
‘A toxic culture of overwork’: The graduate student mental health crisis - danso
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2019/03/13/a-toxic-culture-of-overwork-inside-the-graduate-student-mental-health-crisis/
======
lewis500
I’m a professor. I have a few thoughts about this.

First, the grad student/professor relationship is inherently asymmetrical,
much more so than most employer/employee relationships. The degree has to last
years or else you get nothing, and there are no hard and fast terms of the
relationship like there is in many jobs. The professors recommendation might
be the most important thing you get, and that is always running in the
background. So many professors treat their students like robots.

Second, professors are essentially super students. We became professors
because we have extreme standards. Your engineering manager became a manager
because he was an engineer and got promoted, but having a professor as a boss
is like if a famous open source developer was your boss. Nothing about
becoming a professor selects for kindness or empathy, unlike a manager at an
ordinary company who might be trained and evaluated—-especially in a large
company—-on the happiness of his workers. So a lot of professors have
essentially obsessive attitudes and no empathy. Add to this the fact that many
students are escaping countries where they have little future. For example,
the past few years, the Iranian economic crisis has caused a surge in Iranian
applicants.

Third, the professors themselves are under extreme pressure. Everybody knows
this.

Fourth, the work a professor outsources to students tends to be the stupidest
and worst tasks, because the students usually aren’t good enough to make big
contributions. This is depressing for the students: they’re smart people who
signed up to work with a famous professor on work they cared about, but their
day to day is to do things anyone could do for almost no money.

Finally, the professors are under pressure to create these huge labs. We don’t
make profits, so things like funding and number of PhD students are taken to
be metrics for evaluating. The US news ranking absurdly includes phd’s per
tenure track professor as one of their metrics. So a lot of people are
accepted who really shouldn’t be there, and the research is designed to have
tons of busy work.

~~~
king_magic
Sorry, but candidly, this just reads as a bunch of lame excuses to continue a
blatant cycle of abuse.

Nothing in my professional 15 year career has come anywhere remotely close to
the brutal, absurd reality of what I’ve seen graduate/PhD students go through.

I think academia is nearing a kind of crisis akin to what the the Catholic
Church is going through with rampant sex abuse. Diminishing, unimpressive
returns in output (aside from a few bright areas), and dark secrets
continually being covered up/brushed aside.

Academia needs to do some serious soul searching.

~~~
jdietrich
There is an absurd oversupply of graduate students. Where there is an
oversupply of labour, there are _always_ abusive conditions. Academia can do
all the soul-searching it wants, but the only meaningful solution is to
rebalance supply and demand in academia; a very useful first step would be the
provision of impartial and informed careers advice to high school and college
graduates.

~~~
Mirioron
I think this is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. Graduate
students are so common they they can't differentiate themselves from the rest
by simply being graduate students. They need to do more to be above the rest
and this leads to the bad circumstances.

~~~
wool_gather
Why do they need to "differentiate" or "be above the rest"? (Honest question,
not rhetorical: I don't understand your point.)

~~~
jdietrich
Commodification. The easier you are to replace, the lower your market value
and the weaker your negotiating position. Software developers can earn six-
figure salaries and work in offices that look like holiday resorts because
demand for their skills massively outweighs supply. Grad students get treated
like dirt because the supply of grad students vastly exceeds demand.

Most people who choose to be grad students have better options, which we
should encourage them to take.

------
omk
After 5 years of work, I finally decided to take the jump and live the dream
of earning a Masters degree from a prestitious university in The Netherlands.
Being a non-EU citizen I had shell euro 15000/year but it still seemed cheaper
than US counterparts.

Couple months into the semester I realized the pressure kicking in my program.
The planned 40 hour load required atleast 80 hours of work. I could sense
stress and depression all around. None of my classmates seemed to have any
weekends to travel around or play a sport. Friends needed smoke breaks every
couple hours during group assignments. The fact that the program didn't offer
the quality that one would expect made matters worse. I spent 6 months doing
things that I did not enjoy. At the same time, my 5 years of work experience
taught me enough to understand that what I was spending most of time on did
not prepare me intellecually with regards to what to expect once I am back in
the industry. The only preparation I was getting was the ability to absorb
stress; and I was sucking at it. Dark thoughts started haunting me; I pushed
through one semester and came back home to evaluate the ROI of this whole
ordeal.

I quit after going back in order change my program to something better; but
time to switch and forth coming costs weren't motivating enough.

UPDATE: I would honestly attribute most of the ordeal part to the program I
selected. I looked forward to a couple professors to work with; both of them
ended up either leaving the university or reducing their focus on my program.
I saw students in other programs go along really well. At this point in
academia I would consider it critical to visit the university personally (even
if you are an international) to evaluate the environment you would be studying
in and understand from fellow students how the program is being driven.

