linuxmemes @lemmy.world julianwgs @discuss.tchncs.de 2 wk. ago

Proud to be a European

As a European it makes me proud to get a direct shout out from Linus 🫶🏻 <insert picture of beach here>

52 comments

I mean, Linus Torvalds is an european after all.
- Something feels funny about “an European”. I’m pretty sure I’d say “A European”, but I have no idea what rule is triggering me to say that.
  
  Damn English is all over the place.
  
  I didnt even think about it, but looking it up „a European“ is correct. It‘s not about the letter, but the sound.
  
  Source: https://www.quora.com/Which-is-correct-“a-European”-or-“an-European”-Why
  
  Damn English is all over the place.
  
  it absolutely is.
  
  English spelling doesn't match sound, it's about sound
  
  European is (depending on exact dialect) /ˌjoː.ɹəˈpɪ.jan/, so it begins with a consonant. So you don't need "an"
  
  It's most likely because you don't pronounce a vowel at the front of the word, even if you write one.
- He’s a naturalised American citizen as of a decade or two ago, IIRC.
  
  Has a dual citizenship of Finland and the USA, so still a European citizen too.
  
  What does naturalised mean in that context?
  
  Sounds like a label you'd put on meat or vegetables.
- He now lives in the US
  
  Portland Oregon
I'm European, but I don't get your excitement. Everybody has summer vacations, no? Not just Europeans. So what's the deal?
- Most people over school age in the US do not get a summer vacation. Most are lucky if they have enough vacation hours to rub together to cover a random illness so they don't have to work while barely able to function for being too sick.
  
  And I'm not even close to joking or exaggerating.
  
  It's fucking bad here. We're horribly jealous.
  
  I'm extremely fortunate for having 5 weeks of vacation per year, and half of that is only because of working extra on the weekends to bank extra time. And good luck getting approval to take more than about a week of it at a time.
  
  You don't have mandatory paid sick leave but have to use your vacation instead?
  
  It's definitely not great here at all, though I'd say it's a bit different for professional software developers (who probably make up the bulk of contributors), since that kind of job tends to give you better benefits. In my experience, it's typical to either have unlimited PTO (that you may or may not be able to take, admittedly, though I've never had an issue with that), or at least a couple weeks of vacation a year. I've never worked anywhere as a software engineer where I had to really even account for sick time at all. I just tell my team I'm sick and that's about it.
  
  I’m in the US but suddenly need to take a couple weeks vacation because my European employer has some weird fiscal year nonsense going on. Apparently the current year is 2025 and my “rollover” vacation days from 2024 expire soon
- In the US you probably get 2 weeks of flexible PTO and about 5 days where everybody gets a day off. Even that is not guaranteed US law doesn't require any PTO.
  
  Another shocker for others, maybe, is that many companies require you to use those same pool of days as your sick leave. Get sick and no vacation for you. Japan does this as well (though Japan actually has ma-/pa-ternity leave which is more than I can say for the US)
EUROPE MENTIONNED 🗣️🗣️🗣️
This is a very real thing for tech teams with European members. They just peace out.
Nitpicking here, but I’ve never seen anyone actually spell out the word “quote” in this context, when typing it online. We have a special character for that
- I assumed he misspelled quite.
  
  Oh. Yeah. Nothing to see here. Everyone carry on
- It took me so long to find 🫢
It's bad enough that we have to contend with the highway traffic and crowds of everyone here taking their vacations randomly over the 2 or 3 months of summer while the kids are out of school, and people without kids over about a 6 month period. It would be hell if absolutely everyone did it all over the same 2 weeks. Count me out.

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