My boss lets me live in one of his apartments rent-free with all utilities covered, and he also gave me a spending card.
I get parts at shop cost, and get full access of the shop to maintain my families vehicles and make whatever I want (we have 3d printers, lathe, bridgeport, plasma table, 4 axis cnc, tons of welders pipe benders etc). Also the boss is super laid back and willing to teach everything he knows. Wish I had more time to take advantage of it all!
Im mostly remote in an industry ai cant really take over.
which one, and why?
There are lots, actually.
- 42 days of paid vacation plus unlimited sick days
- 7h work day with flexible office time and right to work from home
- No expectation of overtime, very manageable workload
- Beautiful bike path from my home to the office
- I can use the company car privately, and not pay for fuel
- I can even borrow a panel van for free if I need to move big stuff
So this job allows me to live car-free, and has great work-life-balance
That I still have one. I’m a software developer, and my entire industry has lost its mind.
I’m freaking out trying to think of what I could pivot to as the industry implodes
So far, nothing that pays as well
I’m just holding out hope that my company still has enough sanity left to keep from firing the team responsible for its (incredibly busy, active, and above all publicly-facing) developer portal in favor of having a vibe-coder
destroymaintain it. At least long enough for the AI bubble to finally burst.
My office is by the sea. I can have my morning coffee outside watching the waves. In summer, I get to work early walking, it’s 8 km or so, then have a quick dip in the ocean and get dressed and start working. Bliss
Dog trainer and kennel tech. I get to take my dogs to work with me and 95% of my job is just me interacting with dogs, a blessedly human free experience.
I have yet to meet a dog I didn’t like, but fear if i worked as a vet tech or really anything with animals all day that would break eventually… still a great perk, heckin’ good
I work in live events as an event planner, running lights, sound, video, etc… I’m paid to be at the shows that audience members pay lots of money to attend.
I legitimately don’t remember the last time I actually paid for a ticket to a show. Because even if I’m not working it, I probably know someone who is. The industry is fairly small, so I have friends all over the local venues. In the past week alone, I have seen four different shows, (two dance shows, a jazz concert, and a play). I was paid to attend three of them. The last one I got into for free, because I play board games with the venue owner.
Working from home and everyone being understanding about work-life balance, mental health etc., without it being a big deal. No pressure (at least not like I used to get when I was younger!)
I’d say you can work from everywhere and companys are usually chill
Softwaredeveloper
Unlimited servers. I work for a VPS provider and on my first day my boss setup my account with $10k of credit and showed me how to add more in the admin panel “whenever [I] need it”. As long as I’m only using things with plenty of excess capacity and don’t cause problems, I can spin up whatever I want.
Sadly, I’ve already got a rack of hardware at home, so all I’ve done so far is spin up a server with 96GB of ram and put a 2-page static website on it, lol.
Hardware depreciates.
Sell your homelab and stick the proceeds in a stocks and shares ISA.
when you leave the company and no longer have access to their hardware you’ll have the money to rebuild with newer machines
If you can spare the resources you should consider spinning up a Nethack server
Nethack server
Ooh, interesting. I’ve never tried playing that.
Finally you can start your own Minecraft server.
Yeah, game servers is about the only thing I’ve come up with for a way to take any real advantage of the perk.
Weirdly, it is my boss. He always got my back and takes everything I say really seriously. I am not the only one who thinks he is the best boss. We get a lot of perks that some of my friends are jealous of, but I value my boss far more than most of those perks. I have learned that if the boss sucks than great perks doesn’t keep me, maybe a bit longer, but usually not for long.
Working from home.
I must admit, I would not decide to have kids without working from home. What is even the point in bringing them to this world if their parents are gonna just park them at care centers for most of the time?
As a historical side note, the idea that children grow up and are raised exclusively by their biological parents is extremely recent and basically a British/Germanic cultural export.
Most cultures raised their kids communally. Some people are responsible for raising the kids, and the kids spend all day with them. After some time the kids develop interests and start learning from other grownups that do that “work”. Sometimes it’s their biological family, sometimes it isn’t.
And that makes much more sense tbh. Most parents in modern nuclear families are terrible at raising kids. And they aren’t even doing JUST that. They have to juggle their own lives, their work, keeping a house clean (because due to the British/germanic nuclear family we all need to live in our own “tiny estates” isolated from other people), AND raising kids.
We should have the people who love kids the most and who teach them the best raise them, imo.
Nothing new to me.
To afford two kids I work two jobs and my wife works one. And grandparents don’t want to help, citing that “they did their share of caring for kids already in life”. So here we are - two people, two kids, constant stress and overworking just to make ends meet.
