60 days, so around 3 months. 2 personal days. 2 days a month sick time that accumulated. It isn't bragging, you only see it that way because it defies your narrative.

Other places have less, few have more. But no, it isn't a select group. In point of fact, I seldom took all of the vacation days. Other than the time I broke my ankle playing Ice Hockey and miscellaneous dental work, I didn't use much sick leave either. Don't fret though, I got paid for those days upon retirement. Not bragging, just a point of fact.

It isn't a data point, and it isn't a whole country I'm referring to.It's just something that doesn't conform to your narrative. And you are quite triggered by it. Your propaganda does not allow for accepting that. I only offer it as a counterpoint to your narrative. We don't have guvmint mandated vacation or sick leave. But you make an interesting point that we'll revisit soon.

If you think that I care about some rando posting about their superiority, sorry, I do not. I do however get some small measure of satisfaction of having the vaunted supremacists of Europe get triggered. The amount of popcorn munching this whole topic provides us, where it is pointed out quite truthfully that Europeans are less hard-working, less ambitious, more regulated and more risk-averse than the US.

I simply love pissing you folks off. And it is so easy.

Extra "data point" for you - I retired at 55.

Ah, I see. Other's can judge your countries as well. Here are some links of how you treat your neighbors. Read them then come back with your attitude of Europe's kind and caring attitude. Seems that racism is alive and well in your area - https://www.bbc.com/news/world... https://www.euronews.com/2023/... https://www.un.org/en/chronicl... How are you and the Romani doing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... https://news.un.org/en/story/2...

And the crown jewel of European care about people What happened to Europe's Jewish population? https://www.theguardian.com/wo...

Why are they so little represented in Europe now? Did Europeans do something that bothered them a little bit? What happened?

There are many more. No "single data points" at all

Luck had very little to do with it. Careful planning and bringing value added to my work did. My son is doing quite well too, if it is any of your business. He's rising in management in his company, buying a house soon.

You have your own very inconvenient truths to deal with. You paint a rosy picture of European superiority, with free people and a caring government supporting them, and living their best lives, yet have your own problems with poverty, racism, and an exceptionally sordid history. Read the cites, they aren't propaganda.

The difference is that we Americans face our shortcomings, we know we have problems - as do all countries, while you ignore your own, and your malicious projection would just seem to be you hiding from your truth.

I probably would not have done as well as I have if I was in a European system. But that's more a you problem than any problem at all for me. I've risen above mediocrity, while the EU embraces it.

We do not appreciate it if former employees post confidential information about the inner workings online, even after leaving The Company.

That incident will be examined.

You install unsolicited code on something other than a VM that contains no sensitive information, running on a computer you will wipe after the interview, on a connection that isn't physically separated from the rest of your network?

Sorry, your security conscience is not at the level we require.

No. Nintendo switch sales and even PS5 sales have been strong. There just isn't a lot of reason to buy an Xbox.

Microsoft has bought up tons and tons of developers so they could lock the games to their platforms but the problem with that is modern games are so incredibly expensive they can't really afford to let the PlayStation 5 platform go unless they want to massively subsidize their gaming division and their CEO doesn't like that. Hell even Sony is talking about putting their games out on the Xbox.

For multiplayer games that are focused on moving DLC yeah you want to keep it in your ecosystem so you can take that cut of the DLC revenue but for single player games the money is paid on the sale of the game itself so you need it on every single platform you can manage to squeeze it on. Especially when you consider every one of these consoles except the switch is just a PC.

I guess you have a larger sample size.

My 2009 Mercury Mariner Hybrid went for 120k miles trouble free. Maintenance was affordable and while I'm hard on brakes and tires, I got 75k miles out of the brakes and almost 80k miles out of the tires. I got a fair price when I traded it in as well. The F series truck cannot be the best selling truck of all time for no good reason.