~~~
blablabla123
> The only preparation I was getting was the ability to absorb stress; and I
> was sucking at it.

That's interesting, in my second semester (Physics) a professor said to us in
his introduction lecture that one of the biggest things you learn during
studies is stress resilience. There's definitely a lot of truth to that.
Although back at the time I didn't realize it but looking back it was the
case. During studies and also 1-2 years afterwards I got incredibly resilient
to stress.

No matter how much I had to do or how bad an incoming news was, I was just
thinking, oh yeah now I need to do this, this and this or okay, that's just
how it is, cannot do something about it. But yeah, the bill comes years after
when you realize how you couldn't maintain any relationship that is not super
close to you.

I wish people designing university programs but also those giving advise,
would remove some of the pressure and also make the programs less intense (or
at least longer with the same amount of things). As you mentioned, apart from
very specific university career tracks there is little usage for many of those
hard earned skills and tricks.

~~~
expertentipp
I think there is a serious problem of people coming out of academia and
transferring the workplace into the only type of environment they know and
described above. Obediendce to the credentials and high tollerance to
bullshit, supervisors forcing others to make the supervisors’ mistakes. The
workplace becomes a circus of absurd dead end ideas, probing the patience of
anyone with any clue on how business- or customer- facing production software
or service should work.

~~~
xfitm3
Isn't that by design?

------
blastbeat
I can somehow relate to that. I'm suffering from an anxiety disorder since I
was 15, was diagnosed with 18 and started some (unhelpful) therapies in that
year. Later, during my masters, at some point I finally had a mental breakdown
and ended up 3 months in psychiatry. I was simply overwhelmed by a) coping
with panic attacks before, during and after lectures, and b) coping with the
increasing pressure to perform. But the major issue behind that breakdown was
actually the decision between coming of age, or letting my anxiety take
responsibility for my life.

I decided for the first. After psychiatry I was basically able to leave my
room and go to lectures again. I took another 2 years ambulatory therapy to
take full responsibility for myself, and 5 years to finish my masters. After
that, I started a Ph.D., and during that time my mental condition went from
like "cannot imagine how the fuck I ended in psychiatry" to "one final straw,
and I'm back in psychiatry". Although it went well, I certainly would not do
it again.

That said, I obtained my masters/Ph.D. at some no-name university in Germany.
I was able to pay back my student loan during the Ph.D. studies and left
university with savings. Also, I'm not in ruin because of a 3 month
hospitalization. Thus, reading about insane performance/financial pressure at
(elite) universities combined with the questionable health care system in the
US for me is terrifying.

------
zwaps
Another point that contributes to academia as "perfect storm", in addition to
the points mentioned before, is that in many countries the chances of having a
career are slim for the median student.

Not everyone can gain a top position in any field. But in most industries,
there are plenty of positions where you can make meaningful contributions. We
know that most humans need to feel useful for mental health.

In academia, there are increasingly few viable career paths where you are not
required to beat out everyone. The further you progress, the harder it becomes
to switch to industry. Implied in this is that the further you go, the more
risk you must be willing to take, and the more stress you are under.

In my country, the system for selecting professors is not very meritocratic.
Older professors frequently would not have an ounce of success if they were
required to prove themselves in the current situation.

In addition, there are very few positions to do research below a professor
level, and these positions are precarious and do not offer a lot of options
for meaningful contribution.

This places extreme stress on graduate students - in addition to everything
being said here. As you progress in your PhD, you are either at the very top,
or you have to fear that your career will go nowhere. Remember, this is a
group of people that already selected on wanting to do research, seeing
research as their goal in life.

This is a systemic pressure of extreme magnitude. If you fail, which is
statistically likely, then you will be in a (comparatively) bad position to go
after other careers. In addition, you are most likely a person who does not
care primarily about money and wealth. Thus, options for a meaningful life
decline as risk increases.

