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I spent part of my childhood in France/Switzerland, and one thing I'll never forget is a scene of street construction in a French town. It's about 11:30am, and
by jihadjihad 3y ago
I spent part of my childhood in France/Switzerland, and one thing I'll never forget is a scene of street construction in a French town. It's about 11:30am, and three guys all get done with the excavator and jackhammers. One guy goes and grabs something long from the bed of a truck, another heads to the cab and reaches for a brightly colored bundle, and the third guy grabs some chairs from the other side.
Right in the middle of the cordoned-off construction zone, the first guy sets up a folding table, the second guy neatly places a tablecloth on top along with a baguette and bottle of wine and some cheese etc., and the third guy brings up the chairs. These guys sat down for a nice meal for 90 minutes, at least, before getting back to work.
I think my American parents thought, "Wow, how in the hell does anything ever get built in this country?" while my thought was mostly, "that seems really nice, they look so relaxed!"
- koolba 3y ago> … It's about 11:30am, and three guys all get done with the excavator and jackhammers … > … and bottle of wine … So operating heavy equipment after consuming alcohol?
- TremendousJudge 3y agoThis was normal everywhere not so long ago
- jihadjihad 3y agoI had always heard, but never corroborated, that the typical 750ml volume of a bottle of wine was chosen because it was an appropriate amount for two people to consume at lunch. Is it true? I have no idea! But those guys would have emphatically agreed, I think.
- Solvency 3y agoWhoever told you that was an alcoholic.
- mauvehaus 3y agoOne random site[0] on the internet says the 750ml[1] size began to be standardized on in the early 18th century. That's something like 250-300 years ago. It could be entirely true that it was considered an appropriate amount of wine for two people to share over lunch at that time. Certainly other norms have changed since then. [0] https://disndis.com/blogs/blog/why-wine-bottles-are-750-ml https://disndis.com/blogs/blog/why-wine-bottles-are-750-ml [1] Give or take a margin of error, decreasing over time, one suspects.
- kergonath 3y ago> It could be entirely true that it was considered an appropriate amount of wine for two people to share over lunch at that time. Alcohol content in wine went up significantly, as well.
- its_ethan 3y agoI think the "appropriate" amount of alcohol to consume before operating construction equipment is actually lower than 750ml... lower by about 750ml...
- lm28469 3y agoWhat kind of lunch ? A sunday lunch maybe, if you down half a bottle of wine per day during the week you have an alcohol problem. At work it's certainly not appropriate, especially not for construction work
- oconnor663 3y agoI have no idea, but the alcohol content of different wines varies by quite a bit, and probably also changed over time?
- sacado2 3y agoYes. AFAIK "Table wine" (and table beer in northern regions) was pretty light. Just enough alcohol to kill germs.
- sealeck 3y agoAs in the immortal words of Lucille Bluth: "wine only turns into alcohol when you let it sit".
- pm3003 3y agoHere in France it certainly was nothing that would get you labelled an alcoholic 40 years ago. But it was rather an upper limit.
- hattmall 3y agoThat makes sense really. It's about 5 glasses. So for two people if it's a 2 hour lunch break even with a very low tolerance at the end of lunch your BAC would be very close to 0.00. The average 150lb male metabolizes 1 glass of wine per 45-60 minutes.
- cjrp 3y agoAir France pilots used to get wine with their in-flight meals...
- notatoad 3y agoi guarantee you that at most american construction sites, at least one of the equipment operators has had a beer with their lunch.
- alistairSH 3y agoI worked in landscaping a few summers during college. About a third of the crew was drunk or high most of the day. Driving small pickup trucks, operating commercial mowers. It was definitely eye-opening for me.
- ecshafer 3y agoWarehouses, Kitchens, Construction. A lot of the blue collar jobs in the US are done while people are high on something. I think weed is more popular than alcohol though.
- oliwarner 3y agoWoo Woo It's the sound of Le Gendarmerie. Seriously though, and while it's falling rapidly, France has a very high rate of what other countries might label functional alcoholism. A very high, daily alcohol intake, by way of habit, but not hidden, not a binge. If a glass or two is your background level, lunch isn't going to significantly impair you.
- kristjansson 3y ago> Woo Woo It's the sound of Le Gendarmerie. Woop Woop that's the sound of la brute?
- Solvency 3y agoHere I'm thinking bread and cheese and wine had to be the most disgusting malnourishing lunch possible for outside labor. How about some steak, chicken, hell a few meatballs. Protein.
- PretzelPirate 3y agoI used to be a laborer. Carbs were more important than protein.
