Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118285/workaholism-america-hurting-economy

by stevekinney • 12 years ago

235 263 12 years ago

I feel this article is a little weak in one major sense: comparing the US to European countries based on non-working time is okay, but you also need to compare a metric like GDP. Using this, the US is #6 world-wide only behind two European countries. So yes, Euros may get more time off, but the US is a way more economically powerful and productive country economically.

Hurting the economy, sure people get burned out, but it is hard to come to that conclusion based on the data given and the authors points.

lallysingh2• 12 years ago

Well, normalized to working population, yes?

autokad4• 12 years ago

it also tries to state that working hard leads to less productivity, when US productivity eclipses most european countries.

i had a consultant complain that they hate working with europeans. the people always go on vacation and projects get held up, and they come back and have to get oriented with everything again. by the time they catch up they are on vacation again

thejosh• 12 years ago

That's the funniest excuse I've ever heard for Americans not having holiday leave.

thegeomaster2• 12 years ago

How big a sample size of Europeans does your consultant have? Your claim that "Europeans go on vacation and projects get held up and they can never catch up again" is... dubious at best.

Nursie• 12 years ago

> the people always go on vacation and projects get held up, and they come back and have to get oriented with everything again. by the time they catch up they are on vacation again

It's almost as if work is something they do to support a life outside the office.

Outrageous.

Spooky23• 12 years ago

All of the measurements are based on the workforce, which is a term of art that means something. When you get more efficient, lay off people and have everyone else do 1.5-3x more work, you get efficient.

The problem is, many of the discarded people are ending up on disability, and are thus out of the workforce. I'd like to compare the productivity of various societies based on population.

kps• 12 years ago

  > it also tries to state that working hard leads to less productivity

No, it says that working longer leads to less productivity.

autokad4• 12 years ago

i clearly set something off. I didnt mean to disrespect EU workers, but it does seem like their vacation time is on the extreme side where as our seemingly lack there of is weighted towards the over working side but not by a huge deal. IMO

Someone12342• 12 years ago

The US has had a GDP advantage since the second world war. But since then much of the EU has rolled out socialised medicine and more workers rights (maternity leave, mandatory vacation, even a higher minimum wage) and they haven't slipped down the rankings as a result.

Understanding why the US's GDP is as positive as it is is a much bigger topic that takes us into areas like natural resources (e.g. oil, metals, etc) but also history (e.g. World War 1, world War 2, even the cold war).

It is a pretty weak argument to dismiss all of the article's points just by repeating "but GDP!!!" over and over which is more or less what your post is.

JackFr4• 12 years ago

To quote Bobbi Flekman, "Money talks. Bullshit walks."

lnanek2• 12 years ago

Yeah, all these Europe's way are better articles and books fall a little flat considering how terrible their economies are nowadays. It sounds like they are saying, "come be like us! Our nations can't even make their debt payments!"

baq• 12 years ago

as if the US didn't go through a debt-ceiling crisis every other year.

mike_hearn4• 12 years ago

If you want to compare individual EU countries with something, compare them against individual US states, which also vary widely in terms of how well they do economically.

jcfrei• 12 years ago

I think an even better statistic would be the following (GPD per hours worked): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_... The differences are remarkable. However the comparison is not entirely fair with countries like Norway resting at the top. Norway derives a large part of its GDP from industries which are not very labor heavy but contribute heavily to GDP (Norway's economy is >50% based on petrochemicals).

pbh101• 12 years ago

Quick note: according to Wikipedia (citing IMF, World Bank, etc) the US is #1 in GDP at ~$16 trillion, almost double China in the number two spot. We are number 6 in PPP, but if we're talking economic output I would argue the former is more relevant.

jbernier• 12 years ago

But how much of that GDP is going to the workers who're putting in the long hours?

Great time to be an employer in the US.

rbehrends• 12 years ago

The problem with GDP per capita comparisons is that GDP is a bit of a weak measure of economic performance. It is a measure of raw, unadjusted economic throughput (cash flow, essentially), not necessarily a measure of economic performance. It is increased by an inefficient healthcare system (healthcare spending makes up 17.7% of the US GDP all on its own, while most of the affluent European countries are in the 9%-11% range), by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by the United States' comparatively high energy usage per capita. See also RFK's famous quote one the GNP [1].

The reason why GDP is still used prominently as an economic indicator, while economists have been looking for better metrics, all those other metrics involve a fair amount of subjectivity. And GDP is still a pretty decent predictor of economic performance, despite its known weaknesses.

But in the end, higher GDP does not necessarily translate into higher quality of life (of course, once the gap is large enough, it almost certainly does, at least for the average person, but we aren't talking orders of magnitude here). I don't think you'll see overall higher QoL in the US compared to Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, or France (the four OECD countries with the fewest hours worked per capita), regardless of where the GDP per capita is.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77IdKFqXbUY

brightsize4• 12 years ago

In the past two years, I've spent six months living in Germany. The quality-of-life difference between that country and the US is striking.

In Germany, it appeared that ordinary people could both afford to, and were inclined to, partake often in small pleasures such as having a Bier and a bite at outdoor cafes in the summer. The streets were lined with these cafes and restaurants, most doing a brisk business. I never saw so many cut-flower shops in my life. The small pleasure of flowers was both affordable AND something that was on the minds of ordinary people, something that one would never encounter in the US.

Here, such things are looked upon as frivolous luxuries, and financially they are that for the 99%. If you can afford such things as cut flowers, then, we're told by our betters, you can also work for less money or work more for what you're earning currently. Why do you deserve luxuries, peon?

Despite what the pro-workaholic, GDP-flaunting people in the US would say, Germans on the whole seem to be quite materially prosperous. But with that, they are culturally prosperous in a quality-of-life sense too. They seem to expect it, whereas in the US a high QoL is reserved for the wealthy.

Obviously I'm not saying that every German lives this way, necessarily. But I think that this cultural observation is accurate. I think if average people in the US would be brought to understand that they too could have a modest life containing a big helping of everyday pleasures and without life-sucking, excessive work expectations, there'd be a revolution.

Derbasti• 12 years ago

If you compare countries, a more productive economy is a good measure. If you compare people and lives, not so much.

rayiner2• 12 years ago

The article focuses on professionals, but I don't know if that's the angle I'm concerned about. American professionals work more, but they are also paid more. They also have much better vacation and leave policies. More concerning is the plight of median workers, who aren't making a lot more these days than their European counterparts, but have much worse vacation policies to deal with.

dasil003• 12 years ago

Vacation policies are the least of it. How about the lack of a safety net? Take health care. Civilized people should agree that medical care in a rich country should be available to everyone. The thought of people dying in the streets from preventable disease and injury sounds pretty horrendous.

But for the past 20 years we've been fed the same fabricated FUD about socialized medicine that has no basis in reality. People still genuinely believe that America has the best healthcare, which is arguably true for the 1%, but not for the average person. We have major structural problems the media completely ignores.

Just one personal example, last December I needed to buy a 6-pill dose of medication while visiting family for the holidays in the US (I currently live in the UK). This cost me $600, $100 per pill. And it turns out that this medication is not as effective as the generic that would cost $2 per pill. But because there is no profitability this medication is not currently manufactured in the US. Had I been in the UK I could have walked into a pharmacy and bought this medication for £10.

Incidentally, while I was in line, the woman in front of me was purchasing a perscription of antibiotics, which cost $200, but she only had $100, so they only sold her half the dosage! I was shocked a trained pharmacist would be allowed to do this considering the perils of antibiotic resistance, but it's also pretty inhumane to withhold medication.