The success or failure is determined by many factors our of your control. Like
your advisor's behavior, how the network is utilized, if you are lucky to work
on a hot subject, if your contribution is recognized and so forth. The locus
of control is far out of your reach, more so than in other industries. And if
you fail, all the options you set for yourself in your life vanish.

It doesn't take a lot of thought to realize this has an extreme effect on the
psyche of graduate students. It's more than publish or perish. It's publish or
face the void.

~~~
woah
This seems strange. In industry, it seems that great cachet is attached to
academic experience. In AI, there are a lot of positions paying a half million
per year and up that are only available to PHD's. In blockchain, there have
been many projects that have had little to show besides a powerpoint and the
letters after the founder's name but still raised tens of millions of dollars
in funding from big name VCs. For a time, this was so prevalent that projects
like this were given the joking name "professorcoins".

Are you talking about the experience of students whose subjects are not used
in industry? In that case, it seems that they would have a difficult time
regardless of whether or not they were in academia, since they would simply
not be working on their subject at all in the private sector.

~~~
grigjd3
Certain fields have an easy path to the private sector, like computer science,
but a lot of academic research is done by academics because the private sector
would never pay for it. Certainly when I left academics, I didn't see many
employers looking to study initial data for the binary black hole problem. ;)

------
_hardwaregeek
Y'know, occasionally I see off hand remarks from tech or start-up people
dissing academia, not understanding that academia is probably one of the
hardest career paths in the world (and thus surprisingly similar to start-
ups). You can't take a break (publish or perish), you need a lot of
qualifications to even dream about getting tenure (top 5 grad schools or
bust), and you're competing against ridiculously smart and pathologically
obsessive people.

~~~
Aeolun
No, well, I guess that’s exactly why we are dissing academia. It’s
ridiculously hard, the environment seems shitty, and the payoff is pretty much
nonexistent.

Why would anyone choose to do that instead of making boatloads of money in
industry?

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
For the privilege to do what they really want to do, i.e. study something they
are really interested in.

For myself, I am interested in logic programming and machine learning. I
started a PhD in Inductive Logic Programming, which is machine learning of
logic programs from examples. There's no way I could follow this interest in
any other structure but a PhD on ILP.

In the industry? I can forget right about it. Even ordinary logic programming
is out of the question. Machine learning? That would have to be statistical
machine learning that just bores me to death.

In academia I have -so far- the freedom to pursue my actual research interest
and all I have to show for it is success in understanding my subject and
discovering new knowledge, which is exactly what I want to do anyway.

~~~
mathgenius
> machine learning of logic programs from examples.

This sounds like it would have use in industry. You are really saying that it
does not?

~~~
Nydhal
It's out of fashion, so there's not much investment in it.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
That's it, in a nutshell.

------
ehvatum
My feelings on this couldn't be more mixed. I enjoyed many years working as a
coder in the academic research setting, but I lost my best friend to suicide
in the second semester of his PhD program.

It's just sort of a test to see if you're stronger than the system. If you
want the strength to survive grad school, spend a few years scraping by in a
third-world nation, or climb mountains, or get serious about wilderness
survival. Do something aside from following the rules and getting inevitably
raped by a system you have done nothing to learn to dominate.

------
solotronics
This is probably a stupid question but with the internet as a distribution
method is there anything stopping someone from doing their research
independently and publishing on their own? I am sure if you are doing quality
work you would still be able to get a hold of a professor somewhere who would
be interested in working with you. Of course this would not apply to
situations where there is lab equipment involved but I am thinking of the
perspective of math, computer science, etc. where the work can be done on any
commodity computer.

~~~
mathgenius
Not a stupid question at all.

History is littered with examples of major scientific discoveries that went
completely ignored because the discoverer was not associated with a
prestigious institution, or some other reputable platform.

> quality work

So what? There is no shortage of quality work.

If someone really wants to make it as an outsider (or even an insider) I would
suggest spending some time on youtube watching videos about how to make it in
hollywood. It is much the same: fashion-driven, full of bean-counters, whats
the next hot thing, who do you know, are you fun to work with, etc. etc.

