> Behalf Of Dan Minette
> From: Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> But, speaking of working hours it is a fact that the average
American
> salaried worker puts in more hours of unpaid overtime than the
averaged
> salaried worker in any European country. Its a fact that the
average
> vacation length is shorter. Remember, I've worked for
multinationals and
> have compared notes with colleagues in a multitude of countries.
I've been
> in Norway when the office became a ghost town at 4PM. I've had
German
> co-workers laugh at the long hours Americans work and tell me its
because we
> aren't very productive. (the numbers show the US is more productive
than
> Germany) I've had Brits complain about only starting a new job with
4 weeks
> of vacation, when I had 3 after 13 years with the company.
> Dan M.
To put that in perspective with a personal example - next year I'll be
joining A.T. Kearney to work as a management consultant. The minimum
expected workweek there is 60 hours, with 70 a lot more common. And
that doesn't count travel time - and we're expected to be on the road
4 days a week. Many of my friends here who are working for investment
banks next year (places like Goldman Sachs) are going to jobs where
workweeks are usually 80-100 hours long. My friends from Oxford are
usually stunned when I describe that to them. I also know that within
these companies London jobs are usually coveted for many reasons - one
of which is that the hours on the job are much lower. The situation
is similar for law firms, I believe, where European law firms often
barely expect half the billable hours that American ones do. Things
in the Netherlands might be different, but I've never personally heard
as such. I do know that in terms of hours worked per week, the United
States has historically always had the longest, with the exception of
a short period in the 1980s when Japan passed us in that figure - we
discussed it in one of my classes last year. Tocqueville commented on
it more than 160 years ago, as did Weber when he discussed the effect
of the "Protestant ethic" on capitalism. So it's sort of a historical
characteristic of the United States (and Japan, and many other Asian
nations, I believe) as compared to European ones. As always, note
that statistics don't apply to individuals and all that. There are
undoubtedly millions of Europeans who spend far more time at work than
millions of Americans - the averages are pretty far apart, however.
********************Gautam "Ulysses" Mukunda**********************
* Harvard College Class of '01 *He either fears his fate too much*
* www.fas.harvard.edu/~mukunda * Or his deserts are small, *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Who dares not put it to the touch*
* "Freedom is not Free" * To win or lose it all. *
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