Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

Switzerland is one of... three maybe (Luxemburg, Norway) countries with higher standard of living than the US. Not even Switzerland's neighbours (Italy, France, Germany) with people coming from the same populations can reproduce it.

All these great states are tiny (8M people) outliers. There are more people enjoying work-life balance in America than alive in Switzerland. You could carve out multiple Switzerlands of the US if you broke it up and tightened immigration (as the Swiss are doing right now).

But, honestly, the only way that this occurs (unless born rich) is if one is smart, ambitious, hard-working, cunning, and lucky. If one is poor and doesn't have those attributes, they'll have a very hard time here. For instance, intelligence will not get one very far, alone. I grew up gifted and talented. All of my siblings were also gifted and talented. But, of my family and classmates, only 20% made it out of poverty. In that way, the U.S. is quite horrible.

That's the secret. The Swiss are brave enough to tax the wealth. They are not afraid to do so. They also are extremely respectful of their electorate: They do referendums often and for any reason (building a bridge or allowing foreigners to work in their country). There is a sort of just distribution of social responsibility which unfortunately lacks elsewhere.

If you look for the city with highest living standard in the world though, it's not in Switzerland but right next to it, the beautiful Vienna :-)

I thought that public transportations in Paris sucked, that was before I had to ride BART. Same goes for homelessness, crimes etc... I love SF, there is a ton of amazing places to hang out at etc.. but damn, I do miss Paris.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Switzerland#Banking

It's cute that she even provides numbers and leaves this out. This is the only number you need to know. Everything else is the direct result of this.

You know who else does awesome? A closed community of multi-millionaires in the USA. Except you're not a part of that elite. Somehow, you got to be part of the European elite (anyone who lives in Switzerland) and feel like the rest of the world can magically live like that. No, that lifestyle is at the expense of the rest of the world.

They were peasants.

Then, over the course of about 200 years, some of these gentry got their heads chopped off or were stripped of their papal lands or were rounded up and put in front of a firing squad and thrown down a well.

But there were still plenty of gentry left, and so a deal was struck: we (the peasants) get old age pensions and some trifling property ownership and a handful of other "benefits" and protections, and you get to retain the landed class privileges you've constructed and ... we promise not to chop your heads off.

Ok, deal.

The european social model is not the result of sophisticated empathy and communalism. It's a deal made fair and square - you stop treating us like cattle, and we won't revolt and murder you and your children.

But there's a converse to all of this ...

What if a population was not systematically enslaved and disenfranchised for, oh, say, 2000 years ? What if there is not an intricate system of landed class and privilege and you build the social and welfare state first ?

The deal still gets made, it just gets made in reverse.

You want cradle to grave welfare and benefits ? Fine. These folks over here will give it to you (the money has to come from somewhere, after all) but they will absolutely assert a system of privilege and class benefits. You won't like it. It's "unamerican". Those consequences will be unintended, but there's no way to leave that equation out of balance.

After all, a deals a deal.

For start "lunch hour" is mandatory and in reality it means you spend extra hour at work. I would rather spend a hour with my kid than eating with my boss.

Second the taxation leaves various compulsory "contributions": social, pension, wealth, tv, petrol etc. It is not 5% but more likely 50% of average salary.

And third, I have totally different experience with american companies. All american corporations I worked for had strong life-work balance, holidays etc.

[0] - Because if every billionaire in the world moved to the U.S. it would barely move the needle on wealth per capita unlike Singapore, Switzerland, and Luxembourg.

   Switzerland    84,748
   United States  53,042

[1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=switzerland+vs+united+s...

https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Switzerland:_A_parasite_feeding_o...

Of course, you can have a very generous social security system and a great transport infrastructure when you've been financed by crime for decades.

It's probably not the only reason of course, and we surely have many smart things to learn from this country.

If you want Switzerland in the U.S. there is only one option: break the U.S. up into distinct, smaller countries that are able to foster a common culture that can be relied upon to solve the prisoners dilemma inherent in all social welfare schemes.

A side benefit for our friends abroad: maybe we'll stop bombing the shit out of the rest of the world.

Given systems that are equally difficult to circumvent, the type of taxes that would be most beneficial are those that don’t punish earning income and saving and investing money. Things like sales taxes, consumption taxes, and transaction taxes discourage consumption and also discourage financial system manipulation by the super-wealthy.

