Il semble qu’on soit tous d’accord qu’un bon emploi soit un emploi qui nous plait et qui permet de bien vivre financièrement. Une des réponses américaines m’a tout de même étonné. L’un ou l’une d’entre vous parle de travail dur. Pourquoi un bon emploi serait-il synonyme de dur labeur?

A lot of the answers are the same which surprised me slightly since I know that in general there are several differences between the working culture in the US and in France. I also thought it was interesting that the French mentioned that a good job is stable, which is not seen at all in the American responses. I think that stability doesn’t show up in the American answers because it is pretty common for Americans to change jobs relatively frequently, in large part because it is seen as favorable to be a Jack of all trades so that you are more knowledgeable in more areas. How long do the French usually keep a single job? And why was it mentioned that it is hard to find a good job on the French side, but not on the American side? I believe that it is just as hard to find jobs in France as in the US, but because we are MIT students, our answers are slightly biased, do you guys agree?

I also noticed that job stability seemed to be something which the French students are concerned with but didn’t appear in the American responses at all, but I wonder if it has less to do with Americans wanting to switch jobs more frequently, than with an ability to keep a job for a longer amount of time. Is it difficult to find a job that is stable in France? Another thing which appeared on the French side was the desire for good working conditions, ambiance, etc. Are these issues which French workers have to deal with regularly? Or maybe the French are less willing to put up with problems in the workplace than Americans, who often will put up with anything to keep a job and advance themselves?

Je pense que la stabilité de l’emploi est relative.En effet, avoir un emploi qui nous plait avec des conditions de travail favorables, avec une rémunération suffisante et un travail dans lequel on est une partie prenante, sont tous des atouts de ne plus penser à changer ce travail.

I agree with you @GOKU. A stable job would very much cover all of these things, but then for others, the definition of “stable” very often extends to a high enough salary not just personally satisfying, but also keeps up with the needs and desires of the entire family (if married and have kids, etc.) and the possibility to prepare for important future investments (such as paying for a child’s college education, etc.).

@Guillaume, I was actually also very surprised to have seen hard work in the American responses. I definitely equate a good job with interesting work, but not necessarily hard work. If it ends up being that the interesting work is hard, that’s totally fine, but not just any hard work would fulfill the requirement of being a good job.
@Goku, I agree that if you have a good job, you are less likely to want to change jobs which then means your job becomes stable, but I still find it interesting that stability showed up several times on the French side, but not at all on the American side, which indicates to me that there is an aspect of importance in French culture to the stability of the job, is this correct?

@Goku, I should have phrased my question differently; I am wondering if it is difficult to find a stable job in the sense that one is not afraid of losing their job. Is this a common concern for employees in France? Or something that people worry about more than other things? Or does stability truly just mean a job one would not want to leave?

@ Guillaume and @ redchip123: Though it wasn’t my response, I was not too surprised by the appearance of “hard work” in the American responses. I think the person who mentioned hard work may have been alluding to the fact that hard work can be very rewarding; it feels really good to say “it was hard, but I accomplished it and loved it.”

To make this feeling more tangible - perhaps it’s similar to the feeling one gets after succeeding in a difficult but fascinating class?

@guillaume: Though it was also not my response, I do agree with @mhk that hard work makes for a better job. At least personally, I’m afraid of having to do boring, mundane things for work (I had to do this once for an internship - I was spending hours drafting framing plans, so I was basically drawing parallel lines for hours and it was boring and unrewarding) and as a job hunter one of the aspects I find most important is that the job will allow me to learn new things and be challenging. I think also as MIT students, we are used to hard work and we are used to doing things much faster than many of our peers at other schools just because MIT is a really fast paced environment, and a lot of us thrive under stressful conditions and basically being forced to work hard.

I wonder if that’s not something that French students are too worried about, and are just focused on finding a well paying job? What aspects of a job are the most important to you?

@guillaume I think that the idea of hard work is much more admirable in America, than it is in France, especially in the context of polling MIT students. The idea of the American Dream, after all, is that hard work pays off in a good future and general success. So people are constantly striving to do more in order to achieve more. This drive to always work more makes us more hopeful that there is more to accomplish in the future. Typically, people are highly motivated, especially as college students who have large futures ahead, and so the idea of opportunity is what makes our hard work worthwhile.

@guillaume I think that the idea of hard work is much more admirable in America, than it is in France, especially in the context of polling MIT students. The idea of the American Dream, after all, is that hard work pays off in a good future and general success. So people are constantly striving to do more in order to achieve more. This drive to always work more makes us more hopeful that there is more to accomplish in the future. Typically, people are highly motivated, especially as college students who have large futures ahead, and so the idea of opportunity is what makes our hard work worthwhile.

@Goku I was also surprised by the amount of French students who want to have a “stable” job. I think it is interesting because I believe that in the USA we see a stable job as something that is always there. A stable job is one where you dont really have to worry about getting fired and it allows you to live decently. Would you rather have a job that is more interesting but has the possibility of being unstable or a job that is stable but not very stimulating?

