Same thing in London, big urban center. But if you are able to move out into the country, quality of life can improve markedly, especially if you earn the same as you do / can in London.
Same in NL where I live. I'm relatively lucky in that I got a smallish modernish two bedroom house with a driveway, small back yard, etc, but most people can't afford this (hell, housing prices have gone up so much that even I can't afford this house anymore if I were to buy it now!) even if it becomes available on the market.
Meanwhile, my parents live up north, bought a house in the 70's while mortgage rates were >10%, a four bedroom house with a big front- and back yard, which they've turned into their own little paradise (lots of plants, fish pond, roofed sitting area with a box of sigars, etc).
Long term we might end up moving there, but besides our son's school and social life, the biggest factor there is work and income. It may be more feasible with remote work which I've done for the past year and a half now, but not in the current market where every somewhat decent house put up for sale gets hundreds of interested people.
I can't afford a car here though (no parking in Stockholm!)
Oddly defensive considering that a) nobody in the thread seems to be american and b) none of those things apply to your average google employee (the original subject that was being discussed)
Perhaps this is a uniquely american problem, but I doubt very many people at my company actually uses their 30+ vacation days.
That's actually the American problem. For the bunch of European countries where I've worked/interacted a lot with, most people don't have days off left at the end of the year, or maybe have a handful.
And there are some periods when people are gone for long stretches of time (2+ weeks). In France August is practically a national holiday, it's super common to send someone an email in late July and get a reply saying: "I'll be back in early September".
From what I've seen from my US colleagues, they usually take a peppering of 1-2-3 days or maybe a week at most, and if they do have a ton of days off, I can't imagine they use them up.
In Romania I had a case where I had some PTO days saved and I went away on December 20 or so and came back on February 3 (got a bit lucky that year with public holidays, but still).
Last two tech companies I’ve worked at offer unlimited vacation. Which is a funny problem so to speak, as some of my colleagues make a good use of it and others don’t. I’ve used 36 days in 2020, mostly because there was a big push from the HR to make sure people take regular long breaks at least once per quarter (I’ve used only 21 in 2019).
Everybody also gets unlimited paid sick days. At my current company 3+ days require a proof from the Doc, otherwise no questions asked.
There’s also 8 days of bank holidays pa in the UK. These don’t have to be given as paid leave, but I’ve never heard of anyone in an office job to ever work on a bank holiday (unless they wanted to swap)
I usually take 4 weeks in July. Then vacation/time off just before Christmas until a week after New Year.
I have friends who instead of increased salary have asked for more vacation weeks, and have now 7 weeks of vacation. And they use it every year.
The ocean is like 10-30 minutes away. The coast line is incredible and free for all to enjoy.
He describes his work in London as strict dress code. 1+h sweaty and crowdy train+metro rides(and the same to get home). Long work days.
Dressing is casual. Work is probably <30 mins by car(I have 15 mins single-way, car and bike take similar times). I even have coworkers who jog to work a few times a week. Showers and sauna are available at work. Work hours are flexible.
He said good food is cheap here. There are excellent restaurants that cost much less than similar ones in London.
Since mid-March, I've been taking 2-3h lunches on the cliffs by the ocean if it's a sunny day. Just laying there listening to the nature. Takes 20 minutes door to ocean for me.
For me this is a high quality of life. How can you put a price on things like this, especially when you(stereotypical US IT worker) have little to no paid vacation, work 8-12h a day, sometimes even on the weekends?