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It’s funny how relative this is. My American friends tell me: we work, you Germans live. My Italian friends say: we live, you Germans work.
by baxtr 8y ago
It’s funny how relative this is. My American friends tell me: we work, you Germans live. My Italian friends say: we live, you Germans work.
- anoncoward111 8y agoWho has it better than the Italians? Maybe Greeks. Or the obscenely rich :)
- erokar 8y agoGreeks work long hours, but productivity is low.
- anoncoward111 8y agoI think before austerity measure were put in place (which I don't support at all btw), Greeks retired in their 50s and had lots of vacation, no? Is productivity low in gross Euro terms? The Greek cost of living is certainly cheaper than most countries, but a loaf of bread is a loaf of bread anywhere you go.
- zerogvt 8y agoA bit of fact-checking would be nice before adding to false stereotypes https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS Use the arrows to sort for any year. Then check the ordered list.
- zoul 8y agoI’m from the Czech Republic and the tempo here is about the same as in Germany. When we have recently been to Taiwan, I felt like an utter slacker compared to the work/life balance there. It’s really an eye-opening experience, knowing that there are much more extreme approaches in both ways that are considered normal.
- yoodenvranx 8y agoI heard it slightly different: French people work to live and German people live to work.
- baxtr 8y agoYeah you’re right. That’s probably the more accurate version of it
- jlangenauer 8y agoWhat rubbish. Germans are fiercely protective of their work/life balance.
- xtracto 8y agoI worked I Germany for 4 years. At some point, a German colleague and I went on a visit to a French Institute. Their schedule: 9.00am everybody arrived. 9.30-10.30 coffee/chat time 10.30-12.00 do sone work 12.00-1.30 lunch time 1.30-3.30 some more work. 3.30-4.30 coffee/chat time. 4.30-5.00 wrap up work for the day 5.00 everybody left. After 3 weeks working with this schedule, my German co-worker commented that she had no idea how French managed to get anything done.
- agumonkey 8y agoThat institute is probably high on the exception scale. My mother has 20minutes to eat and there's no restaurant in her company. That said French people don't have the work 101% mentality but slacking off is not the norm either.
- eeZah7Ux 8y agoThese comparison are pretty silly.
- agumonkey 8y agocultural relativity is impressive. - time to eat - working hours
- htfy96 8y agoUntil you join a game company in China where everyone works 12+ h/day, 6 days/wrek
- OkGoDoIt 8y ago996: 9am-9pm, 6 days a week I don’t know how people handle that. I once had a friend in China cancel meeting me for lunch because he was too busy with work even though he was on sick leave because he had literally worked himself sick. Apparently most tech companies there do it and there’sa lot of competition for jobs so you don’t have the luxury of holding out for a job that has work life balance.
- cylinder 8y agoI think anyone with a corporate career and ambition is working hard these days. The difference with Americans is that so many in the workplace are just overly jittery disorganised idiots and it creates a cascading effect onto the culture.