No work after 6pm

[BagOfCrisps 24]

This sounds good!

 

Just in case you weren't jealous enough of the French already, what with their effortless style, lovely accents and collective will to calorie control, they have now just made it illegal to work after 6pm.

 

Well, sort of. Après noticing that the ability of bosses to invade their employees' home lives via smartphone at any heure of the day or night was enabling real work hours to extend further and further beyond the 35-hour week the country famously introduced in 1999, workers' unions have been fighting back. Now employers' federations and unions have signed a new, legally binding labour agreement that will require staff to switch off their phones after 6pm.

 

Under the deal, which affects a million employees in the technology and consultancy sectors (including the French arms of Google, Facebook, Deloitte and PwC), employees will also have to resist the temptation to look at work-related material on their computers or smartphones – or any other kind of malevolent intrusion into the time they have been nationally mandated to spend on whatever the French call la dolce vita. And companies must ensure that their employees come under no pressure to do so. Thus the spirit of the law – and of France – as well as the letter shall be observed.

 

That's right. While we poor, pallid, cowering Brits scurry about, increasingly cowed by the threat of recession-based redundancy and government measures that privilege bosses' and shareholder comfort over workers' rights, the continentals are clocking off. While we're staring down the barrel of another late one/extra shift/all-nighter, across the Channel they're sipping sancerre and contemplating at least the second half of a cinq à sept before going home to enjoy the rest of that lovely "work/133-hours-per-week-of-life" balance.

 

C'est all right pour some, quoi?

[tokabochi 9]

I like that.

[@tokyo 14]

Yes. It sounds like a good idea. Always on work is encroaching way too much on lifestyles now.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

I think bosses should be censed with issue because it's likely that they are insulting everyone's ancestors, even Adam Goodes and other aboriginal races, with their working after 6pm

[kokodoko 67]

japanese should take notice of this practice and go home!

 

now!

[Thundercat 60]

I lived and worked in France for two years when they had just implemented the 35 hour work week. There were lots of ways that employers were able to get around that 'law' as I'm sure there are many ways to get around this one too. I actually found that people in Paris were very hard working and efficient. They tended to work hard and play hard. I was definitely into the playing hard part at least

[tokabochi 9]

It's a good idea.

I hate the 'always on' thing that seems to get more and more every year.

[Alexander L 80]

My boss is a lazy ****er himself. But his boss got him a blackerry he's been ****ed ever since.

 

I thought he'd make me get one too, but he bit the bullet on that one. Hope he doesn't die before me.

[scouser 4]

I simply don't answer anything that I know is work after evening. I'm not 'on call'. I hate the way my gf's work seems to think it's fine to call at all times.

 

(* Yes, it's definitely them and work related).