Frankly, the patriotic bullshit that Fox News and CNN feeds the populace about how much better we have it than Canada or the UK needs to stop. America needs to pull its head out of its ass and realize we are little better than a third-world country for anyone below median income who doesn't have a good group health insurance policy.

maximumoverload• 12 years ago

Obamacare argument was inevitable, wasn't it.

bluedino• 12 years ago

> And it turns out that this medication is not as effective as the generic that would cost $2 per pill.

What medication was it, if you don't mind me asking? And why didn't you just ask for the generic?

Many pharmacy chains in the USA offer a large list of generics for the low costs like $10/90 day supply

jmct2• 12 years ago

Would you mind naming the generic drug? It seems like this is a powerful argument against having (only) for-profit healthcare. I'd like to be able to point to a specific case of what you're describing.

jjoonathan• 12 years ago

lack of a safety net?

That's one argument. Here's another:

Cost:

http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourc...

vs Quality:

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/press-releases/...

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-healthcare-systems-in-th...

EDIT: not sure if downvotes are because people think I'm saying that cost is less important than the lack of a safety net or because people are butthurt over figures demonstrating that universal health care is also cheaper. Please clarify.

refurb8• 12 years ago

Your example of the cost of medication is an odd one. Most (all?) states in the US have mandatory generic substitution. That means the pharmacy must fill your Rx with the generic unless the doctor wrote "Dispense as Written" on the Rx.

Now, if the generic was not available in the US that is a different story. Patents don't all end at the same time, so the drug may already be off patent in the UK, but not in the US.

Finally, to say "there is no profitability" in generics is laughable. The US has lower generic prices that most of the EU due to fierce competition for the US market.

And finally, although the US may not have a single payer system, we do have public health for the old (Medicare) and the poor (Medicaid). In addition, if you are sick and you go to a hospital, you must be treated regardless of your ability to pay.

orky562• 12 years ago

Therein lies the problem with the US and the mentality of the citizens. Since the proletariat are "temporarily embarrassed millionaires", the safety net is never there. To even take advantage of it is shameful. Perhaps unrelated, but the status of your achievements is reflected by how much you need to pay or put into it such as your job and even that 5-star hotel where you need to pay for breakfast and Wi-Fi.

hueving6• 12 years ago

The thought of people dying in the streets from preventable disease and injury sounds pretty horrendous.

Doesn't happen in the US unless the person intends to do so. But that's pretty good fear mongering on your behalf.

wtbob• 12 years ago

The thought of people dying in the streets from preventable disease and injury sounds pretty horrendous.

Funny that you raise FUD in your very next sentence, because that is itself FUD. Since the 1980s hospitals have been obliged to treat anyone who shows up.

And it turns out that this medication is not as effective as the generic that would cost $2 per pill. But because there is no profitability this medication is not currently manufactured in the US.

That doesn't make sense. A generic is the same as the name-brand. You mean a different drug for the same disease, I presume.

And it doesn't make sense that there would be no profitability; by your numbers, a generic drug manufacturer could produce the $2 pill which works better than the $100 pill and sell it for $50, or $25, or whatever it wanted.

America needs to pull its head out of its ass and realize we are little better than a third-world country for anyone below median income who doesn't have a good group health insurance policy.

Actually, one of the nice things about real third-world countries is that one can just go to the pharmacist and buy pills, instead of having to go through a professional gatekeepers' union (the AMA) to do so.

cylinder• 12 years ago

Lack of safety net is why I don't feel comfortable continuing a life of entrepreneurship in the US while I'm building a family; I'll be leaving. I bootstrap and am not going to be getting millions in investment to pay myself ... if there are some lean years, at least I'll have assistance for my children and healthcare! I'm self-employed now, but if I didn't have employer-sponsored healthcare through my spouse, we'd be paying $1,000 per MONTH for a bottom-tier health plan with a $10,000 deductible. My wife staying employed after childbirth isn't an option because her employer expects her back to work after three weeks (yes her coworkers do this). What kind of nonsense life would that be?

minikites• 12 years ago

It seems like study after study shows that longer working hours don't result in long term productivity increases, but managers aren't listening. Is this an example of market failure or is there more going on?

thenipper• 12 years ago

My guess is it is people trusting their 'gut' over a study. Working long hours looks impressive. If you stay late or come in early you look like a team player who is willing to put in the extra effort. Whether or not that effort is actually valuable is immaterial, the appearance is what matters.

Call me cynical but I'd imagine that drives a lot of these overworked schedules.

Zaephyr• 12 years ago

My family had a manufacturing business employing ~100 people.

When orders spiked, we found the performance gain from working overtime was consistently short term. Much beyond 3-4 weeks wasn't worth the effort and expense, and a decision to add additional people or extend delivery dates had to be made.

That's not to say we couldn't get additional production out, it just did horrible things to the our cost structure.

I think what you're getting at is the belief that working longer is equal to harder.

cmollis• 12 years ago

It's frowned upon to take any time off in the US. I've seen it viewed as a sign of a lack of commitment or even laziness. Consequently, we take less time off because we're scared we're going to lose our jobs.

No one is congratulated for taking time off in the middle of a project for your 'sanity' or 'to re-charge'.

Everyone is scared. There is no safety net. It's no way to live, but it's our reality.

Someone12342• 12 years ago

There is no safety net.

That's a wonderfully succinct way of describing the US. It seems like in a lot of EU countries if you fail there is something to catch you (higher, longer, easier to get unemployment pay for one example), whereas there really is no lower limit on how low the US will let you fall (e.g. healthcare is a privilege not a right in the US).

They do say that the US has some of the highest anti-depressant medication usage in the whole world (or was it more than the rest of the world combined? I can never remember). That isn't a surprise when literally your health, shelter, food, etc is all riding on keeping a job.

Thank god for Obama care and the new ban on pre-existing condition limits (i.e. that you could not get insurance if you were sick before). It kept people enslaved into a single job if they ever got sick since they could never afford to lose that health insurance or they'd die.

switch007• 12 years ago

It seems like in a lot of EU countries if you fail there is something to catch you (higher, longer, easier to get unemployment pay for one example)

For the avoidance of doubt, that does not include England (these days). People with cancer in the final stages are declared fit to work

anentropic• 12 years ago

this is also why the USA is a lot more religious than other developed countries

walshemj6• 12 years ago

don't down vote comments like this because you disagree with obamacare

mattmcknight• 12 years ago

"Thank god for Obama care and the new ban on pre-existing condition limits (i.e. that you could not get insurance if you were sick before). It kept people enslaved into a single job if they ever got sick since they could never afford to lose that health insurance or they'd die."

That is not true. Those protections were provided in 1996 by HIPAA Title 1 [1]. If you had been covered for 18 months, you were no longer subject to pre-existing condition limits.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_an...

whybroke10• 12 years ago

It seems like in a lot of EU countries if you fail there is something to catch you

While shrinking a bit, comparatively this very, very true.

On the other hand, there could never be a city in post Dickensian Europe where immensely well paid beautiful people laughingly step their way daily through homeless people on their way to a nightly evening of cigars and whiskey while discussing how aggregating the aggregators is going to change the world.

So there's that.

theklub• 12 years ago

All depends where you work and the culture there. Might be frowned upon in some places but where I work everyone is more than happy to see people take time off.

shmerl• 12 years ago

Agreed, not all environment are so negative. But even if attitude is positive, average vacation time in US is still way less than in Europe.

jgarcie• 12 years ago

This.

It is very difficult to take time off at my job. We have one set of "PTO" days that include vacation and sick days (as an employee of 2 years I get 15 days per year). Most people do not take long blocks of time off, usually it's a day off here and there, maybe two.