People have this idea that science is the objective search for truth. But this
is just a small part of what is going on.

~~~
zbentley
> History is littered with examples of major scientific discoveries that went
> completely ignored

Citations please

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> “It felt as if I was telling him he didn’t respect me, and he essentially
said, you’re right,” he recalled.

I'm a PhD research student on my second year.

It's unfortunate to frame this in terms of respect for the student's person,
rather than his work, which is most likely what has lost the advisor's
respect.

I've come to my PhD after six years in the industry. Because of this I see my
research as a work assignment: my advisor has handed me a project that I need
to see through. The success of the project is not guaranteed and it's up to me
to achieve it. As in the industry, where I earned the respect of my colleagues
by getting things done, so in academia, I can only earn the respect of my
advisor and other academics by delivering strong results and publishing in a
reputable venue. If I can do that, then noone will have any reason to not
respect "me" (actually, my work).

The important thing to understand is that your advisor's enthusiasm and
interst in your work cannot be taken for granted. And so is the enthusiasm and
interest of other researchers in your field. Unless you are delivering
genuinely interesting and exciting work, you cannot expect sustained
enthusiasm and support to continue that work.

Another thing to keep in mind about academics is that they are always on a
tight budget: of funding, attention, time, energy. If you take a piece out of
that budget you have to put something back in, or you will inevitably cause
doubt and disapointment.

It's a professional relation, studying for a PhD: you give something to be
given something, do something so that others might do something for you.

~~~
currymj
I’ve seen your posts before so I am pretty sure you’re a CS PhD student. It is
important to remember that getting a PhD in CS is unusually good. There’s a
lot of money, limited need for expensive equipment, good job prospects in
academia, and little stigma about going into industry.

Also, it seems to me that a culture of abusive behavior and hazing has not yet
set in.

None of this is true in the natural sciences, and advisors often do not treat
students with even the basic dignity due to any human. This kind of thing is
rare in computer science.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Machine learning actually- in particular, Inductive Logic Programming. But,
yes, it's basically CS.

I appreciate that there's a difference between different fields. I'm also
aware that the article above is about research students in the US- I'm in a UK
university.

~~~
grigjd3
So the natural sciences aren't universally bad. My PhD advisor in relativity
was a terrific guy to work with and I saw him as a friend and mentor. The
problem is that the supply of people seeking PhDs, post-docs, and tenure track
jobs in the natural sciences so far outstrips the available jobs (often a
hundred to one) that there is little natural pressure to suppress bad
behavior. In fact, the assholes tend to thrive because it turns out that
taking advantage of others can get you ahead.

------
denhamparry
I’m in my 30’s now and found out that I suffer from depression. It was a
lightbulb moment realising that the feeling I’d become accustomed to for the
previous 15 years was actually something.

For me, I never fitted in with anyone at University and felt alone. Going into
work I started with small companies, providing tech for sales roles. The sales
way of ‘high pressure’ was transferred to how projects should be managed.

Today I try and help out by building a community via running a meet-up. The
people I have around me today and the confidence I have to be able to be
depressed and get out of it with the help of others around me keeps me going.

------
BearsAreCool
I'm working on a masters degree at the moment for context. The fact that a
professor has the ability to deny me the piece of paper I've been told all my
life is my ticket to a better life based on arbitrary grading rules is
horrifying. In my program there is a different professor for every class and
how they grade and what they want has always been different, some demand title
pages for every paper, some demand some specific source count, and others
grade you down for submitting too close to the official due date. The
professors who I have liked the most are the ones that act like the students,
just scraping by barely managing to do their work, and not having the time or
energy to be too critical of the students work. I'm sure professors are nice
people and I'm even good friends with some at other universities, but there is
a massive power imbalance and it is horrifying to students.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Exactly.

Professors have no, I repeat, NO accountability. Inside their classroom, they
are the petty dictators they are empowered by the university to be. Some do a
good and just job at education... But that's not their real goal. Their goal
is to get the university more money and more students - teaching is the
secondary objective. If it happens, it's good.

I've seen a large handful of people whom should have never been offered a
teaching position. When English is obviously a 2nd or 3rd language, and you're
teaching a complicated topic, and we can't understand you - you shouldn't be
teaching it. I'm not making insults on intelligence, because they were
intelligent... But when every student struggles to understand every word
(example word: theta , pronounced:fee-ter ) they shouldn't be teaching.

I've also had "professors" who taught light and sound physics, discussing
electricity, who didn't know what a capacitor was. And it was in the middle of
the partial differential plate field equations for... capacitors. He was also
known at putting questions on the test that did not pertain to the class
proper. He would also create his own (wrong) answer key, and then refuse to
accept corrections. Good scores for the class were around 18-22 out of 100.

I have no clue how one would accomplish this, but the university ALSO needs to
be accountable to the students who throw it money.

