Why I Am Sometimes Jealous of Europeans

Have you ever heard the “Americans are lazy” stereotype? Well I gotta say, after working in America for almost 7 years, this cannot be further from true. I started working at Bruster’s Ice Cream in Atlanta when I was 16 and whether it’s been in food service, customer service, or an office, the only words to describe working in America are fast-paced and competitive.

Now if you learn one thing about me from reading this, it should be that I am competitive naturally. I can turn anything into a competition and I will die before I let anyone else win. This might come from growing up with two brothers both close in age to me, or maybe it’s just the American way. Whatever it is, it’s helped me keep up with the pace of working in the United States.

Last year, I went to Copenhagen for three weeks to study what makes us different from them. How are they consistently ranked among the top in the world in terms of happiness and we’re not? We looked at it from both the perspective of psychological personal happiness and the sociological institutions that lead to a more carefree life. We decided it’s both.

Europeans famously have it better than us in almost every way. Paid leave when you have a new child, paid vacations, non-competitive workplaces. In Copenhagen, people are paid to go to school and study what they are passionate about. They do what they love because they love it. They don’t need to make other people proud of them or flaunt how much money they have from a job they got only because it pays well. The only thing a high paying job gets them is more taxes. I love it.

When I was there, I basically had some sort of existential crisis, I couldn’t believe it had never occurred to me before. Just do what you love. Then I remembered- I don’t live in Copenhagen. There’s nothing to fall back on if I fail. I’m afraid of failing and so is everyone else. That’s why I have to be the best.

I believe Belgium is like Copenhagen in that way. I never had this conversation with any of my friends or coworkers, but I got the impression that with their universal healthcare

and university system there isn’t a ton of risk associated with switching jobs or life paths.

While they are less work-driven than us as a culture, they have way better motivations. They do their work slowly and with frequent breaks and don’t take themselves too seriously. It’s not because they don’t care- on the contrary! I believe it’s because they do care. They do have the luxury of a slower-paced environment, but they thrive in it.

Personally, the slow-paced work environment may not be for me. I’m used to the fast cutthroat world of Bruster’s Ice Cream, for god’s sake. Nothing can compare to the thrill of a summer night with 20 families with sticky children demanding fresh waffle cones with three different flavored scoops apiece. The atmosphere is invigorating.

I don’t know if “lazy” is the right word for either we Americans or Europeans. I think it’s a lot of factors that add up to a way of life and we shouldn’t look down on one or the other. I think we all have a lot to learn from one another.