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> “Around 46% of Spaniards are still at work at 6pm, and 10% are still there at 9pm,” says Berbel. “So they are not having a good time, they are working.” Remi

by harryf 6y ago

> “Around 46% of Spaniards are still at work at 6pm, and 10% are still there at 9pm,” says Berbel. “So they are not having a good time, they are working.” Reminds me when I moved from the UK to Germany (and later Switzerland) and was blown away, in the German office I worked in, how they worked less hours (most people strictly 8am to 4pm) and were at least a factor of 5 times more productive than anything I'd experienced in the UK. The typical "average working day" I witnessed in a number of UK companies in London (I was an IT freelancer back in the mid-to-late 90's) went like... - Arrive 9am-ish (depending on the Tube) - Drink coffee, talk about football, what was on TV last night and whatever funny thing happened at the pub last night and basically almost no work until... - 12 noon... time to get something done for an hour before lunch - Lunch for 1 - 1.5 hours... some people already drinking their first beer - Get back from lunch, pretend to work while being half asleep from a large lunch - 4pm something's on fire... big crisis! Gotta be fixed NOW - 8-9pm... fire now extinguished. Leave to the pub with colleagues That's slanted toward an IT department but from what was basically 12 hours of being at work in some work, there was probably only 4-5 hours of productivity. The key difference I witnessed in Germany was people went to work to work, not to socialise, and were actually getting more done in less time. There was also a bias towards being pro-active over being re-active, which meant less fire-fighting, which in turn meant time could be better managed.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Huh, funny enough, a guy I worked with in Germany had a similar experience but felt very different about it. He disliked the strict 8 hours/day(or more during crunch time) butt-in-chair concentrated German work ethic that left him(and me) mentally spent and tired by the end of the day and moved to the UK where, despite the usual putting out fires before a release was due, he gets paid more and can come at work close to 10AM and leave before 4PM while not doing much work most of the time leaving him plenty of energy for fun in the evening and saying he'll never go back to working in Germany. Can't say I don't envy him. I mean, is life about being as productive as you can for someone else or for enjoying it yourself? Maybe the Brits have it right.
- partyboat1586 6y ago
  It depends on the individual office. 10am to 4pm is rare. I would say the average is 9:30am til 5:30 - 6pm. If the office is mostly middle aged people with families or it's a bigger company you see more early starts early finishes 9am - 5:30pm of for some people with kids 8am - 4:30pm. In an office of mostly younger people you see the 9:30am til 7pm+ marathons when actual work needs to get done. Because so much time is spent recovering from lunch, recovering from the hangover, waiting for coffee the long hours become necessary. A 10am start is quite uncommon, everywhere I've worked (5 different places so far) no one would look at you funny as long as you're in _before_ 10am and put in your hours but after 10am is a stretch. I also personally dislike the alcohol and coffee culture because overall it just makes you tired. It was fun in the beginning but when the real work starts to kick it is exhausting. I quit both for a month and felt a lot better for it.
hordeallergy 6y ago
I never get in before 10:30 because I refuse to use the tube before ~9:30. If it gets crowded while I'm on it I get off and wait. I have to extend my day accordingly. The transport and offices spaces are the productivity killers imo - demotivating and disruptive.

by harryf 6y ago

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

Huh, funny enough, a guy I worked with in Germany had a similar experience but felt very different about it. He disliked the strict 8 hours/day(or more during crunch time) butt-in-chair concentrated German work ethic that left him(and me) mentally spent and tired by the end of the day and moved to the UK where, despite the usual putting out fires before a release was due, he gets paid more and can come at work close to 10AM and leave before 4PM while not doing much work most of the time leaving him plenty of energy for fun in the evening and saying he'll never go back to working in Germany. Can't say I don't envy him. I mean, is life about being as productive as you can for someone else or for enjoying it yourself? Maybe the Brits have it right.

partyboat1586 6y ago
It depends on the individual office. 10am to 4pm is rare. I would say the average is 9:30am til 5:30 - 6pm. If the office is mostly middle aged people with families or it's a bigger company you see more early starts early finishes 9am - 5:30pm of for some people with kids 8am - 4:30pm. In an office of mostly younger people you see the 9:30am til 7pm+ marathons when actual work needs to get done. Because so much time is spent recovering from lunch, recovering from the hangover, waiting for coffee the long hours become necessary. A 10am start is quite uncommon, everywhere I've worked (5 different places so far) no one would look at you funny as long as you're in _before_ 10am and put in your hours but after 10am is a stretch. I also personally dislike the alcohol and coffee culture because overall it just makes you tired. It was fun in the beginning but when the real work starts to kick it is exhausting. I quit both for a month and felt a lot better for it.

hordeallergy 6y ago

I never get in before 10:30 because I refuse to use the tube before ~9:30. If it gets crowded while I'm on it I get off and wait. I have to extend my day accordingly. The transport and offices spaces are the productivity killers imo - demotivating and disruptive.