In house legal salaries

Visas, Permits, Passports and Naturalization
61
No I haven't for quite some time. Is it that bad? Emphasis on "all the time"

62
And the same can be said going from here to there.

Living in a nice place, walking distance to work, is NOT easy in the US, in fact it's nearly impossible without a LOT more money.

Tom

63
Which is one indicator that you'll never make that salary. I earn well above average pay, yet I still pay attention to the price of meat. Earning a good/excellent wage does not mean you shouldn't consider whether a move is financially advantageous.

I've never quite understood this attitude problem on EF. Why is it ok to discuss wages that are below average, but not wages that are above average? Yeah, it's lazy of the OP not to do any research first, but a lot of people here jump very fast on the high-earners, and jealousy does seem to be the most reasonable explanation.

64
Or he`s doing research at the same time. And he came across the latest blah blah report reporting Zurich as the most expensive city in the world.

If you just took all our advice you`d be in trouble and confused. The range of advice I have is from 0 adjustment required to 3x what you`re earning now.

65
our kids walked to school in the US, the nearest homeless person was over an hour away, and skiing was about a 90 minute drive away. oh, and there was no schupfe, schupfe in the lines to get on the ski lifts, either.

66
Geneva is the only exception where the limit is CHF500k.

67
strange the idea of jealousy, I find simply the OP seems to punt "facts" about how great they are without answering the questions asked of them by people trying to help the OP.

I hope the OP listens to people more actively in the workplace.

I'd say 360-500k in Switzerland should result in low opportunity cost. Louis Vuitton and Porsche are exceedingly common here so people must be able to make it on 500k.

68
OP, go back and edit your two posts. Just drop a zero off the numbers and hopefully the atmosphere will become a bit more friendly.

Joking aside, I saw no attitude or arrogance from the OP in his two posts yet people start jumping all over him.

Dan

69
I agree, but I actually thought the atmosphere had been relatively friendly in comparison with some more recent threads.

70
You are missing the point. No, the OP didn't come on and say "I'm better than you. Look at my salary, aren't I amazing?"

But in normal social interactions, one realises that a degree of sensitivity is needed when discussing a situation in which you realise that you may be better off than the people you are discussing it with.

You wouldn't go to the people boarding an Easyjet flight and tell them that you were disappointing in your last flight because Emirates 1st class insist on serving white wine too cold. Or too your friend who drives the 10 year old Skoda and whine that your new Mercedes E class won't fit in your parking place.

He wasn't arrogant, just a touch insensitive

71
Most people in the US probably assume that English speakers in Switzerland are all making > 300K. After all, I keep hearing that salaries here are 2-3x.

Dan

72
i thought we were?

73
Someone owes me money..... Alot of money!

74
i hope you weren't one of the mugs that came here for less than 300k?? it's terrible that the swiss companies here cheat foreigners who don't know any better.

i remember when one of my colleagues first came here and believed the propaganda put out on fake websites that the average wage was only 80k or so - when of course, those of us who have been here have seen the official average wage of 200k.

this colleague got tricked into accepting the poverty-line wage of only 120k believing it to be a 'good wage' having seen this poverty line amount discussed on EF and other expat forums.

anyway, he was stuck for a year on contract but finally got a market value wage of 320k once he presented the evidence to our boss.

what a plonker!

75
This thread has gone a bit sour. It's not his fault he is offered such a big salary (and for the record, I know a few lawyers in Zurich and Zug and they earn less than a third of that). This guy was clearly in the right place at the right time and is a good negotiator.

However the reaction to the way the OP presented the materiality of the situation was, in many cases, understandable.

76
They probably are for people flipping burgers at McD's or similar...

77
I think this thread has just gotten to be fun!

Dan

78
While I appreciate the comment and the prophecy, I still fail to see why you are comparing an income vs an expense.

Why I would fail to earn above 360K because I would not be regarding to an expense as basic as "meat"?

I know well the value of money, savings, and that a penny is a penny.

Let's look on Comparis for the taxes for a single in Zurich earning 360K CHF:

118,299CHF.

241701 CHF remains /year.

/12 (months)= 20 141CHF/months.

Approx 671Chf/Day

I still think that with that, you can afford to buy a pack of meat now and then without worries for "basic cost of living".

Especially that it's what... 30-40CHF for a big portion?

A meat that would fit 2 meals, hardly 5% of the daily income!!

I still think that earning above 360K I would not worry about that meat.

79
Plus, lentils are still affordable in Migros.

80
Lawyers, as a group, aren't generally well-known for their sensitivity...