To wonder why anyone would want to live in America?

[allergon842]

I follow a woman on Instagram who moved from England to the States and someone commented "America is only great if you're white, rich, and healthy".

Putting aside Trump/politics, I've always found it weird why anyone would want/would have wanted to live there. I understand if you're from a developing country, but I don't see the appeal for anyone who comes from Europe. The lower taxes and opportunities are enticing, but if you can't make it, you can fall very easy with the lack of a safety net. It seems to be only decent if you're a top earner ($100,000+).

Thanks for the correction

My sister (English) and her husband (American) are both in higher education there, so mediocre salaries and can afford a beautiful home, and in 22 years of living there have never been in any of the situations people bang on about. I have been to the US many many times too including a couple of months ago. No country is perfect.

I'm not a 2nd amendment fan. I'd be happy for guns to be banned, but it's a little misleading to exclude the fact that 59% of paediatric gun deaths (under 18) are by a family member/domestic situation rather than a random school shooting.

Not true at all; I lived in a major US city and now live in a small coastal New England city. I've always been very comfortable at night on my own, and I am not remotely unusual in that way. Actually hopping in the car shortly to head to NYC for a visit to my best friend; she's raising her children on the UES and does not have safety concerns (specific to the city). It's very common for people to be out on their own at night in US cities.

My husband works for a UK company but is an American citizen in the US. His colleagues who've come over from the UK earn about half of what they pay the Americans for the same role and they can't leave because their visas are tied to work. It's horrible, and basically indentured servitude. He's become close with a few who are working through the green card process specifically so they can find other jobs here.

How are they different from an "active shooter drill"?

Thank you for telling me

I think the annual leave policy is industry specific. I work in tech sales and have had unlimited PTO for years now; it's common in my industry but very much not so in others. It's also misleading, as leave still needs to be taken judiciously and you cannot take too much/take a lot consecutively. There aren't official policies around it so it gets murky and people end up taking less than they would otherwise. Parental leave also varies from company to company and state to state. I saw someone post about getting 24 weeks; a close friend in Georgia had a baby recently and between her company's policy and her state FMLA, she only got 8 weeks, total.

A US based relative has unlimited PTO, but is expected to check emails and answer any work calls. So its not what Id call annual leave. Taking more than 10 to 15 days per year raises questions about commitment to the firm.
Also they are tech land CA, near San Jose and working days are longer, commutes are longer (and WFH is increasingly limited). There is noone around after 8pm, as they are all in bed for a 6am departure for school or work. So walking alone at night doesn't feel safe. The local High School starts at 7am. Its a very different lifestyle.

My company has unlimited PTO and I don’t don’t know anyone who takes as little as 10-15 days PTO (annual leave) so it must be industry dependent, yes. For one thing, the firm is closed for 2 weeks over Christmas / New Year, so that’s 10 days’ leave off the bat.

Most people take 5-6 weeks off a year, as standard. I take 8 weeks off because I can hit my metrics with this much time off. If you don’t see a future at your employer, nothing stops you taking a lot of time off in your last 6-12 months. I know someone who didn’t do any work whatsoever in his 2 months’ notice period (a mixture of annual leave, paid sick leave and generally checking out).

Overall it is definitely business friendly because the conscientious will take fewer than 25 days (this was the allowance before unlimited PTO came in) and the employer doesn’t have to pay out accrued PTO when you leave. But for the average worker, it’s a better deal than the fixed 5 weeks I was getting in London.

As for answering emails on leave - again, this is industry dependent. I was 100% doing this in my role in London, so no change there.

Yes I am from the 80s, a bit older than 12 now and if i choose to live my life in American movies I can ok!😂

I was amazed at how like the movies it was.

Newport beach in California, or Malibu. Las Vegas, NYC, the Hamptons, so much of what I enjoyed out there was what I’d grown up seeing in films.

And it was great.

Where did you see that? Every source I can see says the average American visits about 12. About 75% travel abroad in our lifetimes as well, which is a much larger number than people seem to think.

I live in the area and that's wholly different from my experience. Sounds like they work for an early stage startup or a company with Indian leadership lol (speaking as an Indian!). Generous PTO and proper time off is the norm here. And their kids are definitely not going to public school as the public schools start at 8:30 in most of the region -- certainly not before 8 anywhere in CA.