But I think the Swiss succeed despite this because they have a much more compassionate view towards their fellow citizens and are willing to pay higher taxes if it’s used for things that genuinely make people lives better rather than line the pockets of big business and cronies. Also, US workers have a terrible work ethic and an adversarial relationship with their employers. If you feel you should get more out an employer than you give them, you’re not really understanding how the system works. If you provide high productivity and there is mutual interest in the company succeeding, then taking time off or working a normal work schedule is not anything an employer would need to argue about. A company has to make money in order to hire people. They aren’t a public service. If you’re not productive, then you are probably going to have to work longer hours so that the company can succeed enough to keep your job.

And in general, Americans are greedy. It’s what brought people here as a young country and it’s in our DNA. What works in Switzerland probably can’t really work here. But what actually could work is to use economic incentives to try to encourage a healthier economy. Instead, we waste our time thinking that taxing the rich more is the solution to everything. Sure, they should pay more than lower income people do, but it’s a multi-layered problem.

This is not quite true. They do impose a 35% tax on all dividends and interest of bank accounts (if the amount is over 200 Swiss Francs) but you get that back when filing your tax return. However you will have to pay income tax on dividends and interest. The goal is to ensure people don't commit tax evasion by not declaring some of their wealth. [1]

[1]: https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/19650189/... (in German)

1) You have work-life balance, but it is forced on you. Especially women. If you go out around noon, you will see loads of school kids walking home to get their lunch. Full time childcare is CHF30K at my local nursery. School is free, but lunch will cost you extra. And the nursery has holidays, btw. So if you're working you need to either find someone to take the kid, or you have to spend your holiday when the nursery is on holiday. When it comes to school, the kids will probably have more holiday than you, so I don't know wtf people do. Relatives seem to play a big part, especially grandparents.

2) Stuff is expensive here. Everyday stuff just costs a silly amount compared to across the border in Germany or France. Local builders cost a fortune to hire, again compared to across the border. And they're not even local, just foreign guys getting arbed by the local cartel.

3) Sure, you get 80% of salary, for two years, up to a max insured salary of CHF10500, not bad. But you pay for that, too. Or your employer does, so you are paying too. It's about 20%, according to my accountant. And when you do go on unemployment, there's a guy who treats you with much suspicion handling your case. And they still have the same circus of sending you on mandatory courses of zero benefit that they have in other countries.

4) Tax is reasonable. I should say you don't get to keep 95% of the salary. There's a good 10% or so that's a sort of forced saving that goes into a pension pot. It's your money though. And wealth tax isn't crazy, just a fraction of a percent most places, progressive so most people won't feel it.

5) Vacation is very different between the US and Europe. I've never been in need of more due to being self-employed most of my life. But if I were to move to the US as an employee, that would be one of my big marks against.

6) Sure public transport is good. But if you live outside of the big towns it's useful to drive. And there's plenty of parking, too. Road taxes are sensible, and car insurance is cheap.

7) I went with my wife to a birthing course for first-timers. The other couples we met told me it was standard for paternity leave to be 2 days. And 14 weeks is on the low side in Europe, especially compared to Scandinavia. I can't imagine what it's like in the US if she thinks Switzerland is good for parental leave. On the plus side, the birth experience is amazing. You can get a single room (or just upgrade if you got cheap insurance, costs a couple grand) and the father can stay there as well, for a week. Well, that's when we got bored. Until then it was basically like a hotel where they bring you 3 meals a day and clean the baby for you.

- Other things to note: The job market feels rigid. There's almost no unemployment, but as a foreigner with a foreign degree and a foreign accent, it feels like employers are not keen to take a chance on you. The education system seems to be a sort of silo, where every degree course has certain jobs they send people into. In Angloland any degree will suffice for most jobs, which is liberating. As an employer, it's hard to get people to change jobs. I chatted with the CTO of a startup the other day, and he found far fewer good developers here than Scandinavia, and many people didn't want to take the chance. Going around the Zurich startup scene, you get the feeling the startup guys are a whole other world, separate in ethos and outlook from the rest of society.

- There's a social awkwardness quite unlike any other society I've lived in or known people from. Hard to describe, but people behave in strange ways here. There's a lady across the street who comes to stare at us from her window when we park the car. Instead of asking someone in person to move an impractically parked car you get a note saying police will be called (she could see us the whole time). It's generally harder to strike up a conversation with people here (the USA is the best for this btw).

- People don't seem to be afraid of treating foreigners differently to everyone else. The other day my wife's car stopped working at a light and a bus driver got out and told her this doesn't happen in Switzerland. Also hard not to feel targeted when doing one home renovation causes two lawsuits from guys who are clearly just chancing.

I can't find any source ATM but I think the median salary is around $75k.

I'm not judging here, that's not to say Boulderites are slackers or East Coasters only care about work, just saying that I think the comparisons made in this article don't apply to the whole country.

