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Comment by yulaow | Hacker News Reader

Each time I read madness as 60h/w, 70h/w or the wtf 80h/w I am really happy to live and work on EU. I think I would fall in depression really fast if I had to sacrifice (because over a certain limit, to me, it is only sacrifice) so much of my time and passion. Also in my opinion, ever over a certain limit (For me is 50h/w), the productivity of an engineer just vanish. I prefer work to live against live to work.

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And just think, Americans (and Canadians) also get much less vacation time than Europeans! Geniuses!

I guess the European peons did learn some lessons from all the centuries of oppression under the feudal nobility. The Americans never had that experience, so they bought into the company line hook line and sinker.

If you're going to attribute history to why the workforce in Europe is the way it is, then the American expectation of the peons to work all the time is because the US never got over having slave labour.

BTW that line of thinking is ridiculous. Europeans and Americans learned about feudalism the same way, from history books. No one who was around when labour laws were going into effect has first, second or third hand knowledge of feudalism, slavery or working conditions during the Industrial Revolution.

In addition to slavery, Americans also had The Frontier. A man who didn't like the wages offered had the option to go make a homestead.

European culture is likely to have been far more shaped by feudalism than American culture is. You don't have to individually remember something for it to have an important effect on your values and actions.

It's not like we came over from Europe or anything.

Each time I read madness as 60h/w, 70h/w or the wtf 80h/w I am really happy to live and work on EU

I'm happy I don't live in EU. I don't have to work 80 hours, but if I choose to then that should be my right. Europe is too anti-ambition and its policies reflect that.

Well if you're the boss it's your right to work as long as you want, but it's not OK to abuse your employees and make them work ridiculous hours.

Your boss can't make you work ridiculous hours

Correct me if I'm wrong, i don't know the rules in the us, in Germany you're simply not allowed to work more than an average of eight hours per day. So you can not only not be forced to work more, you can't even be asked to. Even if it seems to be voluntary, often it isn't.

We might have to pass on hiring you, there appears to be a problem with the culture fit.

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