We also have a no work from home policy. I am a web developer. Literally, my entire job can be done from a couch, and it is even frowned upon to stay at home to work when I'm sick. We are allowed to do so, of course, but upper management treats you like Judas for the day.

matwood2• 12 years ago

it is even frowned upon to stay at home to work when I'm sick.

That's just stupid and lazy management. If people do not work when they are working at home then get rid of them. Period. For all the talk of people getting fired in the US, it seems to happen so rarely.

As for coming in sick that is horrible. Both my current and last job wanted sick people to stay home so as to not get the rest of the office sick.

nsxwolf4• 12 years ago

I wonder how many people in the US don't take their vacation days because they've read things like this and not because of their own experience.

If you're afraid of taking vacation only because of what you've heard from the media, I suggest you try taking your vacation and see what happens. In all likelihood it will be a career non-event.

bmj3• 12 years ago

I've talked to some other professionals about this, and for many of them, they readily admit that they feel like they need to be at work for their employer to function properly. They also admit this is their own impression, not something their boss has given them ("if you take that vacation, I don't know what we'll do without you").

I suggest you try taking your vacation and see what happens. In all likelihood it will be a career non-event

I think this will probably be the case. I know it is for me (I take every last hour of PTO I am given every year, and have been known to request time off without pay, too), but I suspect there are some employers that truly do what they can to discourage holidays (constant arbitrary deadlines, for example).

01Michael102• 12 years ago

You actually think people decide whether to take a vacation or not because of what they read in the media and NOT based on the culture of the company they work at?

jonnathanson• 12 years ago

"I wonder how many people in the US don't take their vacation days because they've read things like this and not because of their own experience."

It's been my experience that one's freedom to take vacation -- not just technical freedom, but emotional freedom -- really depends on the company's culture in general, and on one's boss in specific. Sure, a lot of it is psychological. But if you've never worked for a boss or company who explicitly discourage vacation, legitimate sick days, etc., then at least know that those people and those companies exist. I can't tell you if they're the exception or if they're the rule. I sincerely hope it's the former. But I do know that they're out there, in great number. For every few employees who've been media-conditioned to fear vacation, there's a manager who's been media-conditioned to disrespect vacation.

cryoshon2• 12 years ago

Yep. It's dystopian. Our society is exploitative, and the people have been trained to see the exploitation as just.

The bugger is that people are too terrified of losing their jobs (read: lives) to demand change.

noelherrick2• 12 years ago

This is not true. I can prove that just by saying that myself, my co-workers, and my family (all Americans) are perfectly fine with taking time-off and we're not scared of losing our jobs. My manager encourages his team to take time-off.

There is a safety net, it's just not as protective as European welfare.

There are jobs that like salt mines, filled with workaholics and sadistic bosses, or so I'm given to understand, but I've never been in one. The worst company I've worked for that had very little regard for their employees gave good vacation time.

I think a mistake we make when thinking about American policy is thinking there's an American policy. Each state has their own laws and every company is allowed to be different. This has its good parts and its bad parts. Startups seem to thrive in America but I've heard other people complain about the restrictive laws in their countries that make startups harder. Likewise, the American worker seems to work harder and longer than their developed peers.

hueving6• 12 years ago

It's frowned upon to take any time off in the US. I've seen it viewed as a sign of a lack of commitment or even laziness.

Bullshit. I'm tired of seeing this same thing echoed. I think half of the reason this is even said is that someone reads this sentiment on something like HN and then becomes self-conscious about the vacations they are taking and starts to spout the same garbage.

Everyone I know working in the tech sector takes at least one multi-week vacation every year and doesn't think twice about it. Perhaps Silicon Valley is not part of the US anymore?

peter303• 12 years ago

According to the BLS only 146M people are working in US - 46% of total population or 59% of working-age adults. And 26M of these are parttime. Goes to show you working hours are not evenly distributed among people.

AndrewKemendo2• 12 years ago

The United States is the only advanced country that doesn't guarantee that its citizens will get paid vacation time and holidays

I find the reasoning consistently maddening. What they should be saying is that there is no federal mandate for private employers to pay workers during vacation/convalescence/maternity leave.

In point of fact, for government workers there is paid annual/maternity/paternity leave which ends up being "use or lose" and in effect becomes a mandatory leave - something universally omitted in these articles.

I think this just comes back to the classic debate about how the American economy is organized. Our constitution and US Code is not organized such that the government can easily dictate laws to private employers, that is by design.

ghshephard3• 12 years ago

Which, of course, makes it great for the private employers (the 1%), but not so great for the private employees (the 99% that was mentioned in the article)

bradleysmith2• 12 years ago

over half of the 6mil firms in the US with payrolls in this country have between 1 and 9 employees. ('08 numbers[0]).

"employer" != 1%

"policies good for employers" != "policies only good for 1%"

[0] https://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html

octo_t• 12 years ago

and in effect becomes a mandatory leave

this is a good thing, as the rest of the evidence presented in the OP suggests. People should take all the leave they are entitled to.

AndrewKemendo2• 12 years ago

Absolutely, because it is the only way the US government can actually by law give American workers mandatory time off.

bmj3• 12 years ago

I've pointed this out in other threads about this subject, but there are actually employers who pay out a bonus to employees who use 100% of the PTO in a given year.

UweSchmidt• 12 years ago

Often, when articles highlight bad laws or customs, economical arguments are brought up.

Workaholism -> backfires and is bad for the economy

and in recent threads here on HN:

Workplace surveillance -> backfires, people feel controlled and performance suffers

Government espionage in USA -> backfires, people lose trust in US businesses

I don't feel that this is the strongest argument. "Please treat us better, it is in your own interest!"?

Germany's vacation was achieved through politics (labor laws) and unions (labor contracts).

The economic argument probably won't work, since economic considerations (real or imagined/short-term/local maximum...) have led to the current situation in the first place.

sashrive• 12 years ago

Great point. One way to argue for more vacation time is that it's economically a better idea- but you're setting yourself up for a tough argument.

Instead, it might be easier to argue it socially or through a simple declaration like, "this is what we want".

cryoshon2• 12 years ago

It's the only argument here in the USA.

It sucks that things are this way, but the only way to justify anything or argue for anything is an appeal to higher profits.

Money is this country's highest value, and all other values such as decency or shared prosperity have been thrown into the garbage and decried as socialism or wishful thinking.

PythonicAlpha2• 12 years ago

And that is (in my opinion) the biggest problem of all. Focusing on profit margins alone (without any respect to the people), leads to burn-out, social discrepancies to the extreme (go to South Africa/Kapstadt, if you want to see, where it will end) and at last will dehumanize the human race. I write that, because I see in my country, where it goes and we long where an isle inside the ocean of capitalism. Now, capitalism has conquered humanity and capitalism will kill humanity finally, it seems.

Our capitalism of today exploits all the resources of this planet (oil, water, air, environment, humans, ...) in an increasing fashion and because this planet has only limited resources, soon all will break down. The question only is, what entity will break down first: capitalism, this planet, the human race.

What use will you make of your five smartphones, three tablets and seven cars, when your children will have no future?

bryanlarsen2• 12 years ago

You're right, we should fix the vacation policy for humanitarian reasons, not economic ones.

However, having a solid economic rationale is a great counter-argument.

JackFr4• 12 years ago

And yet compared to those European countries, the US experiences significantly higher GDP per capita. Doing work and getting paid for it hardly seems like it's hurting the economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP...