~~~
anon946
I assume that you are mainly discussing undergrad education. In that case, the
way to pressure universities to be accountable is by not going to such
universities, as you imply in your first paragraph: "Their goal is to get the
university more money and more students". So don't go to such universities.
They will lose students. Losing undergrad students won't directly impact
research funding, but it will have an impact at any public university.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
I take it you haven't read "Meditations on Moloch".
[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-
moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

All universities do this to a varying extent, for undergraduate -and-
graduate. And it doesn't make sense for a university to take such a
significant risk on non-payment for failing a student. And there would be
questionable ethics for a university to pass a student to get paid.

From a "God's Eye View", we can do better to properly fund schools while
preserving that students learn without getting cheated. But from individual
students' point of view, and the universities' point of view, there are no
good answers.

------
edhu2017
Disclaimer: Our field is extremely competitive (deep learning) and other labs
may have better working styles depending on their lab size and member
composition.

My lab's workload on average is 8 - 12 hours a day for 6-7 days a week,
ramping up even more closer to deadlines. That being said, a lot of this time
(50% or more) is for thinking and discussing. This schedule, while hard, seems
to be effective for publishing in good conferences.

~~~
asutekku
If half of the time is thinking, why do you need to be on the spot? Seems
really counterproductive to me.

~~~
Bombthecat
He probably means planning meetings.

Never understood what the purpose is to fill half the day with meetings.
Beside the illusion of productivity.

~~~
edhu2017
We don't plan too many meetings. Once a week for a lab wide meeting. Most of
these meetings are casual and just discussions between cliques of phd students
on specific topics.

------
hjk05
Something often overlooked because it doesn’t fit the “evil professor
overworks students” narrative, is that students themselves elect to put in
more hours because they feel reaposible for their projects. During my graduate
studies I worked under a professor who literally banned lab access to prevent
people from working weekends. I hated that rule, but obeyed it, though I know
some others snuck in anyways.

~~~
khalilravanna
Yeah but those students aren’t putting in those extra hours because it’s
“fun”, right? They’re doing it because the culture intrinsically rewards if
not requires that sort of overwork. It sounds to me like that professor is
treating the symptom (students want to overwork themselves) but the cause
(toxic culture) still needs to be addressed.

------
spenrose
Excerpt: "In 2015, Sophie — a recent graduate of the School of Earth’s Ph.D.
program who wished to remain anonymous in order to preserve her relationship
with her advisor — and five others in her Ph.D. cohort took a prospective
Ph.D. candidate out to dinner.

Sitting at a restaurant on University Avenue, the prospective candidate
mentioned that she was in therapy. One by one, the current students at the
table said that they were, too, but none of them had ever discussed it with
each other.

“Unless it’s your really good friends, you don’t talk about it,” Sophie said.
“It’s still stigmatized, and it’s still seen as a sign of weakness. It took
someone to be honest … [and then] everyone else opened up.”

According to statistics provided by CAPS director Bina Patel, CAPS counselors
saw 22 percent of the graduate student community over the 2017-2018 academic
year, for an average of 4.5 visits per student. Graduate students make up 59
percent of the students CAPS serves, which Patel said is consistent with peer
institutions. "

------
sambull
Get ready for it.. I've had a employer make me work 36 hours straight.. I
started hallucinating and fell into psychosis. I'm still recovering. But if
they think your the only tool they have they'll blunt you until you won't
repair.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> “I know lots of people who come out of undergrad and work 60 hours a week,”
said James, referring to his friends in finance and other industries, “but
they’re making so much more.”

So that makes it better? I'd have thought that, if academic culture is seen as
exhausting and exploitative, a 60-hour work week would not be seen as anything
different, regardless of the salary.

