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Eating at your desk is banned in France
- ankaAr 4y agoI will show this to my boss, while he eats (again) a full water melon at his desk.
- Zababa 4y ago> Eating a salad at your desk may not be the most memorable kind of lunch, but at least you can get some work done. In France, that's forbidden. > The French labor code prohibits workers from eating lunch in the workplace. Is that a thing? At all my desk jobs I've had collegues (or myself) eating at their desks. It seems like it's indeed a thing https://grh.ooreka.fr/astuce/voir/266456/manger-a-son-poste-de-travail-restrictions-et-interdictions https://grh.ooreka.fr/astuce/voir/266456/manger-a-son-poste-..., but I don't think it's applied for desk jobs. It's the first time I've heard of it.
- nfrankel 4y agoI can confirm it's forbidden. Depending on how sensitive the company (and its lawyers) is, it may be enforced or not.
- izacus 4y agoI've ever only seen people gobble down food while working on my visits in US. Across EU is much rarer.
- sky-kedge0749 4y agoGobbling down food is the correct mental image, along with someone in the middle of taking a bite being approached by an apologetic coworker, sighing, putting the food down and plastering a big smile on their face as they ask, "What's up?"
- damagednoob 4y agoThis is one of the reasons why I love to work from home. I'm not beholden to company policy that seeks to improve productivity at the expense of how I choose to structure my day. Maybe I eat at my desk so I can spend that hour lunch break with my kid in the afternoon. Maybe I'll take a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day because I didn't sleep well the previous night. I'm so glad to be rid of these inflexible, petty rules that are for the average, not the individual.
- feet 4y agoThis. I eat at my desk because I want that break time to do something else that actually matters to me and furthers my own personal goals
- sky-kedge0749 4y agoIn some places this can develop into the expectation that everyone eats while working at their desk every day. You're not shifting the free time, you're just losing it. Then anyone who announces "okay, off to a cafe, see you in an hour" is seen as slacking.
- dopidopHN 4y agoYes. I see this law as a way to protect employees with less agency. Nobody will actually enforce it, but employee will know that eating at a normal pace and taking a breather is an option.
- wutbrodo 4y agoIMO the bulk of this is due to workplace culture, not being remote. Naturally being at home adds some logistical flexibility, but the bulk of the gap is between companies who treat their employees like toddlers and those who actually respect them as adults (see also: dress code for non-customer-facing work, overly-fixed hours, etc). You can see this distinction in the slow creep of employee-monitoring software over the last couple of years, where being remote doesn't save you (though I would guess that this is unlikely to take hold). On the flipside, there are workplaces who avoid this form of contempt for their employees without being remote. My in-office job at eg Google had the majority of the flexibility you're describing, including the naps! The other companies I've been at didn't have the same resources as the Googleplex, but still trusted me to understand best what determined my productivity. Perhaps I've been spoiled, but I truly can't imagine working somewhere that was so openly disrespectful of my ability to do my job effectively; I'd feel like a McCashier or something. On the axis of workaholism, this French law and, say, Goldman Sachs may be on opposite sides of the spectrum. But on the axes of treating employees like children, they're two sides of the same coin.
- greatgib 4y agoArticle 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 France, even if a lot of people are sadly not respecting it.
- baggy_trough 4y agoWhat is the obvious reason, for it escapes me?
- greatgib 4y agoHere is a link for you to make it more obvious: https://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/2013/02/eating_lunch_at_your_desk_can_expose_you.html 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
- baggy_trough 4y agoAbsurd rubbish.
- goodpoint 4y ago"it is forbidden to eat at your desk" is phrased as clickbait. Nobody is sending the lunch police to target employees. This is about requiring employers to provide proper canteens and respecting employees basic needs.
- nybble41 4y agoThe "clickbait" headline is merely stating the law. Article R4228-19: "Il est interdit de laisser les travailleurs prendre leur repas dans les locaux affectés au travail."[0] Google translates this as "It is forbidden to allow workers to take their meals in the premises assigned to the work." Enforcement may be lax but the headline is perfectly accurate. [0] https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000018531960 https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000...
- thenerdhead 4y agoWe 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.
- zdragnar 4y agoNo, we really don't need more laws governing our behavior, especially at home. Culturally, I do agree that people should have the opportunity to get mental breaks- things like non-working lunch ought to be as important as any meeting. Writing it into law just creates more perverse incentives, though. Punishing people who chose to eat at their desk- even if they aren't working!- is asinine and counterproductive.
- sokoloff 4y agoI 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.
- thenerdhead 4y agoEveryone blocks their calendar off and it still happens. That’s why I commented in the first place. Respecting said hour especially working remotely with teammates in various time zones is the challenge. Add on the workplace culture and it can be even more challenging.
- cudgy 4y ago“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.
- causality0 4y agoNinety 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.
- achenet 4y agoFrenchman here. I leave the office at 6pm at the latest, and I take 2 hour lunch breaks everyday. :)
- balfirevic 4y agoThat's not informative at all without knowing when you arrive.