As to the studies cited in the article I would point to the OECD labor productivity statistics which, in the aggregate, seem to disagree. http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=LEVEL

The fact that Americans seem to only be able to find identity and meaning in their work, so much so as that it causes a psychic crisis to leave even temporarily, is the real problem, if it need be called such, rather than some imagined hurt to the economy. But that problem is so ingrained in our culture it is never going away.

claybinion• 12 years ago

Can you explain what you mean by your last paragraph? The inability to find meaning and indentity in ones work causes people a psychic crisis to leave their jobs even temporarily? That problem is an imagined hurt to the economy?

JackFr4• 12 years ago

What I mean to say is that Amercians are overworked because they like to be overworked.

Typically an American's sole sense of identity comes from his or her job, and while we give lip service to 'happiness' as our life's goal unless happiness means ambition and success in one's work, you are an oddball.

The problem isn't that Americans are hurting the economy with over work; the problem, if you want to call it one, is that because we have nothing else in our lives, we don't mind that we're overworked.

alandarev• 12 years ago

Feels more like journalists are just using any correlations to explain recession.

_delirium3• 12 years ago

Re: your second point, there actually does seem to be a pretty negative correlation between working hours and GDP in the OECD statistics you link. Just sort on the average-hours-worked column and look at who's at the top and bottom: with a few outliers, the rich countries are all on the low end, and the poor countries are on the high end. The shortest hours are in the Netherlands, Germany, and Norway; while the longest are in Mexico, Korea, and Greece.

This doesn't establish that longer hours lower GDP, of course. If I had to guess on a causal direction, it'd be some mixture of [more GDP] -> [shorter hours], as well as a good helping of [better-run country] -> both shorter hours and more GDP.

antr• 12 years ago

I agree with your first paragraph, but GDP is the measurement of one thing, and one thing only: products and services produced.

Should we compare the 'economic output' with other (in my opinion) equally important indices, like life expectancy, cost and access to healthcare, access to 'free' and universal primary/secondary/university education, income inequality, safety, etc, the concept of (social) productivity will definitely shift to other countries.

Don't get me wrong, I value GDP as much as almost any economist and finance minister, but all these other 'soft' factors are, to me, equally important.

gejjaxxita• 12 years ago

The US has a lower population density than those European countries, more natural resource is divided between fewer people. That is the primary reason for the higher GDP per capita.

lgieron2• 12 years ago

It seems unlikely, given that mining & agriculture (industries affected by availability of natural resources) comprise only 3% of the US economy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States

adventured8• 12 years ago

The facts don't bear out what you're saying.

The US is the world's second or first largest manufacturing nation (it's a close race with China currently, but they likely pulled ahead this year).

The US has the world's largest IT industry.

The US has the world's largest software industry.

The US has the world's largest internet / cloud industry.

The US has the world's largest telecom industry.

The US has the world's largest airlines, and railroads.

The US has the world's largest auto industry.

The US has the world's largest defense industry.

The US has the world's largest agriculture industry.

The US has the world's largest space industry.

The US has the world's largest retail industry.

The US has the world's largest capital markets.

The US has the world's largest real estate market, both commercial and residential.

The US has the world's largest advertising, marketing and design industries.

All of these things are not true simply because the US has natural resources. If it were simply a matter of resources per person, Norway would be the world's largest automaker or similar.

hnnewguy2• 12 years ago

the US experiences significantly higher GDP per capita

This is to be expected, if Americans are working longer hours than their European counterparts.

If you do a little back-of-the-envelope normalization (GDP/capita/average hours worked), the results are much closer. Norway, of course, absolutely dominates by this metric.

  US: 28.9
  France: 24.3
  Germany: 26.4
  Sweden: 25.4
  Norway: 38.0

cbr• 12 years ago

Norway, of course, absolutely dominates by this metric.

This is North Sea oil, right? Hard to generalize from.

saosebastiao• 12 years ago

Norway has always been a bit of an outlier. It is what you get when you combine Middle Eastern oil resources with a Western European rule of law.

Arjuna• 12 years ago

But that problem is so ingrained in our culture it is never going away.

To your point, you may find this study interesting, entitled "Europeans Work To Live and Americans Live To Work (Who is Happy to Work More: Americans or Europeans?)" [1].

Here is another interesting piece on the topic, entitled "Reluctant Vacationers: Why Americans Work More, Relax Less, Than Europeans" [2].

As with anything, take these in stride; I offer them as additional data points. However, they do explore an interesting perspective, as both pieces attempt to investigate some of the cultural and historical differences between Americans and Europeans with regard to views toward cultural identity, taxes, unions, work, etc.

[1] http://people.hmdc.harvard.edu/~akozaryn/myweb/docs/final_wo...

[2] https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/reluctant-vacati...

saraid216• 12 years ago

Those articles sound really familiar and I'm pretty sure at least one of them has spawned a pretty sizable HN thread. Might be worth searching for if someone wants to dig.

incision• 12 years ago

'But that problem is so ingrained in our culture it is never going away.'

I don't know about that.

Anecdotally, I've experienced this culture enforced by older (>50) people and don't see much of it at all with younger people (<30). Surely there are exceptions - startup culture seems more prone to it - but that's to be expected.

I expect the culture is simply going to die off not long after the baby boomers.

TheOtherHobbes2• 12 years ago

than some imagined hurt to the economy

Whose economy?

I don't see how people who are working >80 hours a week are living in the same economy as the 'investors' they work for.

Real spending power for most people has crashed since 2008; tech is a rare exception.

How can that happen if these people are valued, equal participants in the national economy?

joesmo• 12 years ago

GDP per capita is a terrible measure here. There are countries that work significantly less than us and still have similar or higher productivity levels (some countries like Switzerland even have higher GDP per capita though that's still irrelevant). Not to mention a much higher quality of life. (http://www.salon.com/2010/08/25/german_usa_working_life_ext2...)

This isn't surprising considering the water cooler based work culture in the US. This benefits no one, but since there are almost no laws protecting workers, most workers have no choice but to comply or be fired. Then, of course, you have the people that do it intentionally, especially in the software industry, as a badge of honor or because delusional thinking makes them seem productive when they're actually less productive. The ones who can take vacation and won't. Mixing the desperate former and insane latter is exactly what most US companies strive for as their ideal work culture.

What the article overlooks is the unemployment caused by overtime. Two people working at 60 hours are roughly equivalent to one 40 hour a week job taken out of the economy--though obviously, the quality is much less than having a dedicated third person working. This isn't true for all jobs, just most.

fh973• 12 years ago

You seem to imply that higher GDP of a country is relevant for quality of life of its citizen. Knowing the US and Europe, I was also wondering what this high GDP is about, because it surely does not translate to material wealth.

Googling reveals: GDP includes military expenses, bloated health care expenses, bloated education costs, ... I guess that explains the relation.

Dewie10• 12 years ago

GDP per capita doesn't say anything about the wealth of the median person, either. Maybe in this case, GDP per capita should be coupled with the gini coefficient, which in the US' case is high (less equality) for a first world country.

ghshephard3• 12 years ago

Even worse is the new trend in technology companies to eliminate "Set Vacation". It used to be the case that you felt "obliged" somehow to take your 10 days of vacation a year, because you saw it piling up. Even better, if you were laid off, you could get the vacation in cash, and that helped when you were cut off without a job.

But now, a lot of technology companies are saying, "No Set Vacation - you need to negotiate with your manager if you want some" - which, in my experience, has resulted in a lot of people over the last two years taking zero vacation. It's not good for them. It's not good for the company. About the only people who are happy about this are Finance who no longer have to carry that liability on their books.

vvvv• 12 years ago

Is there no legal requirement for minimum number of days off?

tokenadult2• 12 years ago

Is there no legal requirement for minimum number of days off?

