this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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My German roomie would get a kick out of Sweden and Germany being side by side. Anecdotal of course but I don’t think he’d agree.
For starters, he hasn’t been almost killed at his job here in Sweden, even though truck driver is probably a more dangerous job than his old office job. No flying saw blades here.
Germans are notoriously grumpy so we'll always be at the bottom at anything that tries to measure happiness.
To be fair though, Germany seems like a miserable place to work. Outdated tech, weird social hierarchies, expected overtime, free labour by exploiting students.
Your experience in Germany doesn't really seem typical. And social hierarchies will appear weird in any foreign country.
He's definitely right about the overtime and students.
Anywhere that has a union is not expecting overtime. In fact it is counted and you can take the time off that you accumulated.
The only time i ever got overtime back as holiday leave was in Germany. That was great!
I think I had something stupid like 43 days off that year (including the base 6-weeks)
That’s standard here in Sweden.
What isn’t standard is forcing students to work extra. There are also limits on how much time certain professions can work, mostly for safety reasons. If you work as a trucker you are only allowed to drive for so many hours before forcing a break, and only so many hours in the span of 24 hours and a week.
As far as I know, Germany has a decent set of labour laws but the follow up on infractions is scarce.
I’ve a friend that works 60-80 hours a week while juggling his uni degree. The work is part of it as far as I understand. Thus his pay is also not in accordance with the role he has. In short, exploitation.
Sure I’d rather live and work in Germany any day, but if given the option, I’d not leave Sweden.
Relevant:
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