So I've been talking to more American people about their work environment and I was rather shocked by how they don't get many paid vacation days or even have ''sick days'' (that one really made me laugh sorry). Like, oh you can't be sick anymore, it's not allowed. (lol). Anyhow, I want to explain what it is like to work in the Netherlands in some companies I worked as an engineer with a few sums.
- ''Sick days'' don't exist, you're sick and get paid. In some contracts you get paid less, but this is almost never the case when you're working full time for a company.
- You can just leave whenever you want during the day as long as you finish your 40 hours. Want to pick up your kids from school? No worries. You don't even need to proof you've worked this much. It's a faith based system (and it works)
- You get on average 26 paid vacation days. In the tech sector where I work it's closer to 30
- Once a year you get double salary. We call this ''vacation pay''
- In most tech fields you work from home, making your own work time as long as it fits within the meetings
- They will really look at you as an individual. What do YOU want? How can we get you the job you want when you already work at given company. If I wanted to move from Test engineering to e.g. data science, they'd let me do courses on their behalf to see if I'm passionate and most likely write me a contract that benefits both parties
BIG disclaimer: I'm very cognizant about the fact that the tech field is much better compared to other fields but almost any white color job looks like my description. My question isn't for you to discuss whether my description accurately describes your life in Europe, but rather. Would you be more likely to want to work under these conditions?