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The Spanish siesta is a break in the middle of the day because of the high heat. Spanish workers are the ones who, in average, work the longest hours in Europe
by edko 10y ago
The Spanish siesta is a break in the middle of the day because of the high heat. Spanish workers are the ones who, in average, work the longest hours in Europe (38 hours/week) after the Greek (42 h/w) and the Portuguese (39.3 h/w). Please stop the prejudice.
- 67726e 10y agoThe US has high-heat and we don't have any concept of a siesta, so it's not wrong at all to say there are cultural differences.
- edko 10y agoOf course there are cultural differences, but this has nothing to do with "work behavior". The average work hours in the US, for example, is 34.4 hours/week.
- 67726e 10y agoYes, and Spain's is only 32.48[0]. What is your point? [0] - http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/chart-work-week-oecd/ http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/chart-work-week-oecd/
- edko 10y agoMy source says 38 hours. My point is that saying that "Southern ones are more carefree and want to relax" is false and prejudiced.
- 67726e 10y ago> My source says 38 hours. Care to cite your source then?
- stronglikedan 10y agoFalse? Maybe, maybe not - I have no idea. Prejudiced? Most certainly not.
- NetStrikeForce 10y agoIf you don't know if it's false or not, you clearly don't have the data to judge it, hence you've got prejudices. Fun fact: Most Spaniards I've met in UK are shocked by the "calling off sick" (after a night out) and low effort culture they've found in Britain. I personally think that's not true either, but tells me more about Spaniards than anything. Truth is Spain is unproductive due to corruption. Also, you've got prejudices, like everyone else :-) P.S.: I'm Spaniard and I consider myself lazy, hence why I got in IT (earn more with less effort). I run away from manual labour :-)
- lowry 10y agoJust like saying that Walloon are dumber than Flemish.
- dillonisacunt 10y agoIt never fails to amaze me when American's are so comfortable to comment on other cultures they know little about when making criticism or analysis. Obviously there are cultural differences, however there isnt therefore an implication that Europeans somehow work less productively or even differently than those in the United States as some commenters seem to be suggesting. I guarantee that Spanish startups dont fail because they have siestas; language barriers, distribution issues and international laws will have so much more sway in success than any minor cultural difference such as how chilled out a group of people are. A food delivery start up starting in Texas can probably scale to surrounding states pretty easily compared to one starting in Spain and expanding into Belgium
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- raverbashing 10y agoIt would be good if Spain could get in with the 20th century and use air-conditioning (but yes, it's a cultural thing)
- edko 10y agoIt may be true, but infrastructure has nothing to do with work ethics.
- adlpz 10y agoSpaniard here. Generalising a bit, _all_ offices here have air conditioning, and _nobody_ does the siesta thing.
- collyw 10y agoA lot of smaller shops do siesta hours closing from 2 - 4 or 4.30.
- NetStrikeForce 10y agoThere's air conditioned everywhere, not sure which Spain you've visited really. On the other hand, it doesn't have to be ON all the time at like 19 degrees Celsius like in the US, where I carry a jacket around to put it on only when I'm inside a building :-)
- jahewson 10y agoWhile the Spanish work day is longer, it's not necessarily more productive. Long lunch breaks and the fact that the country uses the wrong time zone (enforced by Franco, no less) make the Spanish a sleep-deprived people: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21704816-and-knackered-it-out-sync-sun http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21704816-and-knackered-...
- JohnStrange 10y agoI have something to say about that. I live in Portugal as a foreigner and the working hours mean nothing. People are making coffee breaks all day long and the amount of sloppiness and incompetence can often be mind-boggling. As an example, my German girlfriend works in a dental laboratory and her Portuguese colleague would not possibly understand why it's not common practice in a German laboratory to watch Youtube videos on your cell phone while working. He really, honestly didn't believe it when she told him that German bosses don't appreciate that. To be fair, salaries in Portugal are ridiculous, I have no idea how people get along with 600 Euro/m, 800 Euro/m tops, when at least in Lisbon rents are high. Some hard working people seem to literally live off toasted bread and coffee. This is disguised by the average salary of 1000 Euro/m after taxes, because the gap between rich and poor is very high. I myself work at university, and I can attest that what takes 1 day at maximum anywhere in Northern Europe is projected to take 1-3 weeks here. I have a colleague who surfs on the Net the whole day and gets paid for it -- again, extremely bad payment, though. So no, mere presence does not count and work hours don't count either. For Portugal, I blame the bosses, though, who seem to be universally incompetent assholes and reliably manage to create a catastrophic working atmosphere. Sorry if I've offended some Portuguese, but that's my impression of the work ethics here after nearly a decade of living here. It has its advantages but productivity is not one of them.
- wott 10y agoBah, I could tell the exact same stories about middle Europe and northern Europe.
- marknutter 10y ago> it's not common practice in a German laboratory to watch Youtube videos on your cell phone while working Boy have I got news for you...
- devuo 10y agoYou have not offended this Portuguese. However, if one was to go exclusively by your account, one would come out with the understanding that is a country of incompetent slackers, and I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true. I do however concede that most of management in here is fairly amateurish and incompetent.