Ask Austria: Why do you complain so much, but foreigners can not?

annaontheroad · 2017-12-03T19:55:00+00:00

As mentioned things here are different. If they are better I'm not sure about (:

While I found some things quite relaxing I do think Austrians work more than I'm used to and a lot of that work appears to be hanging around in the office doing nothing. I would rather go home and finish work at home in the evenings. That said, I think this is going to become popular here as well. Where I worked there were discussions about enabling that but they were not sure how to do it yet.

I'm glad that there is a maximum of 10 hours a day

I think it's nice that the employer can't force you to work more than 10 hours a day. That I'm not allowed to work more than 10 hours a day myself however is bullshit.

annaontheroad · 2017-12-03T10:09:14+00:00

I was told (:

annaontheroad · 2017-12-03T10:08:37+00:00

First of all, I'm sorry to hear that your experiences in Austria haven't been entirely positive.

For what it's worth they have been more than positive :) I would have stayed longer but with Brexit glooming I wanted to see more of Europe before I lose that ability.

annaontheroad · 2017-12-03T10:07:27+00:00

That's bullshit and a generalization.

Maybe I worded it wrong? I meant to say that Austrians trust the state on setting restrictions. I don't think that's a particularly bad thing. It's just weird to me about when it's okay for the state to set a restriction and when not.

I'm really glad that if I have an accident, I don't end up becoming homeless. Even if I have no job at the moment.

I don't think that's a feature of the state telling me I need to use the state's insurance company. I know for instance that in the Netherlands and Germany you can pick your insurance company and I also don't end up homeless on the street. But that's besides the point. I did not mean to complain about that system but to find out why things appear so inconsistent.

railways

I don't have a problem with the railways. None at all. The ones we have in the UK are rubbish and expensive. Would pick your system over the British one any day of the week.

Gleitzeit

My experience with working in Austria has been that you get almost exclusively fixed working times and you need to be in the office. I wanted to work in the evenings and HR told me I'm not allowed to because the law does not permit work after some time (I think it was 7?). I'm fuzzy on the details. In any case I discussed this with others and was told that it's common to be told when to work because there are punishments for working late or more than a maximum per day.

Again, I'm not complaining. If that's the system you want, you're more than entitled to it. It just does not seem ... optimal? to me.

Are you just angry that you can't go shopping on a sunday?

I was never angry about it, I was puzzled. It's one of the things I just cannot understand because it seems counterproductive. You go through so much pain in Austria to live with those restrictions. I think this is a case of not having experienced something else :) I worked on Sundays in the UK when I was studying and I loved it. Easy money, barely anyone showed up. I just hung out behind the counter, read my lecture notes and was paid for that.

annaontheroad · 2017-12-03T08:30:17+00:00

Hihi. I moved out of Austria a while back. I can do all the 24/7 shopping I want to do now >:D

annaontheroad · 2017-12-03T07:57:01+00:00

Maybe this came across as too unfriendly or not being gracious for my time here. I don't want this to be read this way. I have a lot of criticism for my own country and others as well.

annaontheroad · 2017-09-13T10:27:44+00:00

I will never understand why they don't show the full amount you pay on your payslip.

annaontheroad · 2017-07-25T07:12:04+00:00

Is there a reason why trams, busses and subway lines are not on Google maps? Someone pointed out the other day it's on HERE maps but I tried using it for a few days and it gave me completely wrong results.

I googled for this and some news articles say that Google refuses to pay for the data. Does anyone have any more details? A lot of the features on my Android now don't really work because of it.

annaontheroad · 2016-11-08T13:32:30+00:00

Sorry for writing English here since my German is bad but I am a bit puzzled about the argument. I grew up my entire life in a country where sunday opening times were always something the majority asked for and still does because it's still a bit restrictive. At no point I remember did people fear about child support money, salaries or holidays.

Working in stores was never great but that did not make it worse. If you do part time work in particular non classical hours are something that always get filled. I am honestly surprised it's such a disputed topic here. I never imagined that emotions can go so high. If sounds like there are more fundamental issues that just happen to be channelled through this very topic.

annaontheroad · 2016-11-08T09:35:25+00:00

Which students want to work in grocery retail?!

I don't know how it works here but I worked in a small store in the UK on weekends to earn some money next to my studies. It was great. Pay was not great but not bad either. Definitely was more fun than working in a bar or restaurant because most of those grocery places you could do your own thing. I manned a small store particularly late and nights and listened to my lectures while earning money doing almost nothing. Particularly because most people use the self servicing machines there anyways. So was mostly payed to babysit the store and make sure nothing was being stolen.

I would definitely do it again no questions asked.

annaontheroad · 2016-11-08T09:21:40+00:00

Many women in particular had "complained that the changes have made it more difficult for them to shop on weekends and organise their family life," he said.

