Preserved Topic: New life starting soon!! (Page 1 of 1)

To quote someone else here:
"As of June 5th my title in life is going to change a little bit."
My title will change from web-designer to un-employed. But hopefully this will only be temporary!

I could just as well write "As of June 5th my life is going to change quite a bit".
June 5th is when I will make my move from Sweden to the United States. Close to the Gulf of Mexico in southern Alabama, to be more exact.

I am very excited about this, because I am moving to be with my fianceé since 3+ years, and we are getting married later this summer!
Things has been rather hectic lately, getting everything ready, going to the US Embassy in Stockholm for an interview to get my visa, and now when that has been taken care of I am all ready to go.

I don't have a job arrange yet, because of the US buerocrazy I will not be allowed to work for a month or two after I arrive. I will try to get some sort of web design job, but I guess I might need to be content with "flippin' burgers" for a while before I find any good job

If anyone have any insight at all about working as a web designer in the US, I would be more than happy to hear about it I've heard all sorts of "horror" stories, and hopefully they are not all true. Such as
- After the "crash" of the IT industry, it is impossible to get a job as a web designer.
- You only get two weeks of vacation a year.
- You are expected to work over-time but you are not really compensated for this.
- You need to call everyone Sir and Mam and Mr and Mrs and dress in suit and tie.

Oh, if anyone is interested here is a little silly webpage that my fianceé and I made last summer.




[This message has been edited by ZOX (edited 05-30-2001).]

ZOX, welcome to the U.S. and congratulations on your marriage.

As to your "horror" stories, I would like to discuss those.

Certainly the Web design market is over saturated and employers will use that to their advantage. If you are skilled at any of the programming associated with a web project you should have no trouble finding a job as the field is still growing faster than there are people around to fill the positions.

Unless you land the best job ever, you will get no, I repeat NO vacation your first year on the job. Some places will give you two weeks after a year, most will give you one. Some make you wait a couple of years before getting any, and this little piggie had one.

The whole over-time: no compensation thing is true if you become salaried. Companies HATE paying overtime to hourly employees, never want to hire enough people to do the work, so the poor salaried people have to make up the difference.

Suit and tie will certainly help your career as well as showing people respect. Isn't this true all over the world??? This usually isn't a requirement here in the States.

All in all, Americans work many more hours a week than people living in European countries for less money. With so many people trying to get ahead, the rest of us have to give up our lives just to keep up and now our employers expect it from us.

We pay less taxes however, and we don't even like to pay that because the money goes to poor, unwed mothers who would rather have another kid to get a bigger wellfare check than get her fat ass a job.

Right now my sister only has to pay $83/month to rent an apartment bigger than mine just because she's pregnant. Her husband won't even look for a job that pays better than minimum wage or more than 20 hrs/wk so they can keep the government assistance. She's not worried about the future because she says the state of Oklahoma will support her kid until its 18. We let these people reproduce and all we get for it is another generation of freeloaders.

I pay my taxes so the government can pay for people like my sister to have and raise lowlifes like herself and if I were to show up at a hospital without any insurance and bleeding from my head, I would probably bleed to death before anyone there attempted to help me.

I'm all for helping people when they need it, but why can't we help them get a JOB, rather than money and encourage them to sit a play Playstation all day?

ZOX, convince your fiance to move to Sweden and stay where you are. You'll be much happier and probably live a longer, more stress free life.

help.




It's your God, they're your rules, YOU go to Hell.

Congrats Zox!

You must be getting pretty anxious right about now. Thats really great though, I'm happy for you!

One more week for me and I can't wait!

Well.. people have different opinions. Depends where you come from. I moved here to US about 8 years ago from Poland and there is no way in hell that I will move back. This is not even an option. I love it here in the states. You can be anything you want to be. Country with lots and lots of oportunities.

You pick your destiny in life. You want to succed, you need to bust your ass... if you don't, then you don't.

Suit and tie? well.. that depends. I have to wear a tie to work and I like it. I like the professional look.

Overtime... I am on salary and if I work over 40hrs I get paid overtime. Depending on the company.

Vacation...most companies will give you 1 week after a year. Some offer different packages. I have 2 weeks after working 6 months for the company. Again, it differs from company to company.

Wow. Moving from a wonderful, clear, clean, crisp and accepting community into southern Alabama, which is none of those. Well, that's okay. America is a wonderful place...more or less.

As for horror stories... well, there are several. It's not *impossible* to get a job, but without experience, it's damn difficult.

At the position I am at, I get minimum 6 weeks of vacation a year.

I'm never expected to work overtime, but if I do, there is no compensation, save for those hours being added into my vacation amounts.

I am wearing a CK shirt and some slacks, but I'm an artsy person. Many of the folk I work with are in flannel shirts and blue jeans.

Now, of course, keep in mind that I work in the midwest of America, which has a much different feel to it than the South. So none of these rules may apply, or all of them may apply--I try not to get down to the South very often, as they're not fond of my people.


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