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Eating at your desk is banned in France

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Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#41

Post by thenerdhead »

wutbrodo wrote: post #22
thenerdhead wrote: post #7

We need more of this in America. Perhaps we just need to take the time ourselves and leave no apologies. Too many meetings get scheduled over lunch and people lose their windows of opportunity. This has somewhat shifted with remote work too and when one decides to take their lunch. I’ve started to do that at the beginning or end of the day because I know I won’t have a chance midday.

> Too many meetings get scheduled over lunch and people lose their windows of opportunity. Why not just put a daily block on your calendar during your lunch hour? It seems pretty bizarre to require everyone to take their break at the exact same time, instead of when it makes the most sense for them

What I was trying to say is that we should protect individuals lunch hours whenever they are and not let our new world of remote work take over that time.

I like many others block off their calendar to do anything such as get a bite to eat, but the challenge is a FOMO of what you miss out on or the interpersonal challenges you have with people who expect you to be somewhere when you should be on lunch.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#43

Post by GekkePrutser »

dopidopHN wrote: post #9
damagednoob wrote: post #3

This is one of the reasons why I love to work from home. I'm not beholden to company policy that seeks to improve productivity at the expense of how I choose to structure my day. Maybe I eat at my desk so I can spend that hour lunch break with my kid in the afternoon. Maybe I'll take a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day because I didn't sleep well the previous night. I'm so glad to be rid of these inflexible, petty…

This article is clickbaity. no lunch police will come knock at the door once you start eating your salad. It’s more about forcing workplace to provide a dedicated space with a table, a fridge … the minimal amenities to have a civilized lunch. Establish rapport with your coworker, or focus on your cold pasta salad to reach mindfulness. If you want to save 2min40s and develop a ulcers, you are free to do so.

Exactly. I often visit offices in France and people do eat at their desks there sometimes. There is no salad police. Going out to a nearby restaurant is big though. And I love doing it if there's time. It really makes the lunch break an actual break.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#44

Post by csdvrx »

achenet wrote: post #25
causality0 wrote: post #15

Ninety minutes, free-flowing conversation, perhaps a glass of wine Yuck. Of course it creates more productivity, they're sucking free time out of my evening and injecting into my work day. Screw that. I'm eating a sandwich at my desk in peace and then I'm going home an hour earlier than these shmucks.

Frenchman here. I leave the office at 6pm at the latest, and I take 2 hour lunch breaks everyday. :)

> Frenchman here. I leave the office at 6pm at the latest, and I take 2 hour lunch breaks everyday. :)

Good for you - not for me.

I do intermittent fasting. I often eat by 4pm.

Should I need the government authorization to eat at my desk at 4pm? (or leave at 4pm to eat at home which is equivalent to you leaving at 6pm after a 2h lunch break)

Or would I need to take a 2h break I don't want to?

Government regulation of lifestyles is acceptable when you have an extremely homogeneous population and culture: this can work in Japan. This might work in France. This sure won't work here in the US.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#45

Post by nawitus »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #26
causality0 wrote: post #15

Ninety minutes, free-flowing conversation, perhaps a glass of wine Yuck. Of course it creates more productivity, they're sucking free time out of my evening and injecting into my work day. Screw that. I'm eating a sandwich at my desk in peace and then I'm going home an hour earlier than these shmucks.

France is more productive per capita (edit: the reference I found was from 2009, France is currently slightly less productive than the US per capita[1]) and has a higher quality of life than the US. Consider improving your mental model and recognizing you are not as well off and productive as you believe. Japanese workers spend a lot of time at their desks too, but not that productive! Data > emotions, work to live d…

Really? US seems to be more productive: https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#46

Post by analog31 »

For a couple of years, I worked in a room full of cubicles, and a low ceiling, so the noise control was pretty much nonexistent. There were a handful of people whose lunches consisted of bags of cut up carrots and celery. They at their lunches at random times, so I was treated to roughly 1.5 hours per day of intermittent loud munching. Eventually I joined a different work team.

Today, my site has a decent enough cafeteria, and those of us who bring bag lunches just go over there to eat. It's also a good time to talk to the different engineering disciplines outside of their silos.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#47

Post by dopidopHN »

rfrey wrote: post #32
dopidopHN wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree on that law treating employee as children. It treats employers as such. « Oh really company? you can’t have some common sense decency in regard to lunch? Alright, I will spell it out for you » From the worker side, nobody will come to say anything if you decide to put grease on your keyboard and stain your shirt during lunch time. You are free to do so.

Companies aren't people, legal fictions aside. They're machines with a fitness function which minimizes a dollar/production function. They can't have "common sense".

Exactly. Hence the much needed hand holding of laws and regulation to help their cost optimizing function see the light of reality.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#48

Post by GekkePrutser »

pacaro wrote: post #24

My sister worked at a bank in northern France in the mid nineties, she found it hard that all her coworkers went home for lunch, and her apartment was too far from the office and on her income eating at a bistro couldn't be a daily thing. So the rosy picture of amiable lunches doesn't always apply

These days it's quite affordable. Most restaurants do lunch deals with 3 courses and drink for 10-12€.

This is not France but Spain, similar lunch culture though.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#49

Post by toomuchtodo »

nawitus wrote: post #45
toomuchtodo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France is more productive per capita (edit: the reference I found was from 2009, France is currently slightly less productive than the US per capita[1]) and has a higher quality of life than the US. Consider improving your mental model and recognizing you are not as well off and productive as you believe. Japanese workers spend a lot of time at their desks too, but not that productive! Data > emotions, work to live d…

Really? US seems to be more productive: https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm

Comment edited to reflect I used an older data source. Thanks for correcting me!

Follow up: where does the majority of US productivity go (short answer: shareholders).

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#50

Post by sheepdestroyer »

twistedcheeslet wrote: post #16

As someone who regularly works 10-12 hours a day, shifting the end of the work day a further 1.5hrs sounds like a special kind of hell. I'll be sticking to my hasty desk-lunch thank you very much.

AFAIK, the standard is still 35 hours a week in France
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