8.
“It’s likely I am very out of touch with the ordinary working Australian, but I completely disagree with this, especially in the corporate world. Live to work is very quickly becoming the norm in Australia, particularly in the law and finance sectors. Australia and New Zealand are quickly becoming US-lite on this and if not for our strong labour laws and rights, we would already be there with the Americans.”
“I’m a corporate tax professional that has worked in Australia, NZ, London, Frankfurt and New York. All my work colleagues and recruiters in UK and Germany would say how much harder Australians work than Europeans, to the point where my London boss said he prefers to hire Aussies and Kiwis over Brits. My tradie mates in London experienced similar comments with their work too. I was able to achieve a work life balance in London, something I never achieved in Australia.
Saying Australia is 100% work to live is a lie we tell ourselves, just like how laid back we are or how ‘lucky’ we are. We don’t even notice that we are crossing the line from choosing to do an extra few hours now and then, to it now becoming the expectation. Instead, we look at the US and Japan and pat ourselves on the back for not being like them, while the Europeans look at us and wonder why we take everything so seriously all the time.”
—u/justputonsomemusic
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/juliawilling/do-aussies-live-to-work-like-americans