- achenet 4y agoDaily meeting is at 9h30. I generally show up a bit before that if in office, or log on a bit before that if WFH. 9 at the earliest, generally closer to 9h15, 9h20. :)
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y agoJust scheduled my time off for the year, 46 days off, not counting week-ends and national holidays. Please someone save me from this oppressive regime!
- csdvrx 4y ago> Frenchman here. I leave the office at 6pm at the latest, and I take 2 hour lunch breaks everyday. :) Good for you - not for me. I do intermittent fasting. I often eat by 4pm. Should I need the government authorization to eat at my desk at 4pm? (or leave at 4pm to eat at home which is equivalent to you leaving at 6pm after a 2h lunch break) Or would I need to take a 2h break I don't want to? Government regulation of lifestyles is acceptable when you have an extremely homogeneous population and culture: this can work in Japan. This might work in France. This sure won't work here in the US.
- twistedcheeslet 4y agoAs 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.
- martin8412 4y agoYou don't understand the point.. They don't work those hours.
- jchanimal 4y agoIf 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.
- twistedcheeslet 4y agoGetting 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.
- seszett 4y agoRegularly working 10-12 hours a day is more banned than eating at your desk in France, so that's not actually a problem.
- sheepdestroyer 4y agoAFAIK, the standard is still 35 hours a week in France
- raverbashing 4y agoPeople 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
- elcapitan 4y agoOh god yes, I had a coworker next to me (on a round table) once who used to create a huge bowl of salad each day and then eat it over the course of an hour or so. It's not only noises and smells, but also the constant view of someone shoveling food into their mouth while you try to focus. He used to do that later in the afternoon, so I couldn't arrange an overlap with me being away from desk for lunch myself. Absolute nightmare. Covid home office was the best thing that ever happened to people like me.
- phendrenad2 4y agoI 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.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y agoA very à propos clip from a french TV-show about the cultural differences between France and the U.S wrt lunch: https://youtu.be/EAyQfctnWqw?t=93 https://youtu.be/EAyQfctnWqw?t=93 Not at all surprised to see people here framing a law supporting workers' rights as an infringement on personal liberties. Comparing the work cultures of both countries, it's clear Americans will defend their personal liberties right into servitude.
- throw10920 4y agoThis is an emotionally-manipulative, inflammatory comment that shouldn't be on HN.
- pacaro 4y agoMy sister worked at a bank in northern France in the mid nineties, she found it hard that all her coworkers went home for lunch, and her apartment was too far from the office and on her income eating at a bistro couldn't be a daily thing. So the rosy picture of amiable lunches doesn't always apply
- GekkePrutser 4y agoThese days it's quite affordable. Most restaurants do lunch deals with 3 courses and drink for 10-12€. This is not France but Spain, similar lunch culture though.
- rmnclmnt 4y agoWhatever they say, I’ve known plenty of people eating a sandwich at their desk in France. Some companies like to remind it’s forbidden but usually only to keep the open-spaces clean in case some high profile guy walks around and takes a look, not because they care about people needing a proper lunch break.
- katzgrau 4y agoLuckily my office is pretty close to downtown, so I make it a point to grab lunch out every day. And of course, it's usually with coworkers. It adds variety to the day and I feel more connected with everybody. If I have a string of days with lunchtime calls and I have to eat something at my desk, I'm definitely starting to feel out of sync with the company and this weird feeling of anxiety starts to set in until I'm back in the usual groove.
- cellu 4y agoUnfortunately anglo-Americans will not get this. They live in a Plato’s cave and are unable to understand what quality of life really means.
- analog31 4y agoFor a couple of years, I worked in a room full of cubicles, and a low ceiling, so the noise control was pretty much nonexistent. There were a handful of people whose lunches consisted of bags of cut up carrots and celery. They at their lunches at random times, so I was treated to roughly 1.5 hours per day of intermittent loud munching. Eventually I joined a different work team. Today, my site has a decent enough cafeteria, and those of us who bring bag lunches just go over there to eat. It's also a good time to talk to the different engineering disciplines outside of their silos.
- morninglight 4y agoThe late Patrick Henry Winston stopped eating at his desk in an effort to lose weight. As part of his "General Patton Diet", he subsequently lost 60 lbs in 100 days. Before: http://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/pensees/welcomethen.jpg http://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/pensees/welcomethen.jpg After: https://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/pensees/welcomenow.jpg https://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/pensees/welcomenow.jpg "I learned to eat and drink veeeeeery slowly at the table meant for eating, not in front of my computer screen. I used to cram in a day's worth of calories in a few minutes, before my body had any idea I was eating anything, which experts say takes 20 minutes." https://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/index.html https://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/index.html .
- spinaltap 4y agoSounds like Elon Musk will never open a Gigafactory in France then.
- pmoriarty 4y agoBut are you still allowed to eat in front of your TV?
- cudgy 4y agoPersonally, I don’t want to smell everybody’s lunches and burnt microwave food while I work for the rest of the day.
- wenc 4y agoIn 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.
- simonblack 4y agoAnd it should be banned. Why are you not resting your mind away from the work environment and having that meal in a peaceful surrounding? And that's apart from the likelihood of being pressured to perform unpaid work during that 'rest period'.