If a higher salary makes enough of a difference- well then, is that what this
article is about? Giving graduate students more money for their work?

~~~
comicjk
The salary comment does seem out of place compared to all the issues about the
advisor/student relationship. But, as an independent axis, money can reduce
stress. The easiest example is a shorter commute and more reliable
transportation.

------
codekilla
I've worked in academia for several years, and it's been somewhat
discouraging. I've certainly noticed the pressure put on grad students--not
fun. I'm someone who is deeply passionate about science/research and have
tried to think of things that could be done outside academia to contribute
basic scientific research--the hope is more team science and not labs
organized around PI feudalships. Anyway, I've been working on
[https://www.eonias.org/](https://www.eonias.org/) on the side (still fleshing
it out), if anyone is interested in collaborating on writing a grant, please
reach out.

------
raverbashing
I wonder how much of this is attributable to advisor and university
"entrance/belonging rituals" (meaning "only the tough survive" mentality)

There seems to be a lot of psychological abuse in graduate circles, even if it
is not explicit.

I am glad I dropped out early

------
vasco
The fact that there was a lot of work and pressure to do well makes me look
back fondly at my university years. Going through something hard and coming
out the other end is rewarding and much more fulfilling than if it had been a
breeze.

~~~
perfmode
It’s not either-or, though.

------
devilmoon
Something I have noticed throughout my studies is that some countries seem
better equipped to let university students shine and not suffer from high
stress, or at least help them decompress.

This might be anecdotal experience, and I am not currently in a PhD programme
so I am not sure it would aplly there as well, however this is what I have
noticed:

In my country universities are usually an environment quite similar to High
School wrt how students usually fit into the greater social circle of the
institution, meaning that you usually go in for your lectures and leave as
soon as you're done, have only a few ties with other students and there are
almost no extra curricular activites to partake in through which you could
bond with other people. During my undergraduate studies I spent a year in a
university in the UK and this experience opened my eyes to how detrimental
this environment is to students' performance; The university I attended
explicitely encouraged students to set up "Student Associations" centered
around whatever topic the person setting up particularly cared about, and in
my experience I attendend events from many different ones, ranging from my
department's one to anime/manga, to gaming, to my native country's culture.
This has helped me so much in connecting with other people I would've
otherwise never met who shared some of my interests, and in turn I was always
able to have someone to speak to about common problems that students face, or
to attend social events in order to decompress from a particularly hard day;
at the end of the year I gave some of the best exams of my career, I made
friends I am still in contact with years after, I was able to land an
internship through one of these societies' events, and generally enjoyed life
and university MUCH more than I ever did in my country. After coming back home
and moving on with my life I am currently pursuing a Masters in my own
country, and after a bit more than a semester I already feel the same feeling
of dread I felt during my undergrad experience kick in since there are no
avenues or ways to actually enjoy life as a university student.

I firmly believe that if more countries / universities adopted the same stance
I experience in that UK university students would generally be way better off,
both with respect to their mental health and their track record.

Unfortunately I have never met someone who has shared the same experience as
me and hence has the same outlook on the problem, and even when speaking up
about these issues with my department or colleagues many seem to not
particularly care or understand what that particular system would entail for
everyone involved. It is really a shame.

I am wondering if there are any scientific studies that have been done on this
particular issue that I could bring up to shift perception around this?

Anyway, just my two cents.

tl;dr: make students more involved in their university's community and provide
the means to self-organise around common interests so as to create comraderie
and avenues to decompress, everyone will benefit from it.

------
kodz4
Meanwhile in China we have 9-9-6. The US needs to wake up to whether it wants
to stay in the game.

~~~
luckydata
Not a single thing about China is attractive to me. Not how you work, not your
politics, not your view of what's important in life. We have nothing to learn
from you and I hope we don't become more similar than we are now.

~~~
digitalixus
If there's one thing living and working in Europe (Germany) has taught me is
that all countries are more or less the same. It's just how well the culture
manages to mask the "unattractive" traits we love to criticize in places like
China (or America, as of late), and the PR/propaganda campaign they run to
convince everyone they're the best place on the planet.

China is a prime example of subpar image/PR management. They really gotta take
a hint and learn from the Germans, who are well respected and have lots of
positive stereotypes parroted around the internet "work-life balance,
efficiency, timeliness, high standards of living, LE FREE HEALTHCARE!!!"

IMO Germany is worse than America (the country they love to poo-poo on) and
even China in so many respects. Yet America and China are the places people
call "third world" nowadays.

\- Trains are constantly late.

\- Majority of offices don't have airconditioning or any air ventilation
system (in fact, my previous workplace of 300 employees was in a building with
NO insulation or fire alarm/suppression system!)

