3 ms·

French here. When employee in France, the law says 25 days/yr and you can add 11 RTT (please don't look that up in wikipedia). People don't tend to use them all

by aragot 13y ago

French here. When employee in France, the law says 25 days/yr and you can add 11 RTT (please don't look that up in wikipedia). People don't tend to use them all. I would generally take 1-2 weeks for Christmas, and 2-weeks trips along the year to Europe or to the mountains/sea sports. In Australia, it's only 4 weeks off, plus you kind of have to take 2 weeks to visit your family back in Europe for Christmas, so in the end I couldn't visit Australia while I was working there (reason #6 why I left). Fortunately I had taken a gap year to go farming around the continent, and i'll probably keep the idea of a 6-month break every 3 years. I find that short holidays = unhappy employees, pressure to prevent them from taking unpaid leave, and that ends up in the sick leave being high. It's unfortunate.

adaml_623 13y ago
Can you quickly enumerate the other 5+ reasons you left Australia? I'm very curious about different perspectives on these things.
- aragot 13y ago
  Most of them depend on the relationships you create with your key stakeholders: #1 3 years in Australia = Time to open a new chapter: I want to be a product manager and I wasn't on the rails, #2 Stress due to unhealthy working hours, #3 Air conditioning in buses and offices, #4 No snowboard or windsurf in Sydney (If you enjoy surf you'll be just fine), #5 Stress due to the immigrant visa, #6 Not enough holidays, #7 Sydney drivers. I think Melbourne has the stereotypical friendly Australian lifestyle and Sydney is more a capital/immigrant city. But Sydney has the beaches. And Melbourne the windsurfers. #hardtochoose #8 Cost of living (With twice my French salary, I barely saved the same amount per year) To make it fair, I'll mix it with the upsides: # Hypercool working culture, awesome knowledgeable colleagues, # The Sydney IT scene is alive, knowledgeable and dynamic, # Nice parties at work (beer on tap in the office), # Sun all-year-round, beach culture, nice dates (ey, that's important), # Multicultural environment, # Agile culture, a crazy lot to learn at the workplace... # The border police saying "I like your Angry Nerds t-shirt. Welcome to Australia." So here's my advice: Like everyone, have your target workplace pay for your move to Australia and host you for the first month. Apply for Permanent Residency as soon as you touch base (or before if you can). Once you have PR, get a good salary and/or change company. Be excellent at work. Go there if you're not addicted to mountaineering. And remember immigrating isn't easy: During the first months you feel lonely and disoriented (as in, people have values you're not used to, and the ones you do have mean nothing to them), it may take up to 2 years to get used to the new culture. After 2 years, you learn what you're going to take away from that culture and it enriches you. Best of luck adaml!
  - pmcpinto 13y ago
    Interesting, I thought that in Australia they have an healthy working hours approach. # Sun all-year-round, beach culture, nice dates. This is really really important. Unfortunately the European countries that can offer Sun almost-all-year-round and beach culture have a big economic crisis.
  - aragot 13y ago
    To document #7, http://smh.drive.com.au/roads-and-traffic/buses-the-big-killers-of-pedestrians-in-sydneys-cbd-road-safety--manager-20140130-31p31.html http://smh.drive.com.au/roads-and-traffic/buses-the-big-kill... The article says "Pedestrian safety has improved a lot since we fine more heavily for jaywalking", "but some pedestrians still don't get the message", "they use iPods and similar devices", and similar stories placing the pedestrian at fault. This uneducated thought comforts drivers in dangerous driver behaviours. Instead, in Melbourne, I had a case of an (occupied) taxi thought I wanted to cross and stopped. There wasn't even a zebra. This is what I'd call "classy".

by aragot 13y ago

adaml_623 13y ago

Can you quickly enumerate the other 5+ reasons you left Australia? I'm very curious about different perspectives on these things.

aragot 13y ago
Most of them depend on the relationships you create with your key stakeholders: #1 3 years in Australia = Time to open a new chapter: I want to be a product manager and I wasn't on the rails, #2 Stress due to unhealthy working hours, #3 Air conditioning in buses and offices, #4 No snowboard or windsurf in Sydney (If you enjoy surf you'll be just fine), #5 Stress due to the immigrant visa, #6 Not enough holidays, #7 Sydney drivers. I think Melbourne has the stereotypical friendly Australian lifestyle and Sydney is more a capital/immigrant city. But Sydney has the beaches. And Melbourne the windsurfers. #hardtochoose #8 Cost of living (With twice my French salary, I barely saved the same amount per year) To make it fair, I'll mix it with the upsides: # Hypercool working culture, awesome knowledgeable colleagues, # The Sydney IT scene is alive, knowledgeable and dynamic, # Nice parties at work (beer on tap in the office), # Sun all-year-round, beach culture, nice dates (ey, that's important), # Multicultural environment, # Agile culture, a crazy lot to learn at the workplace... # The border police saying "I like your Angry Nerds t-shirt. Welcome to Australia." So here's my advice: Like everyone, have your target workplace pay for your move to Australia and host you for the first month. Apply for Permanent Residency as soon as you touch base (or before if you can). Once you have PR, get a good salary and/or change company. Be excellent at work. Go there if you're not addicted to mountaineering. And remember immigrating isn't easy: During the first months you feel lonely and disoriented (as in, people have values you're not used to, and the ones you do have mean nothing to them), it may take up to 2 years to get used to the new culture. After 2 years, you learn what you're going to take away from that culture and it enriches you. Best of luck adaml!
- pmcpinto 13y ago
  Interesting, I thought that in Australia they have an healthy working hours approach. # Sun all-year-round, beach culture, nice dates. This is really really important. Unfortunately the European countries that can offer Sun almost-all-year-round and beach culture have a big economic crisis.
- aragot 13y ago
  To document #7, http://smh.drive.com.au/roads-and-traffic/buses-the-big-killers-of-pedestrians-in-sydneys-cbd-road-safety--manager-20140130-31p31.html http://smh.drive.com.au/roads-and-traffic/buses-the-big-kill... The article says "Pedestrian safety has improved a lot since we fine more heavily for jaywalking", "but some pedestrians still don't get the message", "they use iPods and similar devices", and similar stories placing the pedestrian at fault. This uneducated thought comforts drivers in dangerous driver behaviours. Instead, in Melbourne, I had a case of an (occupied) taxi thought I wanted to cross and stopped. There wasn't even a zebra. This is what I'd call "classy".