Yeah, I had my first before COVID, and then COVID happened, and I’ve turned away a lot simply because it cuts into time with my kids. I walk them to school every day, so I can’t leave my house til 845-9am earliest, but that doesn’t stop me from covering remote work that starts normally at 10. And I stop by 330 or so every day and go get my kids. If I was somewhere else, I’d be stopping at 230, and I do so with absolutely zero remorse, don’t care if we’re done or not. Kids are my number one priority, they won’t be this age forever, and I intend to maximize my time with them.
It’s not all that remarkable for being in Europe, but… five weeks vacation per year.
I’m curious how that stacks up with others.
In New Zealand we get (for full-time employment):
- 20 days of annual leave (these can carry over, though the business encourage you to take them - and they can pay you out for 5 days a year, if both you and they agree).
- 10 days of ‘sick leave’ (this accumulates up to, I think, 20 days) - can be used for dependants (eg caring for a sick child).
- Up to 3 days bereavement leave.
- 12 ‘public holidays’ (1 is a different day per region, the others are national holidays)
So we get less annual leave, but it gets more nuanced once all of the other leave types are considered. I think NZ is somewhere in the middle of the field when it comes to leave entitlements.
In the Netherlands it is a minimum of 5 times the days you work each week, so if you work five days it’s 20 each year. Most companies add 5 extra days to this in the collective agreements (basically union agreements). These agreements also cover public holidays, 5 is the average amount I think.
Lots of companies have a 38 or 36 (less common) hour work week. Usually you’ll work for 40 hours under these contracts, and for the extra hours you get “ADV” days, 12 if your contract is 38 hours. Depending on the company these days get scheduled in advance, or it’s extra days off.
Quick edit: sick days is basically limitless if you’re sick. There’s other types of leave like bereavement leave or for care taking, but that is totally company dependent.
Sick days are complex after a long period (like a full month or 2). but thats a different can of worms. And its not like you will lose much pay either.
So yes, they are “limitless”. Suck it usa :')
It’s interesting; I was listening to a recent NPR Planet Money podcast about why the US doesn’t have guaranteed vacation like all other high income countries. Much of it boiled down to history and politics, but one point that stuck out to me is that unions actually at one point opposed guaranteed vacation days, because if the government has laws for worker rights and leave, it reduces the demand for unions.
I don’t know how much of a factor it is today, but for reference, I have a highly sought set of skills and experience in the US, and I get 35 paid holiday days per year, virtually unlimited sick leave, a two for one 401k match, comprehensive medical and dental, continuing education stipend, etc. Not guaranteed by law, but provided as work incentives.
I wonder if much of the middle class here didn’t have such things, how many more laws or unions we would have to get them.
Thanks for that info, and ye that does sound like early american history/politics. Cover your own arse and screw the rest hehe.
I think the rest of the world has proven that unions are always needed, so they would not have vanished if government added laws to give everyone a minimum holidays. There is always something to fight for or, and thats the most important one, make sure it all happens like the law says it should. This is also something unions do.In any case, i cant say how many middle class ( whatever that may even mean these days because i dont consider myself middle class but im not lower class either ) are in the usa since im from the wrong side of the world for that. But what we hear and read ( which are often the loudest people ) its a lot and its just wrong to have to rely on a company giving them to you cause youre valuable. Its like the garbageman/woman from around the corner is not worth not working to death because they are “just collecting trash” which is not a high skill job
In Spain this year is special for me … I can have a total of 10 weeks off, plus two days of family time, plus two days of bereavement leave (my mother passed in April).
Plus any sick leave I might need, though I have to have a doctor’s note if it’s more than one day.
I feel like I’m a holiday millionaire … pity it isn’t every year!
Different countries (and companies) in Europe have different holidays. Especially German ones are as stingy as they can be.
Everyone who just wants in the US sucks in every way train love this one. It’s all looking for the worst shit in the US comparing it against the best in the EU.
I work a solid 20 hours a week from my basement and get 200k+
Teach me your ways 👀
DevSecOps, staff engineer. 50/50 IC/Managing technical people and direction.
Also want that!
Product manager?
So I thought your response was a short response from another thread. My bad, I misread the entire intent. I can’t delete for some reason.
DevSecOps Staff Engineer.
Slinger of yaml.
Nice! The extent of my own involvement with .yml files is just Espanso, haha.
deleted by creator
I work from home. The systemic incompetence of this multinational fortune 500 company means I can do a lot of reading and no one seems to notice.
Of course, management is planning to fire a lot of people, including me, to pivot to AI.
