Funny that you say that because it's precisely what I've noticed and been saying, having moved to Europe because of all the great stuff mentioned on the internet and realizing it's not as great as people would have you believe.
What's weird is every time I've brought it up, either my comment gets buried or a bunch of excuse makers jump in and say "it's not like that, it's just you..." Not until very recently have I noticed other people talking about the lovely EU propaganda and not getting buried.
Or car markers could just stop being stubborn and greedy with their proprietary trash and just support Car Play/Android Auto. That way the car acts as a dumb terminal for displaying stuff from the phone and nothing is actually stored in the car.
But no, gotta charge hundreds for in-car map updates (that only get updated as often as you purchase them) and radio/traffic subscription that mobile apps charge a fraction of and always up-to-date for as long as you keep the apps updated.
The macro view of things (e.g. policies) doesn't bother me too much anymore. As mentioned, all countries are more or less shit (in their own unique way). It's what one experiences on the ground level in daily life that matters.
Is Germany that much better when you can get fined if you flip someone off (say an idiotic driver on the road) and there are contracts (where you're usually locked in for 2 years with autorenewal and requiring 3 or 6 months' notice to quit) for literally everything?
I moved to Germany in the dark days when I was gullible to believe the propaganda across the internet that "Germany = The 1st world that's better than America" only to arrive and discover 99% of the stuff you see in comments sections about how "Germany is superior to [US/China/UK]" is bullshit.
That said, I made my bed and I'll lie in it for a while. Already looking at options for where to move, but I wasn't about to move my life here and ragequit after 1-2 years like most people do (the type of person that moves here seems to not care very much about the financial and stress cost of moving internationally, how ~1 year of work on their resume + 6 months jobless looks bad on their resume, etc)
Maybe not China, salaries and high-tech life there sound appealing but the firewalled internets is a big turn-off, but definitely not remaining in Germany now that I've done enough time.
Precisely my point but some countries and their people (or their PR team, depending how much tinfoil you're wearing) try to have you believe that it's nothing but upsides. E.g. The ample "Germany good and better, America bad and dumb" themed comments across the internet we've seen in the past decade.
Stupidly enough, I believed those comments back in the day, moved to Germany, only to find out I'd been fed a crap ton of lies.
If there's one thing living and working in Europe (Germany) has taught me is that all countries are more or less the same. It's just how well the culture manages to mask the "unattractive" traits we love to criticize in places like China (or America, as of late), and the PR/propaganda campaign they run to convince everyone they're the best place on the planet.
China is a prime example of subpar image/PR management. They really gotta take a hint and learn from the Germans, who are well respected and have lots of positive stereotypes parroted around the internet "work-life balance, efficiency, timeliness, high standards of living, LE FREE HEALTHCARE!!!"
IMO Germany is worse than America (the country they love to poo-poo on) and even China in so many respects. Yet America and China are the places people call "third world" nowadays.
- Trains are constantly late.
- Majority of offices don't have airconditioning or any air ventilation system (in fact, my previous workplace of 300 employees was in a building with NO insulation or fire alarm/suppression system!)
- Card payments are not accepted in at least 50% of places, particularly restaurants. Cash only in 2019 (can anyone say TAX EVASION?).
- People boast about contactless payments which just became mainstream last year like it's the second coming of sliced bread.
- Boasting about the public transportation system which is only the best if you're a student with a massive surplus of time/shortage of cash, otherwise it takes you anywhere from 10 mins to 1 hour (depending on time of day and route) more to get between two places compared to a car. Heaven forbid you have a family, then public transportation even costs more than having a car.
- Employers are extremely exploitative, especially in tech and especially startups - I'd say some places in America/Asia have better work-life and are less toxic than German companies. The only difference between America/China and Germany is the latter has employment laws that are actually enforced, but only if you go to court (but contrary to popular belief, don't make you "unfireable", just allow the employee to get a few thousand EUR as compensation for when the employer does try their hand at something exploitative - and they will, hoping you're not aware of your rights)
- Virtue signalling on all sorts of things. Not gonna get into politics/immigration, there's plenty on that elsewhere. But German companies love to boast about EQUALITY FOR ALL, DISCRIMINATION IS DISGUSTING. All while lowballing immigrants in terms of salary and imposing an industrial-grade glass ceiling for any non-German who tries to work here. E.g. they will boast how their company of 300 has over 80 nationalities and work exclusively in English (because 90% of clients are American/British) but oddly enough, everyone in mid-upper/upper management is white and German. Maybe throw in the occasional white non-German European or token Indian guy for DIVERSITY!!!111!!!!1
- Diesel, until recently, was the bragging point for efficiency. I remember not 5 years ago, there would be so many Europeans in comments sections of (any discussion remotely car/transportation related) poo-pooing on the "dumb Americans" for still using gasoline and polluting the environment by not getting "the bigger MPGs" using diesel. LOL.
