lee_in_nj

I have a friend who works at Wegmans. She cant stand the place.

dinosaur

Oh well...still, great supermarkets though...beats the crap we have in CT

Jerseygirl

NJ too.

dinosaur

Hey, they've got one in Bridgewater - tragically, I lived behind where it was later built, but moved out of state before it arrived. Would have been walking distance from it, and as I was still new to the country back then might even have walked to it...

Jerseygirl

Yes I've called in there a few times.

geordiegirl2

We live in AZ and are constantly told its a right to work state, never really sure what it means as when its expained too me it always comes out as the employee has no rights.
I've seen nurses told in the middle of a shift to go see our manager and they never come, doesn't seem to be fter any particular event or anything.
The job my OH used to do ( he's a carpenter) one Friday afternoon, they all got a memo telling them they were cutting their PTO, changing the health benefit contributions and their hourly rate, it didn't really effevt him as he hadn't been there long but for some they calculated the were about $ 400 a month worse off, but no-one questioned it.

Englishmum

It's so bloody depressing reading this thread. We're in the midst of applying for our green cards but very half-hearted about it, only doing it so our son can graduate high school next year.

I wonder what his future will be if he chooses to stay on after college and work in the US? He will have crap vacation time, probably be expected to work very long hours and risk being walked out of his employer's building with no notice!

I packed in my new job with BA when the Ts and Cs were very different to what I'd been led to believe at the interview.....conditions in the US far worse than in the UK even with a British employer...even though it was a unionised job, they don't seem to try and get decent annual leave for their employees unless you have been there for donkey's years. (All I would have received this year was 3 day's annual leave. BA employees in the UK start off with 5 weeks annual leave). Life is too short to be a slave to an employer....and yes I do concede that I'm fortunate to have a spouse who is able to pay the bills on his salary alone.

Returning to England or going on another overseas expat posting seems very enticing right now......

lee_in_nj

I am guessing if you were raised in the US and never worked anywhere else, how would you know the difference? To be honest, once i got into the mindset of "its all about me".. i.e..i have no loyalty to this company..you have none to me.. i was fine.. it just took some getting used to.

Partystar

That's what I say to people who ask me if I like it here. When I say, no not really, they always like to ask more questions, so I explain the differences that I've noticed compared to home. They can't believe the difference & say they want to move to England!!! I explain that no one would put up with it back home, plus the majority of Brits work to live, not live to work & it seems to be the opposite over here.

geordiegirl2

I agree they don't know any better and most of them grow up on a diet of 'greatest country in the world' and 'land of opportunity' like Partystar when people ask me if I like it i usually say i do but can't imagine myself being here forever because I had much better working conditions at home and I LIKE social medicine.
Being a nurse most commonly people will say arent you paid much better here, I always reply it's not much more and I had the luxury (although didn't think it was at the time) of 8 weelks paid holiday, paid sick time, nice maternity leave benefits and a contract that fitted my family life because we have legislation which considers your life outside work, usually their jaws are at the floor by this time

snowbunny

This is an absolute falsehood. It is nearly impossible to prove discrimination. Because the employer doesn't have to give a reason for termination, they are hardly likely to say "I'm firing you because you're female."

The one famous case where blacks sued Texaco for discrimination -- they won only because someone audiotaped a meeting where recognisable executive voices were saying awful things about their black employees. It takes that much to win the case.

I have heard a boss say 'I only hire women cos the company makes me (do it).' This was in my presence btw. Later a woman sued for wrongful dismissal. She lost, despite a mountain of discriminatory comments by said boss, because she couldn't directly link her firing to a specific comment. All investigated by the EEOC. Case closed.

scrubbedexpat099

As my stedaughter got laid off a couple of days ago, immediate, no compensation, yes it can be that brutal. No likely to get a job either at 5 months preggers.

But the only difference I am aware of is that at least you get some dosh in UK.

I worked in the London Insurance Market and I can tell you being escorted from your desk is absolutely common. We had an understanding as to what pub you would head for, always instructive to see who turned up.

And I assumed that everybody kept copies of anything that might come in useful at home, I certainly used to copy anything that might be useful for my personal files.

I actually still have a CD of old e-mails, I had exceeded my capacity so IT backed up the old stuff and gave me the CD!

I was not in a dangerous area, I just can not imagine that anybody in one like Sales would not have everything off site. I have certainly received e mails from departed colleagues who had obviously a back up for just this eventuality, just common sense.

I have also been in the situation of taking over from someone working out their notice, a realy nice guy and they knew he would not take advantage, whilst anybody they had doubts about was out the door relatively laughing. Paid to be a bastard.

As far as knowledge sharing, that always amused me, like you said you would be stupid to do so.

I was also in that situation where they got rid of a specialist and told me that I could do it, management had absolutely no idea what was involved, nor did I.

User Name

It's not brilliant either way. There are companies here and in the UK that insist on loyalty from their employees and don't offer any in return. UK research scientists get used to having to move around because their "employment" is temporary - usually one or two year contracts or salary/employment linked to research grants. Scientists often spend half their time looking for their next job/contract, often in another part of the country making it very hard to get a mortgage. Teachers reckoned they had it hard.

I heard that a major UK retail chain put its staff on short-term contracts, which meant they get no holidays and are "let go" merely by the "employer" not renewing their contract. There's no appeal to a Tribunal because there was no employer-employee relationship. "Employees" can get holiday by delaying the start of their next short-term contract, but the holiday "leave" is at the expense of the "employee".

kingfisher241049

Job security does'nt exist here in the states, especially in Florida. You can be at work one day, fired the next with very little explanation or notice. The amount of vacation time you get here is bad too. Carol just started a new job around Christmas, and won't be elegible for a vacation until next year. Even then its only a week. So we have to plan holidays around the weekends, and just take a vacation day here and their when we want to go anywhere for 4 or 5 days. I think you only earn so many hours a month for vacation time.

If we wanted to go to the UK for any amount of time, it would be impossible right now.

Jaxbar

I had over seven weeks holiday in UK, here I guess you have to learn to value the weekends. I have got reasonable holiday entltlement but I am working generally many more hours than I'm paid for. Most of the client group I am working with, who often are in the food industry get NO vacation time whatsoever.