It depends on the nature of the employment. A few occupations (notably in banking) have MANDATORY days off. (Forcing bankers in certain categories of jobs to take vacations is a good way to detect long-term embezzlement schemes.) But there are definitely programming jobs in the United States in which the company says, "You can take time off whenever you like," which in practice means "You can take time off whenever the company isn't in crunch time," which ends up meaning never. Freedom of contract and flexibility in working arrangements is the hallmark of the United States economy and indeed is one of the reasons that the United States is as wealthy as it is--people choose the trade-offs they like among many possibilities.

amalcon• 12 years ago

No, there is not.

whybroke10• 12 years ago

Nope, no minimum vacation time.

Also, to save you a few years of surprises, here are some other factoids:

there's minimal healthcare, likely to be canceled by the next president

minimum wage is the equivalent of 5.33 euros and for waiters its only 1.57euros

Payday is not mid month but well after you do the work.

You can be fired at anytime without any waring for any reason from most jobs. Frequently a security guard will escort you out of the building.

But on the upside:

There's a death penalty in 3/5 of the country

The notion that the world is 6000 years old is sometimes taught in school.

You can buy a gun instantly in most states.

We have a per capita GDP almost as high as a northern European country.

We may not be socialist. Well, ok, some people say we are so never mind.

brown9-22• 12 years ago

The US is one of (or the only?) industrialized nations to have no legally mandated amount of paid time off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacation_time#Statutory_Vacatio...

rmc2• 12 years ago

Welcome to America! Land of the Free!

robotresearcher2• 12 years ago

Unions get a bad rap, often well deserved, but they were created to solve this problem, among others.

patio11• 12 years ago

This is sometimes called -- in one of the most Orwellian coinages in the industry -- "unlimited vacation days."

EvanKelly• 12 years ago

I was very wary of the "unlimited vacation policy" at my new company and asked about it during interviews. Most interviewers agreed that it could cause people to not feel free to take vacation, but that the company really meant it and there wouldn't be negative consequences if you took vacation.

Fast forward to 6 months into the job and I've taken days off for long wedding weekends and have some more extended travel planned in the future.

I agree that "unlimited vacation days" can be a red flag, but it really just means to be more curious and thoughtful about the culture during the interview process and find out what it really means.

toomuchtodo3• 12 years ago

I've just accepted a position at a YC startup with "unlimited vacation days". The founders seemed genuine when they said that as long as your work is getting done, it wasn't a problem.

I still agree that it causes ambiguity about how much time off is "too much".

unreal37• 12 years ago

Apologies for the side-track, but I once had a boss offer to give me "unlimited vacation days" as a colloquialism for firing me after complaining when he took away some vacation days company-wide. Good to see the phrase has evolved.

inklesspen• 12 years ago

I recently joined a NYC company with "unlimited vacation days", and they do actually mean it. I mentioned this very trend when I was interviewing. They responded by saying they expect me to take AT LEAST three weeks of vacation a year.

Now, some of my coworkers are workaholics and won't take that much. But I have had success in just saying "I want to take these weeks off."

noodle• 12 years ago

On the flip side of that coin, I've watched people take 1-2 months of vacation within their unlimited vacation policy.

It really depends on who you're working for.

matwood2• 12 years ago

Yep. I didn't take 1-2 months last year, but took over the standard 15 days most people get. This year will be the same.

pumblechook• 12 years ago

The ironic part about this is that companies think this is a benefit to the employee, when in reality this seems to be a classic example of the psychological anchoring bias that influences people to take LESS vacation. For those who aren't familiar, this is a well established psychological heuristic that says our decisions are heavily influenced by some 'anchoring' information, in this case, the number of vacation days allowed.

I'm heavily paraphrasing Kahneman here, but numerous experiments have shown this effect in a variety of ways. Perhaps most counterintuitively, in an experiment where an arbitrary limit was set on the purchase of soup on sale, the amount of soup people bought was twice what was bought when no arbitrary limit was set. I'm not aware of any empirical studies examining this with vacation days, but anecdotal evidence like this seems to support the influence of this effect. I'd be extremely interested to see the data on the number of vacation days taken by employees at the no set vacation companies vs. others.

robotresearcher2• 12 years ago

Right, so this policy should come with a minimum number of days per year, instead of a maximum. Maybe some days roll over a year, but not too long.

vosper• 12 years ago

After my employer was acquired we adopted the new owners' "unlimited" vacation policy. I have heard from a manager in another part of the business that her staff now take less holiday, but for my team I'm making it clear that I wish them to take at least 20 days off per year. That's 5 days more than we were officially allowed previously. I figure that if they go around claiming vacation is unlimited they don't have much choice if someone holds them to it (and 20 days really isn't that much).

tfandango• 12 years ago

My experience with "Unlimited Vacation" was bad. I took maybe 3 weeks off over 1.75 years and always felt bad about it because there were others who never took days, though some later burned out. I get the idea, it's actually a nice idea, but you must have a culture around it that supports the idea or it won't work.

noelherrick2• 12 years ago

I suppose this depends on the company. My firm recently enacted this policy, and it's worked out great. Everyone is taking a lot more vacation, not less. People don't come into the office when they're sick any more. When the company trusts its employees and wants them to have a good quality of life (because this makes for happy, productive workers), this policy works.

ilyanep2• 12 years ago

I dislike seeing this sentiment all over HN just because it isn't as absolutely true as everyone wants to believe.

I work for a company with unlimited vacation, and in my first 10 months working there will have taken ~3-3.5 weeks of vacation days cumulatively that I probably wouldn't have if I had to conserve a limited set of days. Nobody has given me crap over it, nor have I felt pressured to not take those days. It's just a matter of having a company that actually wants reasonable work-life balance for their employees.

jtreminio• 12 years ago

15 days vacation isn't unheard of in the tech world.

securingsincity• 12 years ago

I agree, in a similar situation. However I think it takes someone who is confident enough to take those days off. I'm sure there are people in both of our organizations who would take more if someone told them they have X numbers of days to take before they lose them.

frak_your_couch• 12 years ago

I agree, I was super skeptical when I started with my current employer due to this policy. I cynically assumed it was intended to somehow deter me from taking any vacation. Then I took quite a bit of vacation and got absolutely no pushback.

I think that our relationship with vacation has to change to one where we consider it a vital part of being a professional. When that attitude shifted for me, I became a pretty big fan of the unlimited vacation policy.

I figure that the worst case scenario, I'll get denied the vacation and I can choose if I want to move on or stay..no harm done.

ghshephard3• 12 years ago

I'm talking about the average/majority case. I also have a colleague who managed to talk his way (after completing a major re-architecture of our product) into a 3 month paid vacation. He gave his notice 2 weeks after coming back from that.

So - if you are a high performing individual, you can make it work for you, but for a lot of people, unlimited days morphs into no days.

But - I think your kicker really captures the impact of this policy "t's just a matter of having a company that actually wants reasonable work-life balance for their employees."

lsh123• 12 years ago

I've made an interesting observation in my team when I worked at companies with "no set vacation" policy: I've always had some people who never took vacation and I've also had other people who wanted more vacation time than one would expect. There was no middle ground.

aperrien2• 12 years ago

You know, for all these horrible employers, who is it that is loaning them money to start these businesses? How are they able to persuade others to loan them money to start this madness?

rdtsc2• 12 years ago

"No Set Vacation - you need to negotiate with your manager if you want some"

No set vacation means no vacation quite often. Institutional ideology works on unwritten rules. So officially yeah leave any time that's cool, un-officially if you leave and Joe Smith here is working nights then well guess who'll get a talking to be about lack of motivation and performance.

