7 ms·

The more I read and experience such things along with the healthcare scam and sudden bills from hospitals and haggling with insurance, the more I wonder why I i

by nus07 5y ago

The more I read and experience such things along with the healthcare scam and sudden bills from hospitals and haggling with insurance, the more I wonder why I immigrated to the US when I could have taken my software skills and education to anywhere else like Europe or Canada. This country is for hustlers and grifters and the cunning.

sokoloff 5y ago
There’s still a significant salary spread between the US and most of Canada and Europe (Switzerland is competitive with the US, but most of the rest is not). Remote working may close some of the gap, but right now there’s a wide gap.
- nus07 5y ago
  I don't think I care about salary so much especially when I hear that the other countries have a better social safety net. As a software engineer I am confident I can make decent pay for the area. I am not looking to send my kids to private school or avail a world class surgeon or have a beach house or make millions. I just want a good happy middle class life writing code and without a lot of hustling. And somehow the US does not seem very conducive to that.
  - melony 5y ago
    Then move to Canada and see how much you like it. It is trivial for an American software engineer with a degree to immigrate over. There is a reason why Canadians come here rather than remain up north (hint it's not just the weather).
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - estaseuropano 5y ago
    If you have experience and good English skills you should be able to find programming jobs in most of the bigger EU countries. And world class surgeons are everywhere, you just don't pay world class prices everywhere. I don't need or want a famous surgeon, I want someone that makes sure I'm well and that I don't need to pay off for the rest of my life. Anecdote: When he was three my son needed a rare emergency surgery. He had an ambulance transfer to a specialist pediatric hospital from another hospital where he was first admitted. They brought a specialist in just for that surgery. My son then stayed three weeks in the children's hospital and I slept next to him on a bed. I paid nothing for any of this except my own sandwiches, and was by his side the whole time. This was the summer holiday period and fell into our annual three weeks of summer vacation. I sent my work my medical certificate and they registered this (as required by law) as sick days and I was able to move my vacation days to right after the hospital stay, meaning I lost not even a single vacation day. Of course i also got full pay for those days with my son sleeping in the hospital, so I was neither working (except for some minimum email forwarding and answering simple queries) nor did I lose any salary, benefits, sick days, leave days, ... And I knew that there was no risk whatsoever that i wouldn't lose my job or insurance. Honestly I would not give any of this up for twice or thrice the money. ~40-50% of everyone's gross salary goes to all these services and we pay close to 20% VAT, but this buys us comfort and security. No one dies because they can't afford treatment - even the homeless or irregular migrants can go to the ER and get care (but likely far less than we are lucky yo receive).
    - csdvrx 5y ago
      > but this buys us the promise and the image of comfort and security FTFY
- fanatic2pope 5y ago
  The "salary spread" doesn't make up for the lower quality of life, IMO. And I say this as a Canadian who moved to the midwest US.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I’m sorry that you have a lower quality of life in the US; are you planning to move back in order to increase/regain your quality of life?
  - bmitc 5y ago
    I just don't understand how people afford Canadian cities. Moving to Toronto or Vancouver would be completely unaffordable. I would take a massive salary cut but then housing would increase significantly alongside that. Also, is Canadian culture really that different from the U.S.? I'm genuinely curious about that.
    - klyrs 5y ago
      Party membership is not defined by fealty to one man/woman in any of the major political parties, so there's that.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        Until recently though the only fealty was a deceased former leader of the party (Reagan). The living fealty thing is new and disturbing. But let's not pretend it's a US trait. I hear more criticism about democratic leaders from democrats than republicans. Less vitriol, but more criticism.
        sokoloff 5y ago
        Criticizing political leaders who are (in your opinion) underperforming seems like a healthy state for a representative democracy/republic form of government. If the leaders of your party are (or hold themselves to be) above criticism, that’s a sign that something is deeply unhealthy (as we’ve seen recently).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
RicoElectrico 5y ago
My thoughts exactly. Look how many businesses in the US have modus operandi that boils down to "get rich at the expense of other people". E.g. TurboTax. This is toxic.
jdmoreira 5y ago
You are not going to make the same money in Europe though
- estaseuropano 5y ago
  Quality of life > money. I love the US for its beauty and many parts of its culture, but I would never want to live there. In western europe it is normal for people to go to preventive care, or hospitals and NOT fear to be bankrupt. Its normal to have four weeks of paid vacation a year. Its normal to have a safety net when you fall on hard times, e.g. when you lose your job or family or mind. Its normal to think of police as a positive, not as something to be regularly scared of. Its normal to live walking or cycling distance to work. Its normal to study at university and not be saddled with debt. Its normal to be fine with life as it is, without an ambition for being rich or powerful or whatever. America seems to me always like a place for ambitious and hungry people that want to work and fight all their lives to prove themselves. But it doesn't seem like a place for people that want to be happy and live a good life. America is a force for creativity and creation but also for the misery of many. I just can't believe how many people 'stick it out', how many people simply accept that dental pain is normal if they can't pay to fix it, or that they might die because they pay $100+ for insulin that they need to live, when in any other first world country this is free. Your employer can let you go with basically no warning or reason and you lose everything - how insane is that! America has more prisoners than China (>4x its size). America has one of the highest child and maternal mortality rate in the world. America has an abysmal school system that fails the majority of people. America has crime and murder rates through the roof. I just don't understand how Americans have learned to accept all that with no inkling to either leave or fight for actual change.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    About the infant morality rate specifically, that's in large part due to a different reporting standard. And, as to the "regular walking or cycling distance" the US simply has less population density. That said, I think mandatory vacation and universal healthcare would be nice.
maerF0x0 5y ago
Exactly. I've called it the "grief economy" Whomever can suffer the most grief wins. For example when trying to cancel a service the person on the other end is making at least minimum wage to waste your time for free. They can easily suffer more grief than you and so they have little to no reason to try and solve your issue quickly or at all. I've seen so many of these games since coming to the US. It's setup for whomever can suffer the most will get a good price, the customer service, or other kinds of "privileges" considered just normal decency in other countries. The only solution I've found is to interact and depend as little as possible on others. They're pretty unlikely to come through for you if needed.
- tdeck 5y ago
  "Whoever can suffer the most grief wins" also seems like an apt description of what it's like to participate in a representative democracy's political process.
- newsbinator 5y ago
  Often they're measured on time to complete a call/ticket and they're not allowed to hang up on the customer, so in cases when I need to get something done, I insist that I have all the time in the world. You can keep me on hold for the 3 to 6 hours this will take, I don't mind. Just keep me on hold and I'll wait patiently, Yes, I do have all day. They'll cajole me to hang up, say that I'll get a call back, etc, but I insist that they can keep me on hold while we wait for whoever to finish their lunch break or get back from their meeting. Often the issue gets resolved in 10 minutes this way. And surprisingly: it stays resolved with no worse success rate than playing call back tag. If it's actually taking a long time (which doesn't happen often), then I hang up and try a new rep or a new support channel.