@redchip123 : Je ne suis qu’étudiant pour le moment et donc par forcement le mieux placé pour parler du monde professionnel. Cependant, de ce que j’ai pu constater, en France, du moins pour des ingénieurs, il n’est pas spécialement difficile de trouver un travail et de le garder. Certaines personnes aiment rester longtemps dans la même entreprise alors que d’autres aiment changer régulièrement. Le fait de déménager fait souvent changer de boulot, ou alors juste pour travailler dans un autre domaine. Concernant la difficulté pour trouver un travail je dirais que c’est surement du aux médias, depuis quelques années maintenant la France a atteint des niveaux records concernant le nombre de chômeurs, mais cela ne nous concerne pas, nous autres futurs ingénieurs, au contraire la demande en ingénieurs est importante.
@mhk, @hera013 et @kashlgh  : Je comprends que travailler durement peut être satisfaisant et admirable mais je reste quand même étonné qu’un “bon emploi” soit synonyme de dur labeur. Pour moi travailler des heures de manière intense pour accomplir un boulot qui me plait n’est pas une dure labeur mais plutôt quelque chose de grand (c’est un grand/gros projet). Ce n’est pas le fond de la réponse qui m’a étonné mais plus la forme de cette dernière ! Pourquoi avoir choisi un adjectif négatif plutôt qu’un adjectif vecteur d’un message positif?

Je considère qu’un bon emploi ne serait pas une fin en soit. En effet, pour moi, un bon travail te donne les moyens de faire ce que tu as envie de réaliser à coté.Qu’il s’agisse de passer du temps avec ta famille, de voyager, etc. L’idéal serait même de ne pas avoir besoin de travailler.
Mais vivant dans une société où il faut de l’argent pour pouvoir vivre, travailler devient quasiment une obligation. La seule consolation qu’on peut avoir c’est de faire un travail qui nous plait. Une chance que tout le monde ne peut pas s’offrir.
Cependant, quand une activité nous plait tellement qu’on en oublie que c’est un travail tout devient différent. Nous vous est-il jamais arrivé de passer des heures à réaliser un projet dans le cadre de vos études sans vous rendre compte du temps que cela vous prenait tellement vous étiez passionné par ce projet ? Si oui, vous n’avez sûrement pas ressenti toutes les contraintes qui on fait de ce projet un travail à rendre.
Il me semble donc qu’on peut limiter les effets contraignant d’un travail en en choisissant un qui nous inspire, qui nous stimule et donc qu’on ne considérerait plus comme un emploi mais un moyen de s’épanouir, de se construire.

@dwar: So do many people in France view having an enjoyable job as just a happy coincidence, because a job is only something that you to make money and to be able to do other things in life? Or do people in France ever view a good job as an end in itself? That is to say that a good job could be the main source of fulfillment in life. In the United States at least, I think many people see having a good job as being almost equivalent with having a fulfilling life, which you seem to think isn’t the case.

I was wondering the same thing as you ijm, if people in France just generally try to find a job that will allow the financial basis to do the things they enjoy outside of the work, or if acquiring a specific job can itself be a long-term goal. Their answers could obviously differ from the general mindset of the French population, just as ours from the general US population, as all of us seem to be working hard now to be able to find a satisfying and fulfilling career later on.

@dwar It’s interesting that you consider a job as a means to something else that you “truly” want to do. For Americans, the goal is to have a job that is fulfilling in its own work. I’d say that your last comment is accurate; is this a common/uncommon way to think in France?

In the US, it’s also important to note that education, especially in college or post-undergraduate, is closely tied to career. Students are encouraged to study what they find interesting. Is this also apparent in the French idea of education?

@kashlgh Le fonctionnement de nos pays respectifs concernant l’éducation sont assez similaires, nous sommes très peu contraints concernant les études que nous voulons mener. La seule inquiétude qui est susceptible d’être présente pour le gouvernement porte sur les résultats scolaires. Je trouve le système scolaire français extrêmement bien fait, je n’ai jamais “subi” de cours inintéressants, ou si ça a été le cas, il a toujours été possible de l’abandonner au profit de matières plus stimulantes.

Je rejoins @dwar sur sa vision des choses pour le travail, je vois également mon futur job comme un tremplin pour réussir dans ma vie personnelle plutôt que de sacraliser mon job. Je conçois difficilement le fait de ne vivre que pour son travail, et j’espère à l’avenir me servir de mon travail plus qu’il ne se servira de moi.

@guillaume, it’s interesting to me that you think that “hard work” is a negative adjective. I don’t think of it as negative- I think of it as a fairly neutral adjective and I think it can be negative or positive depending on what we’re describing. To me, a job that’s hard work isn’t a bad thing, it’s a challenge - and MIT students like challenges. Why do you consider hard work negative?

Ce que je pense en voyant les réponses des uns et des autres c’est plutôt que dans nos deux pays nous avons à peu près la même vision du travail, et que les différences sont très personnelles.

@hera013 : Je dirai que cela vient surtout de la traduction. En traduisant “Hard Work” par “dur labeur” ça ne fait pas rêver. Tandis qu’en anglais ça sonne différemment, moins violent ! Ce n’est pas la première fois que la traduction créer des divergences de point de vue. En parlant dans “un enfant bien élevé…” il y a aussi eu ce genre de quiproquo dû à la traduction.

@ijm et @kashlgh je ne pourrais pas me permettre de dire que ma vision du travail est celle de tous les français. Cependant je pense que la plupart des gens que nous voyons comme ayant réussi leur vie sont en générale ce que l’on ne voient pas travailler. Ce genre de personnes qui sont “toujours en vacances” et ne manquent jamais de rien.

Un bon emploi n’est jamais mesuré par la quantité d’argent qu’on gagne, non plus par le nombre d’heures qu’on fait.. Le travail est considéré bon que quand il nous plait .. que quand on est satisfait en le faisant …

Et comme on dit : “il y a deux genres de personnes ceux qui font le travail et ceux qui en prenne le crédit” tentez d’être du premier groupe car il y a moins de concurrence ;)

Et comme on dit : “il y a deux genres de personnes ceux qui font le travail et ceux qui en prenne le crédit” tentez d’être du premier groupe car il y a moins de concurrence ;)