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Comment by nicoburns | Hacker News Reader

Better than not, I guess. But it would better still to have more vacation days (if you're American, then most of the world probably has twice as many as you do)

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I always dislike the European vs American commentary. There are tradeoffs and we could easily go back and forth on those.

You're lucky that commentary isn't here then, as "most of the world" isn't just Europe.

But broadly speaking, life is better in most first world countries that aren't the US.

Trade-offs? Like better quality of life? I was amazed 30 years ago when I went to Italy and all these Germans were lounging around for a month on Sardinia imagine getting a month vacation every year and spending that quality time with your family instead of being stuck behind a computer why your family is often enjoying itself?

Starlink is only extending work time when it should be vacation time

Yes trade offs. Labor market is generally better for employees in markets like Europe. You pay for it with less innovation and risk bets by companies. Employees benefit by more safety nets, some of the trade off is less optionally in companies and jobs available.

It is just tradeoffs. It’s ok to have those.

There are approximately ~250 weekdays in a year (so excluding weekends). 250/30 = ~8.3% of the days. So if you had 30 days PTO a year, that's be an 8.3% difference vs. having 0 days PTO. I find it hard to believe that an 8.3% difference in working days would make a huge difference to overall productivity.

I know yall pride yourself on this point but it’s simply tradeoffs. I have no bone to pick like you do in this argument but you have to admit part of the innovation success in markets like the US is that companies can make riskier bets because they know they won’t be saddled with large redundancy loads of it fails.

Again it’s just tradeoffs mixed with cultural differences. It’s ok.

I do agree when comparing developed wealthy nations the US ranks poorly on average vacation days per worker.

But on a global standard across all peoples, even those in the informal economies? US probably works out better.

Not that being a bit better off than subsistence farmers in extreme poverty is a high standard to cross, it's still a pretty low bar. I'd still recommend scoping your claims accurately.

The demographic of Americans who use a Starlink to work from the wilderness probably has more vacation days than the mean European.

Joke's on you, I have "unlimited" vacation days...

The next time a company tells me I have unlimited vacation, I will ask them the minimum number of days I need to take off a year. If they can't answer, then their "unlimited vacation" is just an accounting trick to take the financial liability of PTO off their books.

That explains European economic growth vs the US over the last decade.

Agree, they've got their priorities straight over in Europe.

Who is living better, typically?

It explains the growth in the Quality of Life surveys of Europe vs the US over the last decade.

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