I'm Australian, lived there most of my life. I've also lived in London (3 years), Cologne (9 months), Zurich (almost 1 year) and now New York (coming up on 5 years).

There's a lot of good things about Switzerland but there's one part of this post I think is misleading: taxes.

The poster mentions the low rate of federal tax on the average wage. This is only part of the story. I forget all the specifics but you had to pay:

- federal tax

- cantonal tax

- tax for what part of the canton you lived in (I forget what this one is called)

- 3-6 mandatory insurances covering health, retirement, unemployment and so on

Now I still think it works out rather well but don't be under any illusions it ends at 5% federal. It does not.

In a way it's good because the other way to do this is just to tax you at a higher rate and decide what to do with the money after the tax. The Swiss system is definitely more transparent. You also have choice. You can choose health insurance with a higher deductible to have lower costs. Swiss law mandates the minimum coverage required.

Switzerland is also very expensive for day to day expenses. I seem to recall seeing steak in Migros for 60+ CHF/kg. This was 10 years ago however.

I do remember reading about a supermarket chain in Germany that opened a store just across the border from Basel (about an hour from Zurich) and it had the highest turnover of any of their stores because all the Swiss went there to shop. There were limits on imports of various products like meat into Switzerland.

It's true that the public transportation in Switzerland is simply amazing. If you live in a city there's really no reason to own a car. I can't speak for more rural lifestyles.

Culturally however I think the German side of Switzerland (I have no experience with the French or Italian sides) was difficult for expats. Honestly I found Swiss Germans to be _incredibly_ rude and insular.

Now bear in mind I've lived in Germany (Cologne). Cologne I consider to be one of the friendliest places I've ever been. Like I'd be at the train station and someone would arrive and ask "Wie spaet ist es?" (what time is it?). I'd reply and they'd know immediately I was a foreigner (Auslander) and strike up a conversation. This happened _routinely_.

So whatever experiences you may have about German culture from Germany (and even Germany is a very different place in the Northwest vs the more conservative South vs the old East vs Berlin), Swiss Germans are something else.

Housing is interesting. They have (or had at least when I was there) low interest rates (~3.5%) but owning a house then deemed you with the income that house would get if you rented it out but that was offset by the interest you paid. So no one paid off their mortgages.

Also, Switzerland punitively taxes capital gains on real estate. The idea I think is to not create a speculative market in real estate as they consider that bad. So there weren't the huge swings in property values you might see in the US or Australia. That's probably good.

Still there are criticisms. Like the richest areas have the lowest taxes. This could apply in Zurich (the Gold Coast I think it was called along the east bank of Lake Zurich) or some even stayed out of the canton and, say, lived in Zug, choosing to commute each day (it's about 30-45 minutes to central Zurich).

The details may have changed but when I was there when you got a work permit (a B residence permit) it was basically a work visa. After 3 years it automatically converted to a C permit, which was essentially a residence permit, and you could stay as long as you kept renewing it.

This is in stark contrast to the US system with H1B lotteries and the gruelling torture that is the green card process.

One other thing worth noting was that unless you married someone Swiss it's almost impossible to get Swiss citizenship. I seem to recall reading about families that have lived there for 3 generations since the 1920s and were still residents.

You'll note that after being there 10 years the poster still said they had a residence permit. That won't change.

I'm a little surprised they got residence permits at all actually. One consequence of the tighter integration into Europe (it's much easier to get a work permit as an EU citizen now than it was 15 years ago) is that it became more difficult for non-EU citizens to get one. I'd be curious to know what her husband does/did.

As for the US, I live in New York and as others have said to me New York isn't the US. Not really. I like it here and I'm probably going to stay. As much as I like Switzerland (and everywhere you go really is a postcard) I'm not sure I could live there permanently.

I'd be wary of saying the Swiss way of doing things is better because, to me, the Swiss system probably isn't sustainable in the general case.

Switzerland prospered as a center of banking and of being ostensibly neutral (eg being spared the horrors of WW2). It's a bit like Monaco. I hear Monaco is amazing but Monaco is a haven for the wealthy that essentially cherrypicks its residents. Switzerland isn't quite that but it's similar.

In Geneva for example you have many workers who live in France and commute every day (there's a special work permit for this).

Too bad OP doesn't realize that this applies outside of America too.

What I am saying is that you can't compare two countries with such dissimilar profiles without examining and making sense of a lot of data. And you certainly can't conclude that one has a great work culture and the other does not.

Just a few data points...