I think the best policy is generous vacation time (4-5 weeks) and being forced to take it. The whole saving for a mini-retirement is problematic. Also I have noticed most people don't recognize burnout. So that forced time to rest and do something else is more beneficial than it appears on the surface.

EDIT: To add. I am becoming more convinced that vacation policy is one of the best proxies that show how much companies care about their employees' well being and happiness. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying companies should do that. It is up to them. They all will say the do though, but that is one metric that shows if they really do or not.

hueving6• 12 years ago

I'm starting to believe this complaint just stems from people that don't actually want to take vacation and are just upset because they don't get an extra fistful of cash.

I work for a startup with unlimited vacation and know several others that do as well. Anyone who wants to take a vacation can take it at almost any time and for weeks at a time - no questions asked. The only time I've ever seen any conflict is when there was a major release planned at the same time as the beginning of one vacation, in which case the employee just pushed it back a few days.

libraryatnight• 12 years ago

Where I work is transitioning to this style. It's not affected me, yet, but for the employees who have been moved over to the program thus far I've gotten mixed reviews. One told me they were able to get the time off, but were told to make sure to maintain access via email.

That's not vacation in my book. When I leave for vacation I don't touch anything related to work. With vacation time, I just request it and as long as there are no conflicts the time is mine to use. I have no responsibility other than not being at work. I worry I'll lose that disconnect with 'unlimited vacation.'

Vespasian• 12 years ago

And here is one the major reasons (besides visas, health care etc.) why I would never and for (almost) no amount of money work in the USA.

I'm certain the productivity and quality of live of many if not most people will decline over time without sufficient time to relax and focus on non work related things. Especially in high-tech/creative/innovative field I never understood how this is not understood by some people /companies.

kamaal• 12 years ago

>Even better, if you were laid off, you could get the vacation in cash

Even better, in a few places you don't have to be let go encash leaves.

My last company had a leave encashment policy. I remember, I hadn't taken a single leave in 5 years. I knew many of my senior colleagues hadn't taken one in 7+ years. When the mandatory leave encashment period arrived, we ended up with a quite a good chunk of cash.

After that the leave encashment policy was amended by the then CFO, realizing what had just happened. The new policy was designed to have a concept of 'leave expiry'(If you don't rest, may be you don't deserve rest in the future).

I guess the new CFO's now realize, 'leave expiry' policies force the other kind of culture- where every one wants to take leaves which now forces the people who other wise don't take leave to take it, because no one wants to 'waste' leaves.

So the most obvious solution is to put in a 'unlimited vacation'. So that the onus of leave is on you and your manager, if you there is ever a free time in your project you can have that vacation(Which will never come to pass anyway). This way you neither have to pay leave encashment nor have employees who enjoy full benefit of leaves. Instead the company as a whole now has lesser employees taking fewer leaves.

nuff• 12 years ago

    Ninety-four percent of professional workers put in 50 or more hours, and nearly half work 65 or above.

This sounds crazy exaggerated without any citation. According to wiki, "According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average non-farm private sector employee worked 34.5 hours per week as of June 2012."

EDIT: reference.. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm

_archon_• 12 years ago

Your quote includes Wal-mart greeters and burger flippers. I don't find it hard to believe that white collar professionals put in over 50 hours a week on average. My experience is in engineering for manufacturing.

PythonicAlpha2• 12 years ago

If you cite government statistics you should also add, that government statistics have a long history of "white-washing" data. At least, that is what I experienced the last decades in my country and I don't live in a 3rd world country!

seventytwo• 12 years ago

One of the things the move towards a socialized healthcare system will do for this country is focus a debate on how to increase overall well-being within the country, and how to balance that with economic output. Something I think this article misses is the effect our work habits have on our health as a country. Studies have repeatedly shown that those last several hours per week are only marginally productive, but how detrimental might they be? I would imagine the health effects (stress, blood pressure, poor eating habits, lack of exercise, etc.) become amplified in those very hours in which productivity becomes nearly worthless.

It's hard to quantify any of this, however, so it might be completely glossed over in the article on purpose. I'm sure that thinking like this will become more prevalent...

justintime2002• 12 years ago

Professionals, managers, and executives with a smartphone spend 72 hours a week (including the weekend) checking work e-mail.

No, they spend 72 hours a week "interacting with work" in any way. Though the thought of an executive sitting and refreshing an inbox for 10+ hours a day is quite amusing.

henrik_w• 12 years ago

Related: "Bring back the 40-hour work week" http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_...

njharman2• 12 years ago

Fuck that. Computers, robots and the rest of automation / efficiency gains should (have been, and) be translated into 10-20 hour work week instead of increased consumption and consumerism.

crazy1van• 12 years ago

This seems too simplistic. The article focuses on one of the inputs to a nation's economic system -- labor and the price of that labor (wages). It seems to truly answer the question "What is it all for?" in an article whose title refers to "hurting the economy" it would make sense to at least discuss the output of that same system by citing GDP or some similar metric.

robg• 12 years ago

Even as a trained neuroscientist, I was amazed to learn that even mild stress impairs brain functions involved in memory formation and retrieval, attention, and decision making.

If you are working long hours, you aren't really working. On less sleep, your brain has to work harder. With chronic stress, you start to impair your core competencies. Sleep is the body's way of mitigating the effects of daily stress.

tekalon2• 12 years ago

While the lack of safety net and fear of being fired are all valid reasons for Americans not taking vacation, what about another reason- they don't know how to vacation.

From personal experience, I get twitchy just from being sick/away from work for more than a day. I only take one day at a time of vacation (usually on Friday's to stretch out the weekend, and usually to get extra studying done or run some errands) only to feel like I wasted a day. It could be cultural, my family never took many family vacations (maybe 1 or 2). I'm lucky that my work encourages taking vacations, but the idea of doing so seems so weird for me.

medell• 12 years ago

I know what you mean! In my old office people would bank hours and rather get paid out then take their full vacation. Most of my friends in Europe tell me how their managers practically force them to take time off! (especially in the summer).

It seems like it has become so ingrained in the culture that not taking vacation, working long hours and being "busy" has become a badge of honor. But with more and more articles like these I see a shift coming as the new generation seeks more balance and lifestyle.

tekalon2• 12 years ago

I'm 50/50 on the 'badge of honor'. For some it's true. For me, I don't know what to do on vacation. People get bored/anxious when they have nothing to do. Even going on a trip can be hard (planning, financing, dealing with changes, having to rest after the trip).

frozenport• 12 years ago

What about Asian cultures?

tokenadult2• 12 years ago

Alas, this is about the level of analysis I've come to expect from years of reading The New Republic on issues like this. Neither cultural nor legal conditions surrounding employment in the United States are ideal for workers who have the preferences of the author of this article,[1] but neither are they so horrific that the economy is "hurt" in a big way, especially compared to the economies of other countries.

Other comments posted before mine have already pointed out that overall prosperity in the United States is quite high, and I might add that many of the newly industrialized countries of east Asia (which characteristically have high population densities and limited natural resources, and thus are a model of what policies it takes to be prosperous despite a lack of natural advantages) increase steadily in wealth and general prosperity[2] despite ignoring parts of the author's advice.

For me, the crucial fact to keep in mind in any of these decry-America threads on Hacker News is that people vote with their feet. The United States continues to be a highly desired country to immigrate to,[3] so whatever trade-offs the United States economy offers, there are still a lot of people who think they are better trade-offs than the trade-offs in the familiar home country they were born in.