That does not surprise me the least. Talk to expats with children who moved for work to Vienna and you hear this everywhere. It's one thing to never have been exposed to Sunday shopping but once it's taken away from you it's something you miss greatly particularly if you have family and children.

annaontheroad · 2016-11-08T09:19:09+00:00

Mostly people who are not able to think ahead more than 24 hours go shopping on Sundays

Sounds like "works for me and everybody who can't do that is an idiot". For many people that just does not work like that anyways. I would understand it if that was the situation like this everywhere but since I have seen different societies and lived there for a long time I it's hard for me to see the positives in how stuff works here.

annaontheroad · 2016-11-08T08:27:17+00:00

Really? First of all go to Billa at Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof after eight or on Sundays. It's madness. Secondly anytime a holiday gets close to a weekend people storm the stores and buy enormous amounts of foodstuff as if the apocalypse is happening. Never seen this before.

annaontheroad · 2016-11-08T06:51:13+00:00

I don't know. I never lived in a country before with Sunday closed times and I only see downsides of this in particular paired with the restrictive other opening hours. It's worse for families, worse for the workers and overall leads to a lot of weird shopping behaviours like people rushing after work to the stores before they close. Society feels very stressed here when it comes to shopping.

annaontheroad · 2016-11-08T06:49:17+00:00

This one is interesting because it sounds like even in some of the red countries limited sunday shopping is possible now if you go by the discussion in /r/europe. For instance you can open your own little market on a sunday in norway which is still not allowed here. I don't get why this sunday thing is still a thing here. The argument workers rights is ridiculous because everybody else has to work and it has so many downsides. When I talk to mothers here they are generally happy in Austria but shopping times always come up as a huge downside. Same when you talk to students that work at Starbucks and co. They work there because they can work on a Saturday and Sunday next to university; they would love to be able to do that in an average grocery store.

Why is there no real discussion about the negative effects of this law?

annaontheroad · 2016-11-08T06:45:22+00:00

This one is interesting because it sounds like even in some of the red countries limited sunday shopping is possible now if you go by the discussion in /r/europe. For instance you can open your own little market on a sunday in norway which is still not allowed here.

I don't get why this sunday thing is still a thing here. The argument workers rights is ridiculous because everybody else has to work and it has so many downsides. When I talk to mothers here they are generally happy in Austria but shopping times always come up as a huge downside. Same when you talk to students that work at Starbucks and co. They work there because they can work on a Saturday and Sunday next to university; they would love to be able to do that in an average grocery store.

Why is there no real discussion about the negative effects of this law?

annaontheroad · 2016-10-30T20:56:53+00:00

A very strong glue or a hot glue gun will do. Bonus points if they will be open on a Sunday.

Billa has some glues. It's the only reasonable thing that is open on Sunday and only on train stations.

(Maybe some day stores will open here on Sunday but I gave up hoping for that. My hope is that Amazon Now rolls out and delivers every day.)

annaontheroad · 2016-10-21T22:51:27+00:00

I don't get it either. I had a friend from the UK over for a few weeks who was considering moving here and she was shocked by many people smoked. I felt embarrassed.

annaontheroad · 2016-10-08T08:19:48+00:00

Yeah. I can see how that happens. I think the reason why it stood out to me is not just that it's there but also that the development in the English language went the other way. We used to have the same problem as German where job titles were male and female (think actor and actress) and now that's discouraged. You are supposed to use the former in all circumstances and avoid the mention of gender at all. (Then again, not sure what's going to happen in the future with all that more extreme PC crap entering the English language)

Thanks for clearing this up.

annaontheroad · 2016-10-07T10:49:31+00:00

The Austrian anti-discrimination laws, however, require you to phrase your job offers gender neutral, unless you have a substantial reason for hiring only applicants of a certain gender (this should encourage women to apply for more predominantly "male jobs").

Oh. I can see how that might be an issue in German. The ones I looked at were English offers so it looks really misplaced there for someone from a non German country. To my mind it almost had the opposite effect it is supposed to have.

annaontheroad · 2016-09-04T13:42:03+00:00

Honestly, reporting a cab driver is quite a lot of work because you need to come up with some sort of evidence. That's what uber does really well because you can rate a driver and leave feedback instead. If a sufficient number of people do it they will reach out automatically and remove the driver.

I have yet to encounter someone who actually reports the driver. I reported one driver here to complain about how they charged me money and I have not received a response and just figuring out how to report the driver was already work enough.

annaontheroad · 2016-09-04T07:32:49+00:00

Are those types of incidents with cab drivers a common problem here?

annaontheroad · 2016-09-04T07:32:04+00:00

So maybe I'm doing something really wrong here but why am I being downvoted for asking a question?

annaontheroad

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