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> For start "lunch hour" is mandatory and in reality it means you spend extra hour at work. I would rather spend a hour with my kid than eating with my boss. H

by sampo 11y ago

> For start "lunch hour" is mandatory and in reality it means you spend extra hour at work. I would rather spend a hour with my kid than eating with my boss. Her boss invited her to lunch for one time, just to demonstrate that lunch is supposed to be (in Switzerland) something else than eating a sandwich at your desk. If you read 4 sentences further, there is: "When I was on maternity leave, my husband came home for lunch to help me care for our daughter." So you are free to spend the lunch hour however, also visiting your home and children. Lunch with boss is not mandatory.

alkonaut 11y ago
Taking the lunch break isn't optional however. Not sure exactly but I think I'm required to have a 40-45 min lunch break, which doesn't count towards my daily 8h of work. In practice as I'm in a white collar job with flexible hours, this doesn't matter so much. I count as work when I check my email while commuting. If I take a lunch at my desk because something needs to be fixed, I count it as work. Simple as that.
Dylan16807 11y ago
>So you are free to spend the lunch hour however, also visiting your home and children. Sure, if my job is very close to my house. Otherwise it's an hour spent neither working nor at home.
- sampo 11y ago
  > Sure, if my job is very close to my house. I'd guess that is indeed quite common in Switzerland. So having a 1 hour lunch break in the middle of the day makes sense for them, but would not make sense in the US, where much longer commutes are the norm.
  - alkonaut 11y ago
    The commutes are just the other side of the same coin: The way the US treats it's work/life balance has had deeper consequences. If you aren't expected to leave the kids to school and also have dinner with them at 5pm, then you might just as well work a long day. And since you are working late anyway, you could just as well have a longer commute. On a weekday, work is expected to be a full day. Not just half the day. The 2yo will be asleep when you come home anyway. So imho the sprawling city is born from not just the car culture, also the work/life balance culture. If you are supposed to leave kids at 8 and pick them up at 4 then obviously a 1h commute isn't really doable. Public transit and compact cities follow naturally from that.
    - sampo 11y ago
      > The 2yo will be asleep when you come home anyway. This implies only one of the parents goes to work?
      - alkonaut 11y ago
        Yes, that is the second consequence of being expected to work >8h with 1h commutes - one parent stays home when you have kids.
        sampo 11y ago
        I have to wonder, which is more efficient/beneficial for the society, two people both working 7.5 hour days, or one person working 10-12 hours and another staying at home.
        alkonaut 11y ago
        I think it depends. In the long run the trap that must be avoided is when women (usually women) leave the workforce after having children since "one parent stays at home" often means "mothers stay at home", after which they have a hard time reentering it (or have to re-qualify/take other jobs etc, which is a huge waste). If the burden of looking after children is split more evenly between mother and father (say 1 year at a time as long as necessary) and both parents keep their careers afterwards, the difference is smaller. The question is what the state can do to encourage this kind of equality and prevent women from leaving the workforce. The view in progressive economies tends to be that it's long parental leaves, where there is a large part earmarked for the father. Edit: I should add that the US actually has a pretty decent labour force participation for women. The view that women in the US often end up "homemakers" after having children seems to be pretty exaggerated. http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2012/ted_20120907.htm http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2012/ted_20120907.htm There are countries (Italy and Turkey stand out) where the situation is much worse, to the point where it probably makes a significant dent in the GDP/Capita.

by sampo 11y ago

alkonaut 11y ago

Taking the lunch break isn't optional however. Not sure exactly but I think I'm required to have a 40-45 min lunch break, which doesn't count towards my daily 8h of work. In practice as I'm in a white collar job with flexible hours, this doesn't matter so much. I count as work when I check my email while commuting. If I take a lunch at my desk because something needs to be fixed, I count it as work. Simple as that.

Dylan16807 11y ago

>So you are free to spend the lunch hour however, also visiting your home and children. Sure, if my job is very close to my house. Otherwise it's an hour spent neither working nor at home.

sampo 11y ago
> Sure, if my job is very close to my house. I'd guess that is indeed quite common in Switzerland. So having a 1 hour lunch break in the middle of the day makes sense for them, but would not make sense in the US, where much longer commutes are the norm.
- alkonaut 11y ago
  The commutes are just the other side of the same coin: The way the US treats it's work/life balance has had deeper consequences. If you aren't expected to leave the kids to school and also have dinner with them at 5pm, then you might just as well work a long day. And since you are working late anyway, you could just as well have a longer commute. On a weekday, work is expected to be a full day. Not just half the day. The 2yo will be asleep when you come home anyway. So imho the sprawling city is born from not just the car culture, also the work/life balance culture. If you are supposed to leave kids at 8 and pick them up at 4 then obviously a 1h commute isn't really doable. Public transit and compact cities follow naturally from that.
  - sampo 11y ago
    > The 2yo will be asleep when you come home anyway. This implies only one of the parents goes to work?
    - alkonaut 11y ago
      Yes, that is the second consequence of being expected to work >8h with 1h commutes - one parent stays home when you have kids.
      - sampo 11y ago
        I have to wonder, which is more efficient/beneficial for the society, two people both working 7.5 hour days, or one person working 10-12 hours and another staying at home.
        alkonaut 11y ago
        I think it depends. In the long run the trap that must be avoided is when women (usually women) leave the workforce after having children since "one parent stays at home" often means "mothers stay at home", after which they have a hard time reentering it (or have to re-qualify/take other jobs etc, which is a huge waste). If the burden of looking after children is split more evenly between mother and father (say 1 year at a time as long as necessary) and both parents keep their careers afterwards, the difference is smaller. The question is what the state can do to encourage this kind of equality and prevent women from leaving the workforce. The view in progressive economies tends to be that it's long parental leaves, where there is a large part earmarked for the father. Edit: I should add that the US actually has a pretty decent labour force participation for women. The view that women in the US often end up "homemakers" after having children seems to be pretty exaggerated. http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2012/ted_20120907.htm http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2012/ted_20120907.htm There are countries (Italy and Turkey stand out) where the situation is much worse, to the point where it probably makes a significant dent in the GDP/Capita.