[1] http://www.newrepublic.com/authors/bryce-covert

[2] http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/17/business/world-rich-list-s...

[3] http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-drea...

http://www.census.gov/topics/population/foreign-born.html

http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/immigrate/immi...

AFTER EDIT: I note the downvotes indicating disagreement, and I am curious about what you disagree with. Please let me know.

And I am amused by this correction to the submitted article: "Correction: This piece originally stated that workers with smartphones spent 72 hours a week on their off time checking work e-mail. In fact, the 72 hours include working hours, and the workers are just professionals, managers, and executives. We regret the error." We are not talking about a strongly numerate analysis here.

Dewie10• 12 years ago

Other comments posted before mine have already pointed out that overall prosperity in the United States is quite high,

I've seen more that people have pointed out that America is prosperous, not necessarily that America is overall prosperous. The US seems to have one of the highest gini coefficients out of the OECD countries.

For me, the crucial fact to keep in mind in any of these decry-America threads on Hacker News is that people vote with their feet.

Which can't be easily decoupled from how well America has managed to market itself in the last 60 or so years, and marketing does not necessarily reflect reality. While the US hasn't been universally loved in all that time - see for example US foreign policy - it seems to have been able to market itself as a great place to live, also for people from developed countries. How long has there been a noticeable trend of "decry America" w.r.t. living standard on the Web?

adventured8• 12 years ago

Part of the problem is a double standard with regards to America. The other part of the problem, is that America bashers know a lot more about America, than the average person is likely to know about their country, so the basher feels free to attack and never fears their country will be put under a spotlight for its terrible qualities. It's a game of bash and hope for ignorance.

For example, if America doesn't have paid maternity leave, that's considered very backwards, and America frequently gets bashed for such things. If Spain has 34% real unemployment, somehow that isn't considered wildly backwards by comparison, because hey they have paid maternity leave and six weeks of vacation.

Or if Albania (or Nigeria or Congo or Vietnam) has a drastically better gini number than the US, somehow that's considered amazing. Except it's ignorant analysis.

I see this all the time in regards to Europeans bashing the US. They're counting on Americans not knowing enough about most of Europe to lodge a counter response.

jasonkester• 12 years ago

That Cadillac ad is awesome. I'd never seen it before.

It watches like a parody, but at the end you're hit by the reality that yes, this guy is being completely serious. The message really is "sure, I traded away my quality of life, but look at all this stuff!"

That's actually the notion that Cadillac is trying to sell. Amazing that they're doing such a good job of it.

Fortunately, there's no real trick to getting back that quality of life. You just need to take more vacation time. You can negotiate this in to your package, but if you're in as hot a talent market as we are today, you might find more success with simply taking it. "Hey, as a heads up, I'll be taking 3 weeks off at the beginning of June" followed a few months later by "Hey, I'm off to Kalymnos for a couple weeks in October", followed by "I'll probably be out of contact between Xmas and New Years."

Note the lack of "asking" above. The correct attitude to take is that it's them who are acting irrationally by suggesting that you shouldn't take a healthy amount of time off to live your life.

c_plus_minus• 12 years ago

I thought that ad was more "look at me, I'm a crazy hard working American AND I drive electric. They're not mutually exclusive!"

chimeracoder2• 12 years ago

"'cause we're the only ones going back up there [the moon]"

If only that were true. In many ways, we're further away from being able to reach the moon (or deeper parts of space) than we were 20-30 years ago[0]

[0]http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/why-not-space/

nickthemagicman5• 12 years ago

That guy is the poster child for the Materialistic Self Entitled Baby Boomer Me Generation.

Materialism and greed are literally everything that is wrong with the world.

Spoilied Douchebags like he and his generation are a legacy hangover from post-WW2 America, a time of middle class economic excess greater than any the HUMAN RACE has ever seen.

Americans aren't exceptional in any way.

We just got lucky by being the only 1st world country not in the middle of World War 2 so we reaped ton's of resources and opportunities from that and we have been coasting on it ever since and attributing it to our 'exceptionalism'. Americans love to believe that the individual is greater than his situation. Such bullshit.

You want hard workers look at China. I can't wait until Communist ass China is the next world power and assholes like the guy in the commercial don't understand why 'Mericans aren't exceptional any more.

I'm so grateful that the new American generation's self awareness, global consciousness, hacker ethic, lack of racism, community values, and so many more positive qualities are replacing douchebags like this.

resu_nimda2• 12 years ago

I like how you edited "Self Entitled" into the generational title, just to really drive home the disgust. ;)

I partially disagree, though. I do think Americans are exceptional, even if I haven't settled on exactly how, and I definitely don't think of it as a wholly positive trait. But this juxtaposition from your post is interesting:

Americans aren't exceptional in any way.

Americans love to believe that the individual is greater than his situation.

todd3834• 12 years ago

You can find hard workers everywhere including but not exclusively in America. I suggest you should want to wait before a Communist country becomes the next world power unless you would prefer to be told what to do. Clearly you are angry, maybe for a good reason, but I think your anger is misdirected at Americans.

mncolinlee2• 12 years ago

The ad also inspired several parodies, including this one from Ford. The Cadillac ad is clearly trying to sell to an affluent, white, conservative audience which still believes their hard work and no vacation pays off. In the ad, they show their success with the car they drive. It's a study in market segmentation.

Ford's parody spins it around by focusing on social consciousness, eco-friendliness, and diversity, a better message for their electric vehicle audience. You could look at the ad subject's "dirt from food" startup as a literal circle of life, an homage to organic farming and green living.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAN61QK0aUI

bmm6o2• 12 years ago

Exactly. It's not so depressing when you realize that Cadillac is selling to generally older people who have already made these decisions. It's a 60 y.o. thinking "I did work hard, and I deserve a Cadillac", not a 25 y.o. thinking "I'm going to bust ass working for the Man so I can drive a Cadillac".

Interestingly, the car is a hybrid, which is barely mentioned in the ad.

frogpelt• 12 years ago

"no vacation"

In the Cadillac ad, the heavily painted individual said two weeks instead of the whole month. Just pointing that out.

usefulcat• 12 years ago

"... audience which still believes their hard work and no vacation pays off."

People for whom that premise is untrue will still have reason to believe that it is true. Because the alternative--that they spent a bunch of their lives doing things that weren't really that rewarding--would result in too much cognitive dissonance.

Perceval• 12 years ago

The Cadillac ad is clearly trying to sell to an affluent, white, conservative audience which still believes their hard work and no vacation pays off.

For that segment of the population, it's true. Educated, rich, old men work more hours than everyone else: http://www.nber.org/digest/jul06/w11895.html

anon4• 12 years ago

So I just watched it.

Work hard all your life and when you're cynical, white-haired, old, fat and balding, you'll have a gaudy apartment and the ponciest car to ever ponce out of the poncing factory. And a barf-grey suit, a colour I didn't know existed until now.

Also, you guys would totally be going to the moon every weekend if any of all those money you're making year-round went to NASA and education.

dirktheman• 12 years ago

As a European (NL, you know, the country with 5 weeks vacation and a functioning healthcare system) I find the Cadillac ad hilarious. Sure, dude, you go work your butt off and take a loan on your future health. You'll have to deal with all kinds of stress/burnout related health conditions, but at least you got that Cadillac and an underwater home as an inheritance for your kids...

I love the US, and I've met a lot of crazy, driven, motivated and genuinly pleasant Americans. But work/life balance-wise, you're so far behind...

sreyaNotfilc• 12 years ago

As soon as I read the title of this article I immediately thought of the Cadillac ad.

