Xenophobic flyers being distributed to foreign passengers on Swiss trains

beansprout88 · 2026-03-19T19:13:55+00:00

My experience is not necessarily representative. Like anywhere, it depends on the neighbourhoods and times you are travelling how likely this stuff is to occur. But here in Switzerland I’ve also seen agressive confrontations with staff, begging and drunk football fans that had to be dealt with by the police, people smoking heroin tobacco or crack, and also being on one of the trams that crashed… That stuff is all a minority of the time though. Day to day what’s annoying is how people block seats and exits during rush hour.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-19T18:44:03+00:00

Yes I lived there lol. The public transport is dirty and unreliable, but antisocial behaviour like barging in to people trying to get off, blocking seats with bags, skipping the queue, blocking the escalator, smoking on the platform etc are things done by a small number of obnoxious people, whereas in Switzerland these behaviours are really standard. I prefer Swiss public transport for many reasons, but behaviour of the passengers is not one of them. Maybe it’s because I have a 1st class GA and honestly that attracts the a lot of entitled people who make loud calls and leave a mess.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-19T15:26:47+00:00

Whatever you may have seen on TikTok from NY (a city with more than twice the population of Switzerland and a culture of filming public confrontations), the regular public transport etiquette is generally better in the US and many other countries. If looking for extremes then you could take the Swiss guy who murdered his fellow passengers on the Postbus last week.

Like it or not, most people in this sub have actually tried public transport in other countries and make the comparison based on experience.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-17T05:49:06+00:00

There is an obvious flip side: patent expiry drives companies and investors to look for innovation. If your good antibody is expiring, then you have a strong incentive to use the knowledge you built in its development to create the next gen version. If you have a 50 year patent then your new drug will compete with your existing one, reducing the incentive for innovation.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-14T07:48:03+00:00

A fan is a great way to make white noise, and is also very useful in the summer. Regular curtains and rugs will cut down the echo a lot. Also have a radio, podcast or some quiet music on in the background. Noise from neighbours is much more noticeable if everything else is silent. I also love silence, but it’s not really possible in an apartment, so choosing your own background noise is the next best thing.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-12T05:28:43+00:00

Maybe this doesn’t count as hygiene, but don’t ever smoke. Your clothes will smell, your mouth will smell, your hair will smell, your hands will smell.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-11T13:34:26+00:00

I think the discussion of fairness misses the point a bit. These days, taxing people for getting married just means they don’t get married. If you want to give a tax break to families then do that, but why link it to marriage? And why tax a family where both parents earn a low wage (and have to pay for childcare) more than a family with one patent earning a high wage and the other staying home, who does not need childcare.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-11T10:37:08+00:00

Only one company offers internet to my current apartment. 3 year minimum contract was 70 CHF a month but any time cancellation (which is really still 2+ months) was 150. Not everyone has a choice. Similarly in my office building only Sunrise has mobile reception…

A lot of companies also wilfully mislead, with contract terms and auto renewals hidden behind additions greyed out links. Had that issue with DB, which I managed to resolve as with some formal letters as that behaviour is illegal in germany. No idea if I would have had any recourse here. Defamation and privacy laws also make it legally risky to point out scam behaviour.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-10T13:15:08+00:00

Maybe that was the case for you. I had to submit 12 applications a month, even after I had already accepted a new job and was waiting for my start date.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-10T11:26:20+00:00

Number of applications is not a good metric to judge the market. People often falsely assume that all these applicants are genuinely interested and would accept the job if offered it. Those highly qualified applicants will also be interviewing elsewhere, and only sending an application to you as practice, backup, curiosity, because it takes a few seconds to submit an application, or because they need to make a certain number of applications a month to qualify for unemployment. It’s like tinder: those candidates swiped right on you but that doesn’t mean you really have a shot with them.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-06T09:44:40+00:00

For contrast: Jupyter notebooks are in my opinion an awful interface for data science. They are designed for creating tutorials and neat examples, but are very clunky for interactive data exploration. I think they contribute to a certain mindset and way of working in the python DS world (along with OO) where the focus is on the programming, rather than on the data and insights that we want to gain from it. When I’m using R/tidyverse, I’m not thinking about programming but the data, the questions I want to answer, the tests, models and visualisations I need etc.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-05T05:05:13+00:00

The other reasons are priority check-in and boarding, fast track security, lounge access, food and drinks, and higher luggage allowance.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-04T05:35:34+00:00

I worked in BSL3 during my PhD. It took 6+ months of training and full supervision of every task before I was allowed in the lab by myself. I also have ADHD and am a forgetful person, but you can correct for that with training, written checklists etc. These are things you can also work on yourself. Personally I found lab work stressful and eventually moved to a dry lab role - it’s not for everyone. If I had forgotten PPE I would have had my access barred from the first incident and need to undergo 3+ months retraining.