A long time ago, people said Ford stood for Fix Or Repaid Daily, or Found On Road Dead. Personally I think the future of Ford stands for things like:
Fully Optimized Robotic Drones
Fast online remote delivery.
Future of robotics development.
Full Onboard Robot Driver

If you work for a company like Ford, don't listen to these guys. Make great products that stand the test of time. We will continue to buy them.

They *are* making them. The dealers are not *selling* them. And if the dealers aren't selling them, they're not going to make larger quantities of them. And as I said, the dealers have every reason to *not* want to sell them. They don't make nearly as much money off of EVs on an ongoing basis, because they require far less service (fewer major malfunctions, no oil changes, fewer brake jobs, etc.).

Also, unionized car companies are under heavy pressure from the unions to drag their heels on EVs because there are fewer parts to put together, and the cars require less human labor to build, which means fewer workers. (Pedantically, they don't require significantly less human labor, but a big chunk of the labor shifts to the battery manufacturers.)

No conspiracy is needed. The car manufacturers have unions pushing them on one side to not make EVs and their dealer network pushing them on the other side to not make EVs. What possible incentive, other than being compelled to do so by law, could possibly get them to build more EVs that cost more (and by extension, will sell fewer units even in an ideal world) under those circumstances?

I like the look and feel of Mate as well. I moved to Mint Mate after Ubuntu went ugly.

We have reached the time where robots make humans prove they are not robots.

something something Skynet.

The days of Bell Labs type outfits are over. At least in the US, the defense and industrial sectors cooperate with Universities to do research.

It's not perfect, but it works okay on this side of the pond.

Value added. It's that simple. If you are valuable for the people you are working for, you'll do well except in the rare case the whole company folds, or some other bad problem.

For example, years ago in 1979 I was laid off from my ideal job when a funding problem occurred, and I was let go for not having enough time in. I had another job (paying 50 percent more) before my last day. Then after a year, I was contacted again by the people who laid me off. Another 50 percent raise. So I went back noting I wanted they seniority I lost applied, and they even credited me for the time at the job I took when laid off.

So 100 percent wage increase, and reapplied seniority. There were downturns in the future, but with my value added, I was never hit.

And in my post retirement work, I was given a 50 percent raise even though I was well paid in the first place.

Meantime over all these years, I've seen a lot of people who added no value, or even negative value who get terminated whatever there is a downturn. They always have the same story about how the man is keeping them down, how it's impossible to get ahead, blah, blah, blah. Frankly? They are either lazy or drank the proletariat KoolAid.

Some call me a suckup or other pejorative - which is about as far from the truth as you can get. I'm where I'm at specifically because I'm not a yes man. I'm paid a lot because I'm worth a lot. And while I don't get vacation at my present job - the pay is based per tasking, at the job I retired from, I got more vacation and time off than the vaunted French model.

But they gotta have their narrative. A smooth homogenous mass of proletariat.

And you have trouble with what I post! I understand now.

Sounds like a you problem.

Although I could outline the sentence if you are having comprehension issues.

Europeans are used to the government ruling their lives.

Cool story bro - you Eurokings are really triggered by this one story that dares to claim you're not the ubermenschen you are. Probably should get used to it - your slinging shit our way so often - it's understandable you get booboo feelings.

I guess you have high IQ, as well as a good balance of the hormones that regulate willpower (high levels of dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, and leptin, and low levels of cortisol and ghrelin), all the while living in a time period and geographic location in which this combination of factors makes it easy to find good, high status, well-paying jobs.

Confusing one's genetic luck with merit is something people who got lucky in the genetic lottery tend to do quite regularly, as attributing one's success almost exclusively to luck is hard on the ego. So much so, in fact, that when confronted with this basic fact most of them lucky ones promptly start rationalizing (and oh, how easy it is for high IQ people to rationalize!) and grasping at the tiny non-genetically determined straws of their biographies, to then justify their luck exclusively on these.

And presto, ego preserved.