by nus07 5y ago

sokoloff 5y ago

There’s still a significant salary spread between the US and most of Canada and Europe (Switzerland is competitive with the US, but most of the rest is not). Remote working may close some of the gap, but right now there’s a wide gap.

nus07 5y ago
I don't think I care about salary so much especially when I hear that the other countries have a better social safety net. As a software engineer I am confident I can make decent pay for the area. I am not looking to send my kids to private school or avail a world class surgeon or have a beach house or make millions. I just want a good happy middle class life writing code and without a lot of hustling. And somehow the US does not seem very conducive to that.
- melony 5y ago
  Then move to Canada and see how much you like it. It is trivial for an American software engineer with a degree to immigrate over. There is a reason why Canadians come here rather than remain up north (hint it's not just the weather).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- estaseuropano 5y ago
  If you have experience and good English skills you should be able to find programming jobs in most of the bigger EU countries. And world class surgeons are everywhere, you just don't pay world class prices everywhere. I don't need or want a famous surgeon, I want someone that makes sure I'm well and that I don't need to pay off for the rest of my life. Anecdote: When he was three my son needed a rare emergency surgery. He had an ambulance transfer to a specialist pediatric hospital from another hospital where he was first admitted. They brought a specialist in just for that surgery. My son then stayed three weeks in the children's hospital and I slept next to him on a bed. I paid nothing for any of this except my own sandwiches, and was by his side the whole time. This was the summer holiday period and fell into our annual three weeks of summer vacation. I sent my work my medical certificate and they registered this (as required by law) as sick days and I was able to move my vacation days to right after the hospital stay, meaning I lost not even a single vacation day. Of course i also got full pay for those days with my son sleeping in the hospital, so I was neither working (except for some minimum email forwarding and answering simple queries) nor did I lose any salary, benefits, sick days, leave days, ... And I knew that there was no risk whatsoever that i wouldn't lose my job or insurance. Honestly I would not give any of this up for twice or thrice the money. ~40-50% of everyone's gross salary goes to all these services and we pay close to 20% VAT, but this buys us comfort and security. No one dies because they can't afford treatment - even the homeless or irregular migrants can go to the ER and get care (but likely far less than we are lucky yo receive).
  - csdvrx 5y ago
    > but this buys us the promise and the image of comfort and security FTFY
fanatic2pope 5y ago
The "salary spread" doesn't make up for the lower quality of life, IMO. And I say this as a Canadian who moved to the midwest US.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I’m sorry that you have a lower quality of life in the US; are you planning to move back in order to increase/regain your quality of life?
- bmitc 5y ago
  I just don't understand how people afford Canadian cities. Moving to Toronto or Vancouver would be completely unaffordable. I would take a massive salary cut but then housing would increase significantly alongside that. Also, is Canadian culture really that different from the U.S.? I'm genuinely curious about that.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    Party membership is not defined by fealty to one man/woman in any of the major political parties, so there's that.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      Until recently though the only fealty was a deceased former leader of the party (Reagan). The living fealty thing is new and disturbing. But let's not pretend it's a US trait. I hear more criticism about democratic leaders from democrats than republicans. Less vitriol, but more criticism.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        Criticizing political leaders who are (in your opinion) underperforming seems like a healthy state for a representative democracy/republic form of government. If the leaders of your party are (or hold themselves to be) above criticism, that’s a sign that something is deeply unhealthy (as we’ve seen recently).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