For some reason, when it was airing, it resonated with me. Perhaps, I'm over worked and realize that these material things aren't really as important as one's health. Then again, I love owning a car and a home.

Its such a conflicting thought.

jefurii• 12 years ago

That Cadillac ad is awesome. I'd never seen it before.

Watching that commercial filled me with rage and made me want to punch that rich asshole in the face.

nickthemagicman5• 12 years ago

It's actually really hard to find a job that pays a decent wage and gives a good amount of time off. The kind of job where you can 'work to live'.

Our mentality of "Americans love to work hard" is misleading. I'd say Americans are just optimistic. We are sort of 'forced' to work hard so we're optimistic and try to make the best of it.

orky562• 12 years ago

Since such trends are definitely harmful, at what point does it become a human rights issue? If so, the UN or some other organization should put their foot down and set some guidelines for which a country's citizens can sustainably achieve value to their employers and the economy.

radikalus• 12 years ago

There is surely some freedom in being able to set whatever policies you like at your company without having a federal entity stipulate you give each employee X days of paid vacation.

If you want to heavily incentivize a cultural shift towards more vacation time for US employees, I don't think a federal mandate is as attractive as just an economic incentive. (Tax break to companies where X% of employees take more than Y days per year etc)

njharman2• 12 years ago

People in tech industry (all I know) tend to call in sick to "recharge" or get things done (that are causing them stress) rather than take vacation. The interesting thing is that this tacitly known to not really be sick and accepted both by peers and management. Vacation == lazy. Sick days == we all pretend we work 60hr weeks non-stop.

Cultural anecdote example from http://maebert.github.io/jrnl/installation.html#quickstart

  2012-03-29 09:00 Called in sick.
  Used the time to clean the house and spent 4h on writing my book.

walshemj6• 12 years ago

Ah gross misconduct as the lawyers and HR tend to call it :-)

maebert• 12 years ago

Uh. Hope my boss doesn't read this. ;-)

490371703• 12 years ago

Can someone explain to me why paid vacation is ok? If you don't work, in other words contribute to your job, why in the hell should you be paid? By the way that doesn't mean I don't believe in the workers' welfare, but just not in this way.

walshemj6• 12 years ago

You do know that if your salaried like 99.9% of NH contributors are your not paid by the hour your paid to perform a job or function.

Some weeks I get hardly anything done but I once saved my employer 1/2 million pounds in an afternoon.

And British Telecom the company accountant and I once saved 3/4 million in around 2 days (fixing the AR system the FD brought)

You salary is averaged out over the 52 weeks for ease of running the payroll and tax systems for one.

VLM4• 12 years ago

My sister in law is a public school teacher and has the contractual option of 9 larger monthly paychecks or 12 smaller monthly paychecks.

I would certainly consider a job with no vacation if it paid 52/49-ths more than a real job with vacation.

Shivetya• 12 years ago

You know it is very easy to be generous with another person's money. Yet mandating yourself rights to their money will likely lead to less jobs as many can be off shored. I know, what about those service jobs; automation.

Guild tripping works to a point. However this is a two way street. Many companies voluntarily offer paid maternity leave, some offer time off and paid time off. Yet who is there to hold the workers accountable? Just the cost of doing business? We all know people at work or have know that so abuse the system it makes your head spin.

In professional fields we have a choice who we work for, we can choose the good companies and if they continue to do well that will encourage their competitors to step up their game. However we should never assume we deserve something just because someone else has it or we convince ourselves its a good idea.

cognivore• 12 years ago

If you're in tech, the way to do avoid this is:

- Develop mission critical systems.

- Make sure no one else understands them.

- When you're gone, break them so your employer suffers and realizes they can't be without you.

- Act like you don't care and want your time off.

Works for raises,too.

Of course, if you have a good employer, none of that is necessary.

throwaway5752• 12 years ago

How does this stuff get so popular on YC?

Is there a founder anywhere that didn't put in months of 100+ hour weeks? Or, to clarify, a successful founder?

VLM4• 12 years ago

Thats kind of the point, there's an idealized platonic form of a startup with 100 hour workweeks and open plan offices and pooled time off and no vacations ever.

Everything mentioned above has been researched and proven to be a dismal failure at actual financial productivity.

Therefore in a disruptive startup-py manner there are, on average, enormous fat stacks of cash to be earned by going against the idealized platonic form.

WRT successful, I think it unlikely there are many holders of BS degrees who didn't experimentally binge drink in college. I certainly did, till I outgrew that phase. That correlation does not imply successful earning of a degree, in fact the cause/effect relationship probably implies getting alcohol poisoning is anti-productive at the goal of successfully obtaining a credential.

So the battle is between the cargo cult crew, who think success is the result of better following the platonic form of the ideal startup even if its a dumb idea, vs the rebels who know based on research they'll on average make more money if they disruptively toss the idealized platonic form.

rdtsc2• 12 years ago

When you look for jobs find companies that will let you have adequate vacation time and actually make you take it. The older you get you'll start valuing your and your family's time more and more. Making loads of money and then waiting for that 1 week vacation to blow it off, or wait until you are old to travel is not optimal the way I see it. By that time you'll have so many ailments travel won't be an option for long.

kajumix• 12 years ago

The entire first world could get by with 100% time off on the back of the poor of this world. Why not just lose the pretense and admit that the rich americans and europeans can truly afford to spend all their days idle, consuming stuff imported and made elsewhere by people who work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, while you all spend your days debating 35 vs. 40 hours of invaluable pretend work. Such hubris.

VLM4• 12 years ago

"keep the nose to the grindstone"

LOL there's a classism component that a guy spending 60 hours in the office, 30 of them on facebook, twitter, amazon, or HN, is an office overtime hero, but a guy using a shovel 39 hours a week while being paid for 40 is a lazy slacker who should be fired.

Aside from the class problem, another big problem is in a euro country with low income inequality, it means something to divide the total pie by the number of roughly equal people eating it. But if you have a pie where almost all the pie will be going to a couple fat guys and half the "eaters" are going to starve then dividing the pie by the number of "eaters" is utterly meaningless, or at least it is not comparable to the more equal country. It is a meaningless math problem.

If I bring a pack of oreos to work and serve them at a meeting as a snack/bribe, then dividing the pack by the number of people means something. If I bring in a bag lunch and eat every single oreo by myself other than maybe giving one to my college buddy while everyone else in the dept looks on jealously, then the division result is meaningless, or at least not worth comparing.

In a "let them eat cake" scenario if 12 people eat 12 equal-ish sized slices, the average slice size means something. In winner takes all USA, one fat dude eats the whole cake and 11 get nothin and the numerical average means nothing, nothing at all.

nate• 12 years ago

What I find interesting about mentioning the Cadillac ad and workaholism, is how Ford actually found workaholism decreased the efficiency of his workers:

On January 5, 1914, the Ford Motor Company took the radical step of doubling pay to $5 a day and cut shifts from nine hours to eight, moves that were not popular with rival companies, although seeing the increase in Ford's productivity, and a significant increase in profit margin (from $30 million to $60 million in two years), most soon followed suit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

adventured8• 12 years ago

Overall Americans are not suffering from workaholism.

Americans are working less hours than they ever have as a whole.

The BLS reports the average is down to 34.5 hours per week:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm

The hours per year are comparable to Japan, Italy, Canada, New Zealand, and only 1.4% greater than the OECD average:

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS

Meanwhile, a smaller percentage of Americans are working than at any other time than in the past 35 years:

http://i.imgur.com/c5iStWB.jpg

thisiswei• 12 years ago

How do you define "workaholic" ? Please take a look at Foxconn workers.

Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

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