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Literally nobody here takes 3 hour lunch breaks. A lot of offices have 2 hours, yeah, but this is becoming less and less common regardless. Small shops do close
by mcjiggerlog 9y ago
Literally nobody here takes 3 hour lunch breaks. A lot of offices have 2 hours, yeah, but this is becoming less and less common regardless. Small shops do close for 3 hours in the middle of the day, but they are open till about 9pm which is a lot more useful than being open in the middle of the day. It also should be noted that there are actually 5 meals in a spaniard's day. There's a mid-morning and late-afternoon snack, which is the actual reason for the "late" lunch and dinners.
Also, all changing the timezone would do is give us useless light early in the morning and less light in the evening to go out and play sports, hang out in the park etc. People would still eat at the same time regardless. It gets dark at 6pm in the winter and 10pm in the summer. It's not exactly crazy.
- kgwgk 9y ago> Literally nobody here takes 3 hour lunch breaks. [...] Small shops do close for 3 hours in the middle of the day Doesn't anybody work in those small shops? > There's a mid-morning and late-afternoon snack The mid-morning snack is not generalised and the late-afternoon snack is mostly for kids (after-school "merienda").
- professorTuring 9y agoYes, but they don't take 3 hours to have lunch. Also closed to the public doesn't mean not working (back-office!).
- kgwgk 9y agoLet's call them lunch+siesta breaks then. Edit: to be clear, I agree that most people doesn't have siestas and three-hours breaks only remain common in some sectors (retail) and places (small cities). The original article doesn't make much sense, by the way.
- bill45 9y ago>Doesn't anybody work in those small shops? It's not a break if they make up that time later. Sounds more like working a shift, and then starting a second shift later.
- subway 9y agoToday I learned unpaid breaks are not breaks.
- anigbrowl 9y agoA break is generally considered as a short period of time amid an otherwise continuous activity. You don't conceive of night as a break between days, even though you could stretch the definition of the word to accommodate that. Likewise the siesta is not simply an overgrown lunch break.
- pc86 9y agoI can assure you that working 4 hours, taking 3 off, then working 4 again, is most definitely a break.
- hanoz 9y agoIs working 8 hours, taking 16 off, then working 8 again, a break?
- bitJericho 9y agoIf you live for the weekend!
- hanoz 9y agoTouché
- vacri 9y agoYes. It's not normally called that, but it's a break. A 5-minute break is a break. A 3-month sabbatical is a break. Rephrase the original comment for a brief rest when working: "if you make up that 5 minutes later, then it's not a break". It's a nonsensical comment.
- icebraining 9y agoOpen 'till 9pm? Where? Every time I'm in Spain (mostly in Galiza) it seems like the stores still close at 7-8pm, despite only opening at around 4:30pm.
- mcjiggerlog 9y agoI'm in Madrid. Independent shops are usually 0930-1400 and 1700-2030/2100. Chains are open about 0900-2100.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago> Small shops do close for 3 hours in the middle of the day ... the next related news headline will be "Say Goodbye to Spain's Glorious Small Shops"
- pier25 9y agoSpaniard here can confirm.
- jitix 9y ago> It gets dark at 6pm in the winter and 10pm in the summer I dont think its natural anywhere in the world. What time is sunrise during winter?
- mcjiggerlog 9y agoAbout 0830
- xrange 9y agohttp://www.gaisma.com/en/location/madrid.html http://www.gaisma.com/en/location/madrid.html
- ceejayoz 9y agoMatches pretty well with the data on https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/spain/madrid https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/spain/madrid.
- hueving 9y agoCheck out any place towards the northern end of the US at the west edge of its time zone. (e.g Kalispell, MT). Exactly the same.
- malnourish 9y agoAbsolutely gets dark in MN around 6pm or earlier in the winter
- hoov 9y agoSun sat at 4:15 PM in Boston last December 21st. I'd take 6 PM over that. Sunrise was 7:10.
- mrkrabo 9y agoSpaniard; can confirm. 3 hour breaks are simply mandatory for small shops. In the south of the country during summer there is literally no way you can go out until... 19 or so if you don't want to die. So if shops closed then, there would be no business.
