I would tend to disagree on the commuting part - I know many Swiss who have 90min or more commutes twice a day. This is partly driven by the fact that people choose to live in remote locations with no local job market (e.g., someone living in Glarus and working in Zurich), but also by the employer-friendly labor laws where your employer is basically free to change the location of your job within 90-min commuting time (so they could tell you that from next month on you work in Bern instead of Zurich. Period.). This does happen fairly frequently in some large companies.
Generally, the labor laws in CH are far more employer friendly than in any other European country. As a result, employees do have to work more - in direct comparison, someone in CH works about 25% more than someone in an equal position in Germany, for example.
Personally, I work quite long hours frequently (like 9pm or 10pm), but then I try to work not more than 8 months per year.
Yeah, the 42.5 Hours a week is in my contract like it should be, but people at my company routinely work overtime, which is unpaid (also states that in the contract). So we generally all work at least 50 hours a week or more with no extra money or time off. My Swissy bf thinks it's absolute madness, because he gets more time or money for all his extra hours.
He currently has about 8 weeks holiday compared to my 4 weeks.
But anyway, what can I do? It's better than the US and this is the job I have to do to stay in this country. Gotta do what ya gotta do. :/
I'm not living and working in CH (yet), but at my current contract position here in TX, I leave daily at 14:30, followed by a 15 minute commute. I have one client in Hawaii, one in India, and others in between, but none of them demand much in the way of on-call hours.
...lap of luxury — except for the fact that it's so far away from Suisse.
Why would that be a disadvantage? It's been snowing all day long, is freaking cold, and there hasn't been a single sunny day in ages (note: in the middle of March). Add to that mile-long traffic jams in all directions, delays on public transport, etc. At least I wouldn't mind being in Texas right now
Okay, fair enough — I'm currently enjoying sunny days and 20+ temperatures, but (ironically enough) I'd still rather be living there than here (weather is only part of the equation in my book).
I personally commute, 75 min one way, everyday. I tend to say, comparing to big cities, this is not that bad. Train in CH is quite confortable, except that it can be pain to wait for the train in the cold. But at least they are on time (almost)
And in most other countries, it is hard to work only 8 months even if you work till 10pm daily