    Population
    US 320,000,000
    CH   8,000,000
    
    Employment among 15 to 65 year old population:
    US  67%
    CH  80%

    Tourism (arrivals):
    US 60,000,000
    CH  8,600,000 (yes, more people visit than live there)

    Employment
    US 123 million
    CH 4.2 million

    Number of businesses
    US  18,200,000
    CH     160,000

    Number of billionaires
    US  615
    CH   29

    Foreign aid (given to other countries)
    US  30,154,000,000 (it's actually double this number if grants and loans included)
    CH   2,295,000,000

    GDP
    US 18,125,000,000,000
    CH    688,000,000,000

    Tax revenue:
    US  3,001,721,000 
    CH    217,900,000 

    Deficit/Surplus
    US -648,805,000
    CH    3,400,000

    National Debt
    US  18,540,448,667,000  (58,437 per capita; 106% of GDP)
    CH   1,610,897,000,000  (154,063 per capita; 229% of GDP)

Clearly in the US we can do a lot better. And we do this by voting the right people into office. We are at a point where fiscal responsibility isn't an interesting concept but rather a requirement for survival. What we have been doing is not sustainable in the long term, not even close. So, tax and spend needs to go out the window. And no, we can't fix it by taxing the rich.

The differences are huge and, while it might feels good to write a blog post trashing the US, the reality is that nobody --blog post writers and people posting comments on HN-- ever seems to want to take a few hours to throw numbers up on a spreadsheet, build some economic models and try to understand the underlying data. That's where the truth lies. Not in how we feel. That's all bullshit. Everybody feels great just before a tsunami. Yet, the earthquake that triggers it has been building-up underground for years, for decades or centuries. What matters are the numbers. Most everything else is complete nonsense.

I'd like someone to explain the impact of a per-capita debt of over $150K and 229% of GDP on the People's Republic of Switzerland. A house of cards looks great until the reality that is happens to be a house of cards has to be confronted.

Don't argue with me with feelings or ideology. Put numbers up on a spreadsheet and figure it first.

In the end, we are all bailing water in one way or the other. And a lot of what's going on points very solidly at China, in more ways than one.

Oh man, I've been asking for this at almost every company. "Hey, can I work 4 days a week for 80% of the salary?" "WHAT? NO! Think of all the synergy collaboration meeting time you'll miss you won't be able to communicate without being present all of the time what if someone needs to talk to you during the week you must have the same schedule to maximise the convergence serendipity" "Oh well... what about work hours?" "We have a flexible system. We have people coming in as early as 7 and ones arriving as late as 12, both are fine as long as you do 8 hours"

I didn't have the heart to tell them.

And then she claims her $30,000 salary, at seven days a week, turns out to be the equivalent of minimum wage? On which planet? At $7.25 an hour, times 56 hours (7 days at 8 hours per day) times 52 weeks (though she got 10 days off) equals $21,112.

This article is of ill repute.

You've been a democracy since 1292(?). Good luck and hopefully you'll be independent and free for another 800 years.

I pushed myself too hard, but this can occur when you are expected to work till you drop dead from exhaustion. This is what my first supervisor expected of me, because she thought I was a low life piece of shit. I had hardly any experience in insurance, especially claims which a lot of people in the building considered to be the sharp end of the business. Administration on a new claim was estimated on average to take around 90 minutes, it took me a day and a half. I was furnished with written procedure notes (about 40 pages worth), a laptop with no mouse and told to get on with it. I didn't consider this to be unfair, because this is the attitude I have experienced in most of my jobs. I had been in my new role for two days when I was given this task. All the thanks I got was a casual remark from my supervisor "Well, that's our Christmas bonus gone isn't it."

I was often shouted at in the office. Being an open plan space this behaviour was witnessed by about 80 other people. If my queries were not understood at first, the response I would get is "WHAT?!". When the day ended and the office was mostly empty, my supervisor's behaviour became very hostile.

The experience was incredibly stressful. My ulnar nerve issue worsened, so now it feels like I have a knife stuck in my little finger. Also I became so nervous about making a mistake (because my mistakes were over emphasised) that I worked at a rate about 4 times slower than my colleagues. Trust in my proof reading ability was lost, so I would check every single lexicon in a letter of correspondence and rereading my work nearly a dozen times. Some people would recognise this as OCD. I was considered incapable of performing my role, a bit offensive I might add.

I have a suspicion that I was treated like this partially because I am genetically male. My hope is to get a new job in the company's call center, and occasionally I would dress as a woman (or most of the time). I would like to see how I am treated by my ex supervisor/torturer while wearing a skirt, and how someone who is quite religious reacts to someone slowly coming out as transgender. I recently referred to her as a "fucking bitch" in a conversation with one of my other work colleagues. I regret that a lot, because (s)he isn't a real woman, and I'm more of a woman than she'll ever be.