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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

#71

Post by cudgy »

908B64B197 wrote: post #61
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.

> Yuck. Of course it creates more productivity, they're sucking free time out of my evening and injecting into my work day Here's the thing: a lot of firms consider lunch working hours. I was confused by the practice at first but in tech oftentimes there's a lot of technical discussions happening. And since the French are more hierarchy conscious than Americans, lunch represents a break where ideas can flow more free…

Technical discussions during lunchtime? Rarely ever see this as a normal activity.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#72

Post by cudgy »

sokoloff wrote: post #14
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.

I have 12-1 blocked on my calendar every day. I will take the rare meeting in that slot (just like I'd take the rare "sit and eat with a colleague on a scheduled rather than ad-hoc basis" while we were in the office), but most days that's a meeting-free hour where I can go make lunch, walk the dog, listen to some music, or whatever suits me. Blocking your calendar is low-effort and will likely be high-payoff.

“most days that's a meeting-free hour where I can go make lunch, walk the dog, listen to some music, or whatever suits me.”

You can do all this in an hour? Do you live in the same building as your work? I assume that your working from home.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#73

Post by sokoloff »

cudgy wrote: post #72
sokoloff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 12-1 blocked on my calendar every day. I will take the rare meeting in that slot (just like I'd take the rare "sit and eat with a colleague on a scheduled rather than ad-hoc basis" while we were in the office), but most days that's a meeting-free hour where I can go make lunch, walk the dog, listen to some music, or whatever suits me. Blocking your calendar is low-effort and will likely be high-payoff.

“most days that's a meeting-free hour where I can go make lunch, walk the dog, listen to some music, or whatever suits me.” You can do all this in an hour? Do you live in the same building as your work? I assume that your working from home.

I am working from home (also note that it’s an “or list”).

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#74

Post by wenc »

In Brazil, companies have to provide a lunchroom and by law, a lunch allowance (it's part of the compensation package). Eating at the desk or eating while walking is frowned upon. The civilized thing to do is to sit down, eat lunch, socialize and not worry about work. I love going to lunch with colleagues in Brazil.

In Germany, lunch hour is part of the compensation scheme. Employees tap their RF cards to check out for lunch and tap to check back in. If they didn't use up their full lunch hour, they can accumulate it and take it as PTO.

In most US companies I've worked in, there's no set lunch hour or duration. It's really left up to the employee as long as they can get their work done. I've had lunches that were 2 hours long, and lunches that were 15 minutes long at Chipotle or at my desk.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#75

Post by causality0 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #63
causality0 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth are you on about? I said nothing about per capita productivity or quality of life. I said I'd rather have more free time at home instead of an additional hour of lunch time.

Why can’t you have both? That is my thesis, and I’m attempting to support it with data using a first principles approach. If productivity is high enough, why does that time delta warrant material consideration?

If an employer wants me to be in the office for X hours, I'd prefer those hours not to be spread out by ninety minutes. If they don't want me to be in the office for X hours I'm probably working from home.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#76

Post by phendrenad2 »

raverbashing wrote: post #18

People with misophonia will attest that other people eating at their neighborhoods desks is extremely distracting and annoying (and not only because of noises - but smells as well) So, I'm with France on this

I would only eat at my desk while everyone else is in the breakroom. Eating near people, especially in the cramped quarters that billion-dollar startups deign to give their employees, would just be rude.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#77

Post by greatgib »

baggy_trough wrote: post #19
greatgib wrote: post #5

Article that deform the reality to be more clickbaity. Yes it is forbidden to eat 'at your desk', for obvious sanitary reasons, but I never seen it enforced. But it is ok to eat in the workplace. More than that, company are supposed to provide a dedicated 'break' space with tap water access. The root of the sanitary reason is obvious, you just have to see the regulation about restaurant and food serving places in Fra…

What is the obvious reason, for it escapes me?

Here is a link for you to make it more obvious:

https://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/2013/02/eating_lunch_at_...

Btw, the title of this article can't be better in term of clickbaity but it is factual:

Eating lunch at your desk can expose you to more bad bacteria than a toilet seat, study says

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#79

Post by baggy_trough »

greatgib wrote: post #77
baggy_trough wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the obvious reason, for it escapes me?

Here is a link for you to make it more obvious: https://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/2013/02/eating_lunch_at_... Btw, the title of this article can't be better in term of clickbaity but it is factual: Eating lunch at your desk can expose you to more bad bacteria than a toilet seat, study says

Absurd rubbish.

Re: Eating at your desk is banned in France

#80

Post by twistedcheeslet »

jchanimal wrote: post #28
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.

If you cut your work hours in half, I'd guess your remaining work hours would be more productive on an hourly basis. There are probably all sorts of things making that a challenge to accomplish, but we shouldn't be surprised we see those results in a context that encourages it.

Getting to that is the aspiration, don't get me wrong. At present however I'm in year 3 of bootstrapping a consulting/product startup - so every quarter is still somewhat existential.

The sooner we're reliably profitable, the sooner I can escape the hamster wheel.

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