At the time of writing the tweet, Pollen thought he was exaggerating things for comic effect but as you can see, the replies tell a different story. "There was the woman who gave birth on a Thursday and was back at her desk the next Monday. There was the person whose colleague literally had a heart attack in the office, and they sent paperwork to the emergency room for him to sign. And there were people from other countries – India, Israel – who described a work culture just as bad."
"My favorite story was from someone who visited Italy, and spotted a sign on a sandwich shop: 'It was a nice day so we went out.' That's a sentiment I can get behind," Pollen recalled.
"If you’ve been working through this pandemic you better believe you deserve a break," he added. "I hope you all get one!"
And you'll still need that second and possibly third job so you don't have to sell your food stamps to pay the rent.
Trust me, we'd LOVE more time off. We're just not offered the chance. Workers here are considered replaceable at any time. If we're taking time off we can be fired. We have to have our days off approved most of the time. It's very very frustrating to worry about your job if you want to go to things at your kids school or appointments or have to leave early to take care of an emergency. If you don't have any time off left you're in real danger of disciplinary action.And we don't get much time off.
Only people who think that they are indispensable do that. The majority will tell you that you shouldn't even dare to consider contacting them during their holidays.
I do this. Call me before a) we lose a customer b) i have to do damage controll afterwards. It works well if your team knows what an emergency is.
Well, usually there's someone listed who can be contacted if necessary, but that's only for emergencies.
Ouch. Yeah that hits home. I work when sick because I will use all 5 of my "sick" days to take care of my kid through the year.
First child back after 6 weeks. Second back after a week. I was self employed. If I didn't work I didn't get paid. Also after insurance her birth was $8k
"and generous people help with the gofundme to help them afford the bills"
Uh.. what would have been the solution without him taking one of his vacation days?
And that's when think of your own and the baby's health and get out without even answering the fool.
I'd be pisssed if I HAD to take 4 weeks in a row in summer. That would eat up two thirds of my vacation days and I want/need those days at other times of the year. I like to take more time off around Christmas and New Years.
I get what this is saying, but there's some part of me that breaks out in a cold sweat thinking "yes, but what if there's a deadline and you watching the world cup instead of being in the office means that your counterpart in the US doesn't make their deadline? What if they get reprimanded? What if they get fired?"
My cousin is legal counsel for Greensill. Between their current catastrophe and the American work culture, i have never seen a human being crumble into a shell faster. 18 hour days for years and panic every second of the way.
lol, in the USA a bank holiday is only a day that banks take off. No one else.
Sure, boss. Just let us know when it's convenient for you. Her mother will hang in there until you find an opening in your agenda.
My job: 'yeah, we should plan too much from June up to October, people take holidays then.'
My UK-based wife once considered a job offer in her company's New York office. Not talking scrubbing toilets- a good white collar publishing job on 85,000. More pay than the same job in London, but by the time we worked out the costs of things like health insurance that difference was wiped out immediately. And then there was the fact her paid leave would be less than HALF what she gets now, and the company wouldn't give her a contract with guarantees of basic workplace expectations such as a guaranteed notice date or even a guaranteed FIXED leave entitlement (company's US hiring policy document actually said *leave entitlement subject to change). It turns out that for not a lot more money we would have a terrible overall package. I think you'd need to be earning well over £150,000 a year to make moving to America work out better than in the UK- and that is about the top 2.5 percent of earners here. I don't understand why the middle class put up with it in America.
teacher here too--Covid rules- if health dept quaratines you then 14 days off with Personal Days no email/no work (close contact/tracing etc)..if you become sick without notifying the health dept the you take sick days and are still responsible for your class via zoom in your classroom (we're in school, not remote)...we also don't have a union
Tricky, what country can this be?? It's so hard to guess!!! *rolling my eyes*
My (US) company has an office in India. Even though we try to be cooperative and balance meeting times so fewer people get the bad end of it on late evening meetings, it's not unusual for me to be starting work in my morning, which is their late evening, and they're still at it on our group chat, or staying up past their midnight so they can collaborate with the US team. Also, their managers don't seem to hesitate to give them weekend work whereas something better be on fire here for our managers to mandate it. Sure, we sometimes do it anyway because of our deadlines, or we'll take courses on our own time, which I imagine would appall our European pandas, but that's far less often than our India teammates. The standard work week in India is 48 hours, and from what I can tell, that's a minimum, at least in tech.
They have this amazing invention called a "kitchen". You can find one in all German houses. You use it to prepare and cook your own food because adults should be able to feed themselves. They have time to do this because they don't live in a backward country where they work ludicrous hours and have no holidays.
The world makes fun of us for not being worldly and untraveled and ignorant of other cultures. This is why. A Canadian friend of mine asked me why i would travel to a far away place for only 5 days. I told her that even that was stretching it and that is all i could possibly muster for that period of time.
I'm sure the American reaction would be "I hope I don't get fired, because if I do, I won't be able to pay for my mother's insulin injections."
I'm in end stage renal failure and am on dialysis (3/week at 4 hrs/session, plus travel time) and work full time. The only way I get in 40 hours is to skip all lunches, start at 7:30 am. I keep my laptop up and running next to me all evening and answer e-mails immediately. Why? Because it's the first job I actually wanted that would hire the sick girl who can't work until 11:00 am every Tuesday and Thursday. My mom told me to NOT tell potential employers I'm on dialysis, but how do I explain that absence every week? I hope when we're back in the office, they'll let me work from home on Tuesday and Thursday, otherwise, I'll have a hard time getting in a full 40 hours. Plus, I'm kind of a mess after treatment. It sucks the soul out of you and you just want to not be around people. Working remotely those 2 days is a gift!
To the people in the US just to avoid all confusion: the people in all the first world countries get PAID vacation, PAID sick leave, PAID maternity/paternity leave. And they do not have to have an expensive private insurance plan if they need 6 weeks recovery after surgery and want to feed their family at the same time.
Unfortunately many of my fellow Americans are brainwashed to scream socialism at those things and act as if that is a bad thing. I always feel I have to add this amazing quote to these threads. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
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What did you think would happen in a country that systematically enslaved people to work? It's always profits above people.
Not saying I like the work ethics of the USA but if you think the USA is like this because of slavery you need to read up on the history of Europe. The USA isn't the only place with a dark past. You just sound willfully ignorant
Load More Replies... Let's also throw in "We're going to lay off people till we have JUST enough people to barely run things, and expect you to just deal when people are out because calling people in on overtime costs too much"
It is the old we laid Phil off and now you haver to do his job too and not get a raise.
Load More Replies... To the people in the US just to avoid all confusion: the people in all the first world countries get PAID vacation, PAID sick leave, PAID maternity/paternity leave. And they do not have to have an expensive private insurance plan if they need 6 weeks recovery after surgery and want to feed their family at the same time.
Unfortunately many of my fellow Americans are brainwashed to scream socialism at those things and act as if that is a bad thing. I always feel I have to add this amazing quote to these threads. “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
Load More Replies... What did you think would happen in a country that systematically enslaved people to work? It's always profits above people.
Not saying I like the work ethics of the USA but if you think the USA is like this because of slavery you need to read up on the history of Europe. The USA isn't the only place with a dark past. You just sound willfully ignorant
Load More Replies... Let's also throw in "We're going to lay off people till we have JUST enough people to barely run things, and expect you to just deal when people are out because calling people in on overtime costs too much"
It is the old we laid Phil off and now you haver to do his job too and not get a raise.
Load More Replies...