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Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

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Re: Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

#81

Post by mxim »

crazygringo wrote: post #66

What? This doesn't even begin to make sense, just like the article says in the beginning -- Americans are an hour off for the majority of the year, and it doesn't seem to be harming anything. If there's any kind of special Spanish fatigue, I can't believe it has anything to do with their timezone -- it's the entire cultural thing of sleeping/relaxing at siesta, and staying up late. Spaniards don't work late because o…

Indeed the article starts in a ridiculous way.

"Everyone in Spain feels jetlagged all the time, even if they haven't been traveling"

I live in the north of Europe now and when I can I take siesta, just I don't do it longer than 25 min. and never too late(around 14:00).

Re: Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

#82

Post by Someone »

rytis wrote: post #72
astine wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lunch as the primary meal of the day is a staple of Mediterranean cultures. Italy, Spain, Greece, et. al., all have large lunches and small dinners. Latin America is also in many ways a Mediterranean culture so many Latin and Hispanic countries share in that trait.

I don't think this is only applicable to Mediterranean cultures. Eastern Europe seems to follow the same medium/large/small pattern as well.

Hot meals in he afternoon also were common in Western Europe, as is clear from the etymology of the word 'dinner' (via the French 'dejeuner' from the Latin for 'breakfast', which was eaten at noon or thereabouts) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner:

Originally, dinner referred to the first meal of a two-meal day, a heavy meal occurring about noon.

[...]

In Europe the fashionable hour for dinner began to be incrementally postponed during the 18th century, to two and three in the afternoon, until at the time of the First French Empire an English traveler to Paris remarked upon the "abominable habit of dining as late as seven in the evening".

India also has hot meals during lunchtime (nice story at http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2882-the-incredible-delivery-...)

I think it made sense to have a hot meal during lunchtime in places where the sun may set early at night because cooking in the relative dark would be more dangerous than cooking during daylight (swaying around a burning stick inside a wooden house to search for ingredients, spare wood, etc, is not a good idea)

Re: Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

#83

Post by mikeash »

portlandish wrote: post #80
crazygringo wrote: post #66

What? This doesn't even begin to make sense, just like the article says in the beginning -- Americans are an hour off for the majority of the year, and it doesn't seem to be harming anything. If there's any kind of special Spanish fatigue, I can't believe it has anything to do with their timezone -- it's the entire cultural thing of sleeping/relaxing at siesta, and staying up late. Spaniards don't work late because o…

Daylight Savings Time drives me into a borderline suicidal apathy for most of the year. Halloween is the perfect prelude to 6 months of stormy irritability for me, during that miserable span of the year when I wake up in darkness, travel home in darkness, and suffer through my miserable hell of 9-to-5 drudgery bathed in a buzzing, artificial flourescent light. I am an American who lives his life an hour off for the m…

If Halloween marks the beginning, then I'm afraid it is not Daylight Saving Time which causes your trouble. Rather, it is DST which alleviates it, and you suffer during periods of "natural" time.

DST is in the summer. And now, in the US, much of the spring and fall as well, since it got moved to November and March. Winter time is "natural" time, where wall time corresponds more closely to solar time.

Re: Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

#84

Post by workhere-io »

Dewie wrote: post #65
workhere-io wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the higher productivity of Scandinavians? They shift back and forth on "time-zones" What? We have summer time (DST) and regular time - just like most other European countries. If you're talking about Scandinavia's location relative to its time zone, most of Scandinavia is within its "natural" time zone [1]. And your "very hard winter" and "as few as 3 hours of light" comments mostly apply to the very North…

I live 60 degrees north (which is not north enough to be Northern Norway) and the winters do get quite dark. It also gets compounded if you live in a valley, which many/most in my part of the country do. And living near the coast, the climate is so mild that the winter sees little in the way of snow, which makes it even more dark since there is no snow to reflect the sunlight.

Sure, but Denmark's part of Scandinavia, too, and the weather here isn't quite as bad as the commenter suggested.

Re: Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

#85

Post by mscarborough »

portlandish wrote: post #80
crazygringo wrote: post #66

What? This doesn't even begin to make sense, just like the article says in the beginning -- Americans are an hour off for the majority of the year, and it doesn't seem to be harming anything. If there's any kind of special Spanish fatigue, I can't believe it has anything to do with their timezone -- it's the entire cultural thing of sleeping/relaxing at siesta, and staying up late. Spaniards don't work late because o…

Daylight Savings Time drives me into a borderline suicidal apathy for most of the year. Halloween is the perfect prelude to 6 months of stormy irritability for me, during that miserable span of the year when I wake up in darkness, travel home in darkness, and suffer through my miserable hell of 9-to-5 drudgery bathed in a buzzing, artificial flourescent light. I am an American who lives his life an hour off for the m…

Please move or at least go get some help instead of posting rants like this.