- Free healthcare isn't actually free if you're not like the classic local European who still is a student with 0 work experience at age 30 shitposting on the internet. Look at the "KV" (health insurance) field of your payslip: I pay hundreds of EUR every MONTH as a healthy young person for "free healthcare". Out of sight, out of mind right?
TLDR China is about as attractive as any other country on the planet, they just have subpar image management and PR at the moment
Ain't that the inconvenient truth? Countries with long working hours aren't filled with people with superhuman stamina and concentration. They just fill up the additional hours with a bunch of other stuff; in the western hemisphere, it's acting busy and spending hours on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
I'd rather work in a place with "work-life balance" (whatever the hell that is these days, 8-6?) but such places are disappearing all over the planet. Even in Europe, work-life balance can be goddamn horrible in tech, especially if you work in a startup. Unpaid overtime is common, in a recent interview at a startup of 70 employees, I was told "our official working hours are 9am-6pm but... well, we're a startup, so you know... hint hint nudge nudge".
If what places like Blind are saying is true (that pay in the east is rising to SV-like levels), China and Asian countries with "long working hours" may be viable places to work in the future, since long hours are already a norm in America and becoming the new European standard too.
Correction, they are publicly available for locals with (whatever you call a SSN in Norway). A non-Norwegian not living in Norway (for example, a person being offered a job to relocate there) would not be able to access that database.
Perhaps, but they're certainly not as low as a lot of people portray them to be. I know a guy who did mechanical engineering and with just 1 internship experience was offered a job at VW (albeit in Wolfsburg, not Berlin) for 65k a year upon graduation.
50-65k EUR as a starting salary in Berlin with under 2 years experience will make many people's eyeballs pop out and they'll start rambling about how "30k is the average and that's just disgustingly overpaid". Truth is though that it's reasonable to find those (tech or nontech, the trick is to not accept the first shit job, probably from Rocket Internet, that you get offered within 2 weeks of applying) and it's not overvalued - people making 30k are the ones being underpaid.
Also $100k for FAANG in the Silicon Valley is nothing. Assuming single young worker, 60+k EUR in Germany would be very competitive with the 100-150k USD range in the valley because you can rent a NICE studio apartment for 800-1000 EUR, spending 30-40 EUR on a night out is already plenty and in bigger cities like Berlin, you can get away without a car (it's still uncomfortable and inconvenient, but much less so if you're single, and certainly much better than BART and 99% of American cities).
If you're taking 6 figures in a LCOL US city where you're socking away 70% of your income as savings at under age 30, then yes, there's no equivalent to be found in Europe.
> But those kind of spreads are less common in Europe.
Having lived and worked in Europe (Germany) for a few years now, I can confirm that this is the biggest lie/propaganda ever. It's particularly bad in the city I live in, where "bErLiN iS a PoOr N cHeAp CiTy So ThE sAlArIeS aReN't HiGh" is a meme disguised as a fact and spread around, especially to non-German newcomers. The massive salary spread is alive and well in Europe, but the people who benefit from it aren't talking about it enough (or at all, due to culture).
"Salaries are low in Europe" or "more fair across jobs" fooled even me when I first arrived, but now I see it for what it is - a salary suppression technique, a very effective one too since it's, by now, basically self-propagating. That "30k average wage before taxes" (that's the German figure, not sure about Denmark but they're all just as low and rigged) actually includes freelancers, part-timers and (I'm sure) even the under/unemployed! But you'll only know that after researching for the fine-print, a lot of times people parrot the "30k average" as a benchmark for full-time employment.
