Yesterday I was talking to a friend who is in Norway, at crossroads about career and where to raise kids. I was telling him about this tweet - about US vs Europe work culture, education, healthcare, art and culture in general. I read someone else saying tongue in cheek - “France has Mbappe, Mistral..”.
In India, IT work culture resembles that of the US, with “unpaid overtime” which is taken for granted and similar work life balance issues. NRN was talking about working 70 hrs a week for India to become a developed country, glorifying the unpaid overtime. Meanwhile, emigration is still increasing. Earlier people used to go abroad for postgraduate masters degrees and then continue working there, but now there is a trend of even going for graduate degrees abroad if they can afford it.
Today, I saw this headline, incidentally from someone in Norway itself saying work life balance apart, “Europe is less hardworking, less ambitious, more regulated and more risk averse”. I had been thinking about this for a long time - with 7.2 hrs of work day, month long vacations, general lack of urgency, over reliance on elaborate processes - how is Europe competitive?
Like my earlier thought about being nice / kind, building companies for the people to lead a good life - these cultural differences are case studies. What is right in the long term - the US definition of “hard work, ambition” or a more relaxed, community oriented, human centric version of Europe?
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