Re: Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

#86

Post by peteratt »

As a Spaniard living in Chicago, I can't stress enough how AWESOME it is to have the time zone we have in Spain and how much I HATE when Sun sets at 4:30 PM in Winter in Chicago, despite being at comparable latitudes. All my Spanish friends here agree with me, if it was up to us we'd change Chicago's timezone to EST! And also for the other side, sun setting at 10 PM in Summer is Happiness with a capital H. Go ask German or British summer tourists, go ask them :)

If that was true that Spaniards are less productive and constantly tired (which is not, as many of HNers have pointed out) it is not because of the time zone. It's simply because of the toxic work culture that exists in most places, more oriented towards "appearance" of working hard, and that means long hours more than plain simple productivity.

Again, don't get the wrong picture. Most companies in Spain do not have siesta, do not stop three hours for lunch, though 45 min-1 hour is usually the norm and I find it better than having lunch at the desk US-style. The problem is that working from 9 AM to 7 PM is the . If you don't do that, even if you're a top performer, you'd be suggested to "improve yourself", simply because people are envious of your sane working hours. So they say, envy is Spain's national sin.

Re: Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

#87

Post by aaronbrethorst »

portlandish wrote: post #80
crazygringo wrote: post #66

What? This doesn't even begin to make sense, just like the article says in the beginning -- Americans are an hour off for the majority of the year, and it doesn't seem to be harming anything. If there's any kind of special Spanish fatigue, I can't believe it has anything to do with their timezone -- it's the entire cultural thing of sleeping/relaxing at siesta, and staying up late. Spaniards don't work late because o…

Daylight Savings Time drives me into a borderline suicidal apathy for most of the year. Halloween is the perfect prelude to 6 months of stormy irritability for me, during that miserable span of the year when I wake up in darkness, travel home in darkness, and suffer through my miserable hell of 9-to-5 drudgery bathed in a buzzing, artificial flourescent light. I am an American who lives his life an hour off for the m…

I'm guessing you live in Portland based upon your handle. I live in Seattle and have dealt with SAD-like symptoms every winter for the ten years I've been here. I highly recommend buying a high-lux lightbox. I got one last winter and it marked a sea change in my mood during the darker months.

Re: Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

#88

Post by moocowduckquack »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #62
mjn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'm simply responding to the "laziness" argument. Greece's problem is indeed productivity, not lack of hard work. There are a lot of hard-working mom-and-pop shops which put in many hours, but cannot anymore compete in a globalized economy, when their international competitors are streamlined corporations. Here in Denmark we work fewer hours, but rather than work them in a DIY import/export business like is com…

I agree. I also think that education level might have something to do with it. As a farmer or factory worker, you’ll likely work hard, but your contribution probably won’t be reflected as much in GDP as an engineer’s work.

For people aged from 25 to 34, Spain has a higher level of tertiary attainment than Germany.

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/factbook-2013-en/10/01/06...

Personally I think the current economic difficulties are mostly structural, rather than to do with individual attainment or character of the populous. You can have wealthy agricultural societies and you can have poor industrial ones.

Re: Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

#89

Post by philwelch »

rytis wrote: post #72
astine wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lunch as the primary meal of the day is a staple of Mediterranean cultures. Italy, Spain, Greece, et. al., all have large lunches and small dinners. Latin America is also in many ways a Mediterranean culture so many Latin and Hispanic countries share in that trait.

I don't think this is only applicable to Mediterranean cultures. Eastern Europe seems to follow the same medium/large/small pattern as well.

As do much of England outside of London and much of the American Midwest.

English-speaking cultures use the word "dinner" for the main meal of the day whenever it happens. Cultures that eat breakfast, dinner, and supper have a large midday meal and a small evening meal. Cultures that eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner are the other way around. It just so happens that the English-speaking cultures that make more movies and TV shows (namely London and the coasts) are breakfast-lunch-dinner cultures, so people assume this is normal everywhere.

Re: Spaniards are less productive, constantly tired: Spain is in the wrong time zone

#90

Post by Dewie »

workhere-io wrote: post #84
Dewie wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live 60 degrees north (which is not north enough to be Northern Norway) and the winters do get quite dark. It also gets compounded if you live in a valley, which many/most in my part of the country do. And living near the coast, the climate is so mild that the winter sees little in the way of snow, which makes it even more dark since there is no snow to reflect the sunlight.

Sure, but Denmark's part of Scandinavia, too, and the weather here isn't quite as bad as the commenter suggested.

Did I try to contradict that? My comment was a response to the claim that winters aren't really that dark except for the northern parts of Norway and Sweden, which is not my experience.
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