Work life balance in the USA

Am I right in saying for jobs with higher salaries in the US your likely to get more days off? Because your considered more of a 'valuable' employee and so have better negotiating rights?
I’d say the opposite. You might get more days off but the expectation is you don’t take it. I think there’s a large percentage of US workers who don’t take their full allowance, even though it’s shit to start with. When I was there the bank holidays used to be chocka as everyone always takes off the Friday after Thanksgiving for instance, because it gives you a full FOUR days off work and it’s seen as f***ing amazing to have that length of time off.

You should consider sick leave too. I think you get an allocated amount, rather than “if you’re sick stay off”. I remember a pregnant lass I worked with coming in when she was obviously really bad with a cold. She said she was saving up her sick days so she could add them on to her mat leave.

She got about four weeks of mat leave. And that was generous.
Am I right in thinking a lot of the criticisms of healthcare in the US are not based on quality but on rather on coverage and who is entitled to it? If you can afford the healthcare its as good as any other country in the world I assume, but if you're poor and can't afford it, well your fucked then really.
Even if you do get it, through work, then it still sometimes patchy. I was lucky as my employer paid all excesses but like any insurance policy, you’ll pay the first so much, and they try and send you for all sorts. I had MRI scans and all sorts that in hindsight I didn’t really need.

Car accident that wasn’t my fault - ambulance costs $400to take me a mile to A&E and I had to sue the driver to claim it back. That was 15 years ago.
 
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I have similar thoughts to this. Think if I ever go over for a long period of time it will be for 6 months to a year and save before I go with no work
 
Isn’t food, beer and eating out dirt cheap over there?

I used to love visiting the US in the early 2000s when it was over $1.90 to the pound. I''d take an empty suitcase to go clothes shopping and you could eat in top end restaurants for next to nothing. These days the exchange rate hurts.

Don't forget to add in tips on top of food and drink prices. In a restaurant, 20% is considered normal and around $1 to $1.50 for each beer. Don't try the ignorant tourist game of not tipping. You might get away with it once but you'll never get served again. Tipping culture is always a case of When in Rome... Bar and restaurant staff are on a very low minimum wage (sometimes only $2 per hour) so tips are part of the deal. It also means that customer service standards in the US are usually far better than in the UK.
 
What didn’t you like about NZ? First person I’ve seen say they didn’t like it
Boring place full of boring people some with a real anti British attitude.
The islanders were decent lads like, had a full team of them working for me.
Wages were low.
Pubs close early
It was like stepping back in time.
Depends how you want to live your life though.Just wasnt for me, disappoitment.
Very high teenage suicide rate about the time I was there.
Good pies like and some great old British cars and bikes to be had.
 
I've been in the US for a year now and let me tell you they have no balance. In some ways it's good because it stops you being a lazy ****, but the idea of midweek football or a kick about is gone from my life. By the time I'm finished work I've got enough time for some dinner and a few TV shows (maybe a ride on the exercise bike) and then it's bed time.

You are paid more for that, but they tax you more too. I'm strongly debating using the money to buy a house back home in the UK and then slowly transition back over.
Isn’t food, beer and eating out dirt cheap over there?
It is but the quality is worse. They pump it full of all sorts. The most obvious example is soda. Ours has sugars and what have you, theirs has this awful shit called High Fructose Corn Syrup. It's like ingesting tar.
 
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Tumble out of bunkbed
Thats located in the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
And yawn and stretch and try to come to life
Join the queue for the shower
And the blood starts pumpin'
Out on the streets, the muggers are jumpin'
For folks like me on the job from 9 to 23
Workin' 9 to 23
What a way to make a livin'
Barely gettin' by
It's all takin' and no givin'
:lol:
 
Am I right in thinking a lot of the criticisms of healthcare in the US are not based on quality but on rather on coverage and who is entitled to it? If you can afford the healthcare its as good as any other country in the world I assume, but if you're poor and can't afford it, well your fucked then really.
And this is the other big thing (alongside the guns) is that you need a good job for good healthcare and even then if it's something serious you're fucked.

I had my first ever panic attack in the US, uninsured, and I had to pay $250 just to learn it wasn't a heart-attack.
 
I’d say the opposite. You might get more days off but the expectation is you don’t take it. I think there’s a large percentage of US workers who don’t take their full allowance, even though it’s shit to start with. When I was there the bank holidays used to be chocka as everyone always takes off the Friday after Thanksgiving for instance, because it gives you a full FOUR days off work and it’s seen as f***ing amazing to have that length of time off.

You should consider sick leave too. I think you get an allocated amount, rather than “if you’re sick stay off”. I remember a pregnant lass I worked with coming in when she was obviously really bad with a cold. She said she was saving up her sick days so she could add them on to her mat leave.