RicoElectrico 5y ago

My thoughts exactly. Look how many businesses in the US have modus operandi that boils down to "get rich at the expense of other people". E.g. TurboTax. This is toxic.

jdmoreira 5y ago

You are not going to make the same money in Europe though

estaseuropano 5y ago
Quality of life > money. I love the US for its beauty and many parts of its culture, but I would never want to live there. In western europe it is normal for people to go to preventive care, or hospitals and NOT fear to be bankrupt. Its normal to have four weeks of paid vacation a year. Its normal to have a safety net when you fall on hard times, e.g. when you lose your job or family or mind. Its normal to think of police as a positive, not as something to be regularly scared of. Its normal to live walking or cycling distance to work. Its normal to study at university and not be saddled with debt. Its normal to be fine with life as it is, without an ambition for being rich or powerful or whatever. America seems to me always like a place for ambitious and hungry people that want to work and fight all their lives to prove themselves. But it doesn't seem like a place for people that want to be happy and live a good life. America is a force for creativity and creation but also for the misery of many. I just can't believe how many people 'stick it out', how many people simply accept that dental pain is normal if they can't pay to fix it, or that they might die because they pay $100+ for insulin that they need to live, when in any other first world country this is free. Your employer can let you go with basically no warning or reason and you lose everything - how insane is that! America has more prisoners than China (>4x its size). America has one of the highest child and maternal mortality rate in the world. America has an abysmal school system that fails the majority of people. America has crime and murder rates through the roof. I just don't understand how Americans have learned to accept all that with no inkling to either leave or fight for actual change.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  About the infant morality rate specifically, that's in large part due to a different reporting standard. And, as to the "regular walking or cycling distance" the US simply has less population density. That said, I think mandatory vacation and universal healthcare would be nice.

maerF0x0 5y ago

Exactly. I've called it the "grief economy" Whomever can suffer the most grief wins. For example when trying to cancel a service the person on the other end is making at least minimum wage to waste your time for free. They can easily suffer more grief than you and so they have little to no reason to try and solve your issue quickly or at all. I've seen so many of these games since coming to the US. It's setup for whomever can suffer the most will get a good price, the customer service, or other kinds of "privileges" considered just normal decency in other countries. The only solution I've found is to interact and depend as little as possible on others. They're pretty unlikely to come through for you if needed.

tdeck 5y ago
"Whoever can suffer the most grief wins" also seems like an apt description of what it's like to participate in a representative democracy's political process.
newsbinator 5y ago
Often they're measured on time to complete a call/ticket and they're not allowed to hang up on the customer, so in cases when I need to get something done, I insist that I have all the time in the world. You can keep me on hold for the 3 to 6 hours this will take, I don't mind. Just keep me on hold and I'll wait patiently, Yes, I do have all day. They'll cajole me to hang up, say that I'll get a call back, etc, but I insist that they can keep me on hold while we wait for whoever to finish their lunch break or get back from their meeting. Often the issue gets resolved in 10 minutes this way. And surprisingly: it stays resolved with no worse success rate than playing call back tag. If it's actually taking a long time (which doesn't happen often), then I hang up and try a new rep or a new support channel.