San Jose has a lot of suburbs but people are out and about in downtown SJ and Mountain View well into the night, all days of the week. It's perfectly safe walking around!

This. My son didn’t have priviledge. Social housing tenant here. . He worked at school and afterwards to get where he is. 🙄

DS is there. He earns twice what he'd earn in UK, plus top health insurance, with far better job prospects. Unusually for USA he's in a profession with lots of holiday so he isn't even a slave to their working hours culture. He'd rather be in UK (and I would rather he was, too) but the jobs just aren't there for twenty-something graduates. He's in a quiet, lovely town which he says is relatively untouched by the current political mania and unrest.

It's not ideal. But I;d rather he was there than back home with me, scrabbling for work, like all the poor young people in today's Guardian article.

Good music and great weather perhaps

You've read too much "weird" stuff. You can walk anywhere except the "bad" parts of the big cities, just like the UK. Literally hundreds/thousands of miles of "nice" safe countryside, shore lines, etc. Gun crime, again, only a problem in the "bad" parts of the big cities. Yes, long drives if you want to go state to state, but at least roads are exceptionally good on the inter-states.

Have you ever been? If so, surely you saw the reality not the biased social media??

I've had numerous clients emigrate there, a few friends/relatives who've moved there, and literally none have come back - all seemingly happy there.

I've been on holiday a few times and would love to keep going back and exploring new states. Never felt particularly threatened most of the time. Though once we ended up in a KFC in a "bad" downtown area and didn't realise it. We'd gone in, ordered, picked up our food, sat down, before we looked around and noticed quite a few "dodgy" characters staring at us and then realised there were no other "holidaymakers" in there. Yes, for a short while we felt apprehensive, but we also noticed the staff behind the counter watching and a couple of the servers came over to "clean" the tables around where we sat, they didn't say anything, but I think they'd deliberately come over to look out for us had we been approached. Anyway we ate our meal, pretty quickly, and left. No harm done. No different to finding ourselves in the "wrong" part of town in other places abroad, such as Jamaica, Kenya, Egypt, and even in the "wrong" part of town in some UK cities.

The US is a huge place, many individual states bigger than the UK, so it's inevitable some places are nicer than others, just like any country, likewise a massive variation in people too, most of whom are a lot more happy, helpful and friendly than in some other countries.

It’s outdated bollocks that Americans barely visit other states and never travel abroad. My State is very cosmopolitan and I have never, not once, met anyone who has never been abroad.

As for travelling around states, it’s very common to grow up in one state, go to college in another state, then grad school in another state, and have your career take you to a couple of other states. That’s without travelling around the states which many do at the drop of a hat. Very normal to do a weekend away in a neighbouring state, if not a bigger road trip further afield.

Yes, I've heard the quality of the food is appalling.

Everyone here for the World Cup seems to be enjoying it 🤷‍♀️

I do support tourism to the US, but it’s Day 1 of the World Cup and I can’t MOVE for people. I live in a touristy city as it is, but this is another level of madness.

I thought I read that fans had been cancelling their trips, but I see no evidence of this??? DP and I tried to buy a ticket on a resale website and there was ONE ticket left in the whole stadium for the match we were interested in. Hoping for some last minute cancellations.

I have been to SF twice (and other places) and the food has always been first class, especially the seafood and Italian restaurants.
The American restaurateurs take great pride in their establishments and quality of food and service. They are in every way at least as good as UK and European equivalents.
Anyone going to fast food ‘restaurants’ know what they are getting and shouldn’t complain.

People pissing on the US have mostly either never been there or are extrapolating bullshit they see on social media.
Is it perfect? No! Is anywhere perfect? No!

God bless America!!

The food was shite. I thought it was going to be great and it was all sugar loaded carbs.

I mean, if you order or buy sugar loaded carbs in any country, you're going to get... surprise, sugar loaded carbs.

Where on earth have you heard that and where did they go? Was it like a roadtrip eating exclusively from gas stations or something?

We had so many good places within walking distance ranging from your traditional local diner, historic bars, tons of just nice independent local neighbourhood brunch/lunch/quick dinner places, a 1 star Michelin and a 3 star Michelin, every variety of pizza, famous ribs etc. etc. I live in a pretty nice part of London now and I love the London food scene but it just cannot compete with what we had on our literal doorstep in Chicago.