She got about four weeks of mat leave. And that was generous.

Even if you do get it, through work, then it still sometimes patchy. I was lucky as my employer paid all excesses but like any insurance policy, you’ll pay the first so much, and they try and send you for all sorts. I had MRI scans and all sorts that in hindsight I didn’t really need.

Car accident that wasn’t my fault - ambulance costs $400to take me a mile to A&E and I had to sue the driver to claim it back. That was 15 years ago.
Again I haven’t personally felt frowned upon for taking my vacation days but you’re right that a lot of people don’t take their allotment and I myself often find I’m biting through days in December to take up my allotment as you’re o my allowed to roll over one week each year. This is obviously the gamble a lot of companies are taking in moving to ‘unlimited’ PTO.
Band holidays here are kinda pointless as it seems like you have to get five days work done in four days. I used to often go away for several days overlapping a bank holiday to save on burning vacation days. Don’t bother now as the roads are often blocked as you say so we often stay home and barbecue or whatever rather than wrestling with traffic or airport drama.
Some companies are getting better with maternity leave. I think they realise in a low unemployment season that it’s so costly to replace people who leave they have to make it more attractive for people to stay. This works in professions but retail and hospitality etc I doubt it.
My last job I had a deductible of $3k but the company put $3k into a health savings account. I left the em due to being micro managed but can’t deny their benefits were class!
 
NZ would be the much better option I feel.
Step daughter moved there to Hawkes Bay area 5 years ago, absolutely loves it/and the people, I think I would have been there myself if I wasn't too old for citizenship :(.
(I do love parts of America and some of what it has given us, I've never wanted to live there though).
 
I don’t understand your first sentence.

And as for your second - this may be true but like I said after a few nervous years starting out, during which I didn’t have much job security (but no mortgage either - I lived in a 600 sq foot one bedroom flat paying $340 a month rent) I eventually got into a line of work that I’m in demand so felt confident enough to buy a gaff. Maybe that was halfy-halfy good luck and good management on my part. I’m very fortunate but also worked hard too. And since I’ve never known any different you just accept it. I totally get that for people less fortunate and/or less capable it could be a minefield. As a mate of mine said, every family is one major car accident away from bankruptcy. He was a record producer making loadsamoney but after paying off his house he went to work for ‘the man’ so he could have that stability of health insurance, retirement etc.
Job security over here isnt exactly bulletproof tbf is it? If a company wants you out they will find a way to make it happen. Some public sector jobs will be the exception.
 
Yeah I read some stories on the SMB (like what @offmenut mentioned a couple of posts after yours!) about people taking the piss back home and I never hear that sort of thing here. They’d be booted out quick smart at most companies. Weeks off for ‘stress’ and you’d be getting a phone call from HR saying ‘maybe this job isn’t a good fit for you’!
If you’re a small business owner I can see why these kind of piss taking employees hiding behind workers rights could be the death of your profits. On the other hand it seems like England is stepping closer to America with what I hear about zero hour contracts which I take to be similar to the ‘at will’ situation over here.
People who work for our govt in councils/public services etc are properly looked after and it’s a job for life regardless if your any good/use.
Job security over here isnt exactly bulletproof tbf is it? If a company wants you out they will find a way to make it happen. Some public sector jobs will be the exception.
Spot on

ive never heard of anyone getting the bullet from the public sector.They just get moved around/hid.
 
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NZ would be the much better option I feel.
Step daughter moved there to Hawkes Bay area 5 years ago, absolutely loves it/and the people, I think I would have been there myself if I wasn't too old for citizenship :(.
(I do love parts of America and some of what it has given us, I've never wanted to live there though).
I know two couples who emigrated to NZ. They loved the place - geography, outdoors etc. but both came back as they just couldn’t get ahead due to the cost of living. They both also said the areas they lived were so far from anywhere public transport was a nono and they had to have two cars. Only the blokes got work visas so the bewers had to stay home and become housewives.
I couldn’t stand the accent me. I thought sirth ifrican was the worst but there’s a certain kiwi accent where they mis-pronounce all vowel sounds (Something oos Mackems nivva dee!) and it’s like nails on a blackboard to me! Was in a conference once and the bewer kept pronouncing ‘medical’ as ‘mi-di-cuwl’ - I had to walk out it was so grating!
 
In America is it law that you have to scream enthusiastically at mundane things?
 
People who work for our govt in councils/public services etc are properly looked after and it’s a job for life regardless if your any good/use.

Spot on

ive never heard of anyone getting the bullet from the public sector.They just get moved around/hid.
Same happens with the big construction companies, you’re talking to someone from Kier one week, the next they’re at Farrans etc. Always just seem to move between companies.
 

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