- davidw 9y agoSmall shops manage to operate in, say, Arizona during those hours. That said, I think Spain's hours are a more natural adaptation to the climate than Arizona's.
- JBReefer 9y agoUntil recently, most Arizonans also grew English-style grass lawns, with water that had to be piped in and species that are certainly not native. Apparently that's rapidly ending, so maybe the standard schedule will change as well someday.
- davidw 9y ago> Apparently that's rapidly ending, so maybe the standard schedule will change as well someday. Those hours are pretty ingrained in US culture, though, and virtually no one (compared to the present population) would live in Arizona without massive amounts of air conditioning anyway, whereas conserving water has a direct economic advantage in the here and now.
- kobeya 9y ago> virtually no one would live in Arizona without massive amounts of air conditioning I presume you mean south of Flagstaff. It's actually quite nice in the north :)
- hueving 9y agoWith the invention of air conditioning and an abundance of solar power during the desert day, it's pretty stupid to let the weather dictate your behavior. People exist in Chicago despite the fact that it would be completely inhospitable without heating sources. The only difference is that air conditioning is a newer invention so people like you view it as some kind of opulent luxury rather than a technological tool like anything else.
- scythe 9y ago>useless light early in the morning That light wakes people up and increases their energy levels. It's not always pleasant, but work isn't supposed to be. For example, in the US, pushing school start times back from 8 to 9 results in an increase in student performance (it was originally 9 and then moved to 8 to save money on buses).
- anigbrowl 9y agoYour example seems contradictory of your point. Since starting school alter is documented to increase student performance (perhaps because it also increases teacher performance), why would you want to have lower performance? I also don't see why work shouldn't be pleasant except insofar as it's an unavoidable necessity for it to be otherwise. If you want people to work under less pleasant conditions, then the pay should be raised correspondingly.
- scythe 9y agoYou have misinterpreted the example. Students perform better at 9, that is, when the school day corresponds with the solar day. It was moved to 8, as I said, to save money on buses. If it seems insane to you to compromise student achievement in order to save money on buses, please direct your concerns to the Republican Party of the United States, and not to me. Pay cannot be raised to compensate for the unpleasantness of light coming through your window in the morning. I don't see why you chose to argue about that.
- fs111 9y ago> There's a mid-morning [...] snack so you are basically hobbits?
- coldtea 9y ago>Literally nobody here takes 3 hour lunch breaks. A lot of offices have 2 hours, yeah, but this is becoming less and less common regardless. Is that because nobody likes to, or because pressures for employers and economic conformity forces them? That this is "becoming less and less common" (implying it was indeed common) speaks to the latter.
- cplanas 9y agoNobody wants to. In fact, doing no lunch break is considered a privilege. Nobody wants to work from 9AM to 8PM, even if you have three break hours at lunch. That's time you lose for being with family, friends...
- StavrosK 9y agoWe have the 3 hour lunch break here too (Greece), and yes, it is extremely inconvenient. It means you have to do your commute twice, and that you lose the whole day. Some people like it, because it lets you eat and take a short nap and rest, but then you have to go back to work, which is a pretty big downside. However, we don't consider it a lunch break here, we consider it as having to work two shorter shifts per day.
- coldtea 9y ago>Some people like it, because it lets you eat and take a short nap and rest, but then you have to go back to work, which is a pretty big downside. That, in Greece and elsewhere where it happens, is usually a habit from an earlier era, when most city businesses were small and/or family owned, retail stores and the like, and people lived in neighborhoods next to their business. So they would just close the store, had lunch or a nap etc at the house, and come back open for business again at the afternoon. The current situation is a regression, and not because of the remnants of the "3 hour break": commutes and/or major traffic, and offices that demand people stay late without major breaks, so you get the same 8-9pm to late shift, working constantly (and then having to commute back).
- coldtea 9y ago
- gasull 9y agoSpaniard here. I can confirm. Nobody takes 3-hour lunch breaks. 2 hours are common, but an hour and 30 minutes is more common.