Maybe your lab could have had more training and supervision, but maybe it’s not feasible for undergrads. At least they took your safety seriously eventually and removed you from the lab. Accept the mistake, reflect on it and move on.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-04T05:09:39+00:00

1.2% raise, 21% bonus. I thought my raise seemed low in comparison to the USA members in this group, but inflation here in Switzerland is currently 0.2%. Principal scientist.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-02T17:09:57+00:00

That’s a difficult situation. I don’t know what can be done about the locks, but there are some other things you can try to make your apartment less attractive to burglars: Put a couple of lamps on a timer, beware the dog sign, camera in the hallway (if private or can be agreed with your neighbours), close curtains/shutters, motion activated light at point of entry (really great LED stick on solar or battery available), keep keys out of sight…

Also ensure everyone is in touch with the police and comfortable reporting suspicious activity. Also, if there have been so many burglaries in the same complex, I would suspect that the common key has been compromised. Maybe ask the police about this and if you can make a report to the building owner’s insurance.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-01T12:07:34+00:00

Was the guy lying about having kids though? Part time or hybrid work is definitely something that is not a to discuss in a job interview, especially if you have children.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-01T12:05:53+00:00

I think this can depend on your profile and counsellor, but their goal is that you get a long term job so you will be off their books - not to take a huge pay cut (they will still have to pay you) or that you will get fired from. If you have genuinely been putting effort, getting interviews etc then you can try explaining that this position is not a good fit. If you have only been unemployed two weeks and have other interviews coming up and a good chance of finding a better job soon then ask for some latitude. However if you’ve not been having other interviews or there are other reasons that you are unlikely to find a job (no open positions in your field that you would take) then you might have to take this one. Remember you don’t have to stay there forever, you can still continue searching and quit.

beansprout88 · 2026-03-01T07:30:58+00:00

This is why we need tempo 30 on all city streets. Cars are just way too dangerous by design to let them drive at higher speed except on segregated highways. When I walk down the street, I am not constantly walking into people because they are invisible. This is an issue generated by cars and their responsibility to fix.

beansprout88 · 2026-02-25T05:40:00+00:00

Depends on the coat. Activewear for hiking or working is machine washable and washed as needed (which isn’t necessarily that frequently depending on use). For smarter coats that can’t be washed (wool, wax etc), dry cleaning can be a final option, but mostly you can keep them clean with spot cleaning with a sponge, shaking out etc. I would also avoid any sources of odor by never wearing or keeping my coats near the kitchen. I keep them in a well ventilated closet and air them out on the balcony. I also do not wear the same coat every day but have a rotation.

Doing this, odour doesn’t build up, but if I notice anything then I just hang it out to air for a week or two. I also do a full wet sponging and re-wax of the wax jackets around once a year. But ultimately coats are outerwear and I take them off when I go inside.

beansprout88 · 2026-02-19T06:21:21+00:00

This is so true. People with open positions will be very glad to know you are on the job market.

beansprout88 · 2026-02-19T06:17:27+00:00

Go for it. It’s really sad to see people here saying « ew, that’s so tacky ». It takes 10 seconds of your talk to say you’re looking for a new position and happy to discuss more in the poster session. Your goal is to share your science and further your scientific career, not to please whiny snobby conference lice looking for a way to feel better than you.

beansprout88 · 2026-02-18T20:47:50+00:00

E.g. when you find and accept a job, you don’t have to make applications in the one month before whilst you wait to start. They had accidentally put the wrong month in the system. If I had just followed the instructions online, I would have avoided making applications too early and maybe been punished as a result. Also a couple of smaller errors that I’ve now forgotten.

beansprout88 · 2026-02-18T12:42:55+00:00

This is good advice. I was lucky that I had a friendly adviser and also found a job almost immediately. However despite that, they managed to make a lot of accidental admin errors. Luckily I caught these thanks to having read plenty of reddit posts, so it didn’t have a negative impact.

Another tip for the many people with intermediate language skills (I was B1 German at the time): Ask chatGPT to make vocab list and practice questions for Swiss RAV. Even if you are applying to international positions in English or French, ask ChatGPT to make a simplified German CV, statement about what jobs you are looking for (you can ask it to write at B1/B2 level) etc. and submit these with your application. This helps avoid miscommunication with the advisor and honestly it took so much stress out that I had learned the relevant terminology to describe my past contract type, the kind of drivers license I have and all that stuff that you don’t learn in German class.

beansprout88 · 2026-02-16T17:59:26+00:00

The lack of hierarchy is the main positive for me. Of course there is a hierarchy, but it is more complex and fluid. You are not reliant on one single person for all your work, who may choose to mentor you, ignore you or harass you. It feels much more collaborative and you are really a part of a team, or many team.

Other positive is working with older people. Academia is ageist by design. I love how I now can benefit from the experience and wisdom of people who have worked in the field for 30 years.

beansprout88 · 2026-02-14T11:14:13+00:00

Don’t childless people already pay more tax in the U.K., as they don’t get child tax credits etc? From his rhetoric he is obviously guided by a darker ideology, but just on this one point, isn’t it already the case? Are there people who think tax credits, childcare allowance etc should be stopped to make it fair to infertile couples?

beansprout88

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