- jjulius 3y ago>Here I'm thinking... >How about some... How about to each their own?
- alephnerd 3y agoCheese (being dairy), has a lot of protein.
- ses1984 3y agoYou and I have very different definitions of a lot of protein.
- Symbiote 3y agoCheddar cheese is about 25% protein by mass. Chicken is about 27%.
- ses1984 3y ago100 calories of BLSL chicken has 18g protein. 100 calories of cheddar has 6g of protein.
- WrongAssumption 3y agoOne ounce of steak contains 7 grams of protein. One ounce of cheese however… contains 7 grams of protein.
- bee_rider 3y agoThere’s something to be said for a good solid break. In the US, we’d have one guy who never stops using the jackhammer, two overseeing, one holding a “workers ahead” sign, and a cop playing with his phone.
- booleandilemma 3y agoCops shouldn't be allowed to carry phones while on duty.
- chuckSu 3y ago[dead]
- abfan1127 3y agothat officer is off duty, just supposed to be "present"...
- Wohlf 3y agoI'm no fan of cops but this is so hilariously petty I can't believe it's a serious opinion. Why stop at cops, doctors, nurses, and firefighters shouldn't have phones either!
- bee_rider 3y agoI think part of reason people feel this way about cops in particular sometimes is that a lot of their job is to go around monitoring things. It is hard to detect if they are actually working hard or not. Crimes are rare and noisy. If a doctor spends all day playing on their phone, the patients will notice. If a cop does—it was just a low crime day, maybe. Also the general public has more opinions about the behavior of governments employees. I dunno how to actually feel about this, from a “is it good” point of view. But I can see why people feel this way at least.
- booleandilemma 3y agoCops need to be ready for shit to go down at any moment. They should be fully aware of their surroundings at all times. Firefighters, and those other professions you mentioned, when they're working, don't have the luxury of looking at their phones. If you're a cop and you're on duty in a nyc subway station, your eyes should be on the people around you, not your screen.
- pydry 3y agoA neat illustration of French union power.
- dghughes 3y agoIt seems to have come to an end. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/07/france-allows-employers-to-ban-wine-in-the-workplace.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/07/france-allows-em... But I doubt it's followed or at least I'd bet many ignore it. My French relatives love to eat and sit down for at least two hours. There's even a word for the after dinner feeling where you chat with friends, but alas je ne sais quoi.
- nolok 3y ago> It seems to have come to an end. It really doesn't. This article is about a 100 years old law, who said alcohol is not allowed while at work, unless it's beer, cidre or poiré (alcohol from apple and pear respectively), and essentially a relic of when those were considered food and not alcohol, and we were giving wine to kids at school lunch. Some employer thought their workers drinking WHILE WORKING was not ok, and they used the law to say wine is not banned, and it went to the courts. You're free to drink whatever at lunch time, as long as you don't show up drunk, this is about drinking DURING WORK HOURS. Really not sure how you could misunderstand that case so bad you qualify it as "It seems to have come to an end."
- pm3003 3y ago> Wine to kids at school lunch. Never heard that one. My father's friends in boarding schools in the 1960s would have a glass of wine or apple wine (cidre) on sunday, but that was as wild as it got. But maybe it was a regional thing.
- nolok 3y agoINA (french video archive) of the news report in 1956 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Ez2RMjwuA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Ez2RMjwuA > En 1956, le gouvernement s'empare de la question de l'alcool dans les cantines scolaires. Pour la première fois, une mesure significative est adoptée. Désormais, aucun enfant de moins de 14 ans n'est autorisé à boire du vin à table
- 3y ago
- rayiner 3y agoI guess you can take it easy when you got rich being one of the most brutal colonial powers (which continues to tax its former colonies to this day: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/03/macron-france-cfa-franc-eco-west-central-africa-colonialism-monetary-policy-bitcoin https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/03/macron-france-cfa-franc...).
- Gud 3y agoIndeed! I work for a Swiss manufacturer of high voltage equipment. The best projects are in Romand, where they know how to enjoy life. A couple of beers at 11:30 in the workshop, before lunch, and some wine and snacks on Fridays to celebrate the achievements that week(dug a hole? Wine! Pulled cables? Wine!)
- brnt 3y agoSo many offices are closed 12-14. But don't go to the bank at 11:45: they'll be packing up and saying they're leaving for lunch. That break is really 11:30-14:30. Took me a few tries to get my bank stuff done when I just moved there. I'm used to being able to do such chores at lunch hour, but no, don't count on it in France. People are having lunch :)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]