Some true salary figures from people I know in Berlin (I've seen matching payslips, so they're 100% not lying) include 65k for a frontend web dev with 2 years experience, 55k for marketing with 3 years experience, 60k for a junior non-technical PO. Mid-career devs (8-10 years experience) pull in 90k easy, while management/directors in startups get paid 120-200k. Currency is EUR btw, not $.
Yes all these figures, in Berlin, where they tell foreigners on Internet forums "45-60k is a LOT for a dev with 5-10 years experience, because cost of living in Berlin is low (it's not) so come on over and relocate!"
This is not helped by Europeans (particularly Germans and Scandinavians) being very reluctant to talk about salary, they are much more tight-lipped than Americans. So all you're gonna hear is mostly how Karen who moved to Berlin from America for her German boyfriend is making 28k at Zalando with her 3 years of experience. That's really the result of very effective wage-suppression propaganda - not a true reflection of market rates and nowhere near what informed people are getting paid.
Don't forget the constant shitposting by your friends and (ex)coworkers to make themselves appear very smart and hardworking. I've always felt LinkedIn is 300% the cancer that Facebook is because of all the virtue-signalling, pompous fakery and outright lying that occurs there.
It's the digital, more obnoxious version of a kid screaming ME ME ME at the sports team draft for adults. All those bullshitters with too much time on their hands (ironically at work) begging for the attention of recruiters and prospective employers to hire them.
I've seen people speak of how big corporations state-side offer more pay and packages, and that startups are mostly for the bored looking for new challenges and make their mark (plus a little gambling of their time that the startup will make it big).
Can confirm the same situation in Europe (Germany). With that said, I'd advise against joining a startup. In Germany, even with stereotypically strict laws favoring the employee, startups are extremely abusive.
- They will lowball you
- They will lie to you about all the "great perks", mostly free fruit. Very rarely do they offer stock options and if they do, the terms designed to screw you over as much as possible (e.g. if the company doesn't go public or get bought over in 5 years, the value of any options is zero)
- They expect you to work long hours, disregarding any "work-life balance" BS stereotypes about the way Europeans work
> I'll add that it's salary survey information as well.
Not really. Here in Germany (where Glassdoor isn't even as popular as in US/English speaking countries) I've noticed the salary skews towards the low end because A) employers are bombing their profiles with fake salary figures and/or B) entry-level to lower-mid tier employees are more likely to drop numbers. Can't imagine how much worse the propagation of false info is in other countries where Glassdoor is more popular.
Specifically in Berlin, where "bErLiN iS a PoOr N cHeAp CiTy So ThE sAlArIeS aReN't HiGh" might as well be a meme because it's the standard welcome message for foreigners, if you negotiate your pay based on Glassdoor info, you're going to be screwing yourself out of thousands of €€€.
None of the non-tech crowd is going to admit they're being paid 55-65k brutto (before taxes) with 3-5 years of experience. I know people like this and have seen their payslips so I know they aren't lying. You only hear about the non-techies making 24-35k from their small startups or Zalando.
Same for dev/tech. You'll only hear the same bit of info that "45-60k is a LOT for a dev with 5-10 years experience, because cost of living in Berlin is low (it's not) so come on over and relocate!". The devs/engineers making 65k starting with 2 years of experience, mid-level devs pulling 70-90k and management/directors pulling 120-200k in Berlin aren't opening their mouths.
If I put my tinfoil hat on, I'd say there's a concerted effort in Europe to keep salaries down by keeping information suppressed/spreading lies (I see this a lot on Reddit/HN too in the form of comments)
That's because Glassdoor can be full of crap; it was useful a few years back but now it's flooded with HR spam that are fake reviews and damage control, and presumably a few fake salaries thrown in as well. Most salary numbers there seem to be posted by entry to mid level employees as well. Rarely ever do people from higher levels or getting paid a lot go on there to post what they make.
Glassdoor can be relevant for American salaries thanks to the sheer quantity of figures being posted, but I've found salary fields to be sparsely populated for Germany (where I live now), and a few European and Asian countries I've checked out. It's kinda dangerous in the sense you could look up figures on Glassdoor and 9 times out of 10, you'll end up lowballing yourself if you try to negotiate salary IRL based on what you saw there.
What's weird is every time I've brought it up, either my comment gets buried or a bunch of excuse makers jump in and say "it's not like that, it's just you..." Not until very recently have I noticed other people talking about the lovely EU propaganda and not getting buried.