At the time I was being paid hourly, so I worked every hour possible. My senior year I changed jobs and was sad to take a double-digit cut in my hours.
I’m not saying everyone should be obligated to spend their life on the job, I’m just saying that the idea of clocking in at 9 and stepping foot out the door at 5:00 on the dot shouldn’t be a goal...”real” jobs (aka career paths) almost always require you to put in extra in order to get things done. It’s like playing lawyer-ball with your boss; the type of person quoting a HR handbook and saying “that isn’t in my job description” isn’t going anywhere...his co-worker takes on the responsibility and pretty soon it is part of his job description because he’s earned a new one (and a paycheck to match).
Depending on the career you may stack a ton of hours in the first couple of years (investment bankers with their notorious 80 hour analyst schedules before they land their partnership position, doctors in their residency, etc), or it may be that way until you’ve made the money to move to a more laid back industry. Execs at very high caliber firms and founders of growing startups aren’t spending their days golfing, they’re pulling into the parking lot while it’s dark and leaving while it’s dark.
I work next to guys in their 3rd and 4th year making sums of money you wouldn’t believe if I told you over the internet...and they come in maybe 5 hours a day. But that’s because they’re very very good thanks to two years of total dedication. I hope to achieve the same thing, which is why, 8 months into the job, not having received a paycheck yet, I don’t complain about my 10-11 hour days.
The point, after all my rambling, is that France epitomizes the opposite of every part of the distinctly American drive to succeed. “Old Europe” is the perfect description, because they’re a bunch of complacent, decaying bodies punching the clock and voting themselves more unearned entitlements (and then wondering why those being looted to provide said entitlements are fleeing).
The bottom line is "upward mobility" and the opportunity for same.
Some have no desire for the effort to make it happen, others do not have the ability to make it happen. But in the United States of America the opportunity is there for everyone as it is not anywhere else in the world.
yitbos