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.
French people work to live and German people live to work.
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.
That said French people don't have the work 101% mentality but slacking off is not the norm either.
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.
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.
- time to eat
- working hours