\- Card payments are not accepted in at least 50% of places, particularly
restaurants. Cash only in 2019 (can anyone say TAX EVASION?).

\- People boast about contactless payments which just became mainstream last
year like it's the second coming of sliced bread.

\- Boasting about the public transportation system which is only the best if
you're a student with a massive surplus of time/shortage of cash, otherwise it
takes you anywhere from 10 mins to 1 hour (depending on time of day and route)
more to get between two places compared to a car. Heaven forbid you have a
family, then public transportation even costs more than having a car.

\- Employers are extremely exploitative, especially in tech and especially
startups - I'd say some places in America/Asia have better work-life and are
less toxic than German companies. The only difference between America/China
and Germany is the latter has employment laws that are actually enforced, but
only if you go to court (but contrary to popular belief, don't make you
"unfireable", just allow the employee to get a few thousand EUR as
compensation for when the employer does try their hand at something
exploitative - and they will, hoping you're not aware of your rights)

\- Virtue signalling on all sorts of things. Not gonna get into
politics/immigration, there's plenty on that elsewhere. But German companies
love to boast about EQUALITY FOR ALL, DISCRIMINATION IS DISGUSTING. All while
lowballing immigrants in terms of salary and imposing an industrial-grade
glass ceiling for any non-German who tries to work here. E.g. they will boast
how their company of 300 has over 80 nationalities and work exclusively in
English (because 90% of clients are American/British) but oddly enough,
everyone in mid-upper/upper management is white and German. Maybe throw in the
occasional white non-German European or token Indian guy for
DIVERSITY!!!111!!!!1

\- Diesel, until recently, was the bragging point for efficiency. I remember
not 5 years ago, there would be so many Europeans in comments sections of (any
discussion remotely car/transportation related) poo-pooing on the "dumb
Americans" for still using gasoline and polluting the environment by not
getting "the bigger MPGs" using diesel. LOL.

\- Free healthcare isn't actually free if you're not like the classic local
European who still is a student with 0 work experience at age 30 shitposting
on the internet. Look at the "KV" (health insurance) field of your payslip: I
pay hundreds of EUR every MONTH as a healthy young person for "free
healthcare". Out of sight, out of mind right?

TLDR China is about as attractive as any other country on the planet, they
just have subpar image management and PR at the moment

~~~
JanSt
Sounds like Berlin, which is totally different than pretty much every other
place in Germany :-)

FREE healthcare means that everyone is covered, even if unemployed or working
for low wages. The more you earn, the more you pay (capped at ~400€). Your
family is insured for no extra payment. You obviously don‘t fit the system
because you believe you should pay less (single, young, healthy) but that‘s
exactly not what it is. Poor, old, unhealthy people, those who suffer in life
are protected. Cancer won‘t bankrupt your family, you won‘t end on the street.
That‘s free healthcare - dignity! Not paying little no nothing if you‘re young
and healthy.

~~~
expertentipp
> poor, old, unhealthy people, those who suffer in life are protected

> Cancer won‘t bankrupt your family, you won‘t end on the street.

> That‘s free healthcare - dignity!

I guess the middle age male homeless sitting and sleeping all over the cities
and transport venues damage your vision slightly. Don't even try the narrative
"it's eastern Europeans, it's their own fault".

~~~
JanSt
First of all, maybe in Berlin. There are a few reasons for people living in
the streets. Drugs is a big one, especially in Berlin. You won‘t find that in
most of Germany.

Fact is, most people who are legally in Germany for >3 months are legible for
Hartz 4: a free apartment, free heating and a few hundred Euro. And free
healthcare.

~~~
expertentipp
> Fact is, most people who are legally in Germany for >3 months are legible
> for Hartz 4: a free apartment, free heating and a few hundred Euro. And free
> healthcare.

Free apartment for a foreigner living in the country only over 3 months?!
Dude, people on employment contract with over average income, staying in the
country for years are having difficulties to find _anything_ for rent in any
major city, buying is out of question. Did you swallow an info brochure of
German ministry for social affairs?

~~~
Aeolun
> in any major city

Well, there’s your problem.

If you are unemployed, there is hardly any reason to stay in a big city.

~~~
expertentipp
Hartz4 while living in the countryside? That’s pretty much synonymous of dead
end hopeless downward spiral.

