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After a week at work, I must say I quite love how the French do it here and I am seriously considering finding a job here (or maybe another internship) after I graduate.
(I should note, though, that some things might only apply to my line of work and not the French work ethic as a whole.)
The French workspace seems to be much more social than in the States. While on the other side of the pond, cubicles are very normal and considered to enhance productivity, there are no cubicles where I work. Offices are pretty big and the desks are set up so that everybody can see each other. I much prefer this setup, mostly because I am mildly claustrophobic and being trapped in a small place the entire day does not sound fun, but also because it leads to collaboration. I work in an office with three other guys, one of which I get along with very well and who happens to be a coding whiz, and he’s been helping me with my MatLab. In the larger office where I was for the first few days, it was not uncommon to see people going up to each other to ask for advice on something they’re working on, which is something that I just don’t see happening too often with cubicles.
In addition to not having cubicles, the French seem to be polite to a fault. When I come in during the morning, I need to go up to everyone in the office and greet them personally with a kiss, or else I come across as anti-social. Since I’m usually the first one in my office of four, I just go to the bigger office, say hi to my supervisor, and then pop back into mine. But as the coworkers come in, they come up to me and greet me. The other Americans have complained saying it’s an invasion of personal space to have a stranger kiss you on the cheek… And I guess I understand that, since after 3 years in the States I have assimilated the culture quite well and I’m very much protective of my personal space, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do. That means I needed to learn how to allow strangers to get more up in my business without taking it as an invasion of space. But I digress.
In the morning, people get coffee, but it tends to not be an organized coffee break, since people come in at different times. Still, if you get your coffee, you should stay in the coffee area and talk to whomever is there, rather than brewing it and taking it back to your desk because, again, it seems anti-social. I don’t complain, because that means I have 30 minutes less of work to do.
We lunch at 12, and each research group lunches together every day except for Wednesdays, when the interns eat together. Eating seems to be very much a social thing here in France, whereas in the States it’s just a means to an end: We eat because we have to. Here, lunch is a time to relax and talk to your coworkers and bond with them. (Sounds cheesy but it’s true!) We all eat at a rather leisurely pace and don’t get up until the last one is done eating, so it usually takes about an hour to eat lunch. You never, ever eat by yourself; always with your group. And then after lunch, another 30-minute-long coffee break, and this one is very impolite to sit out of, plus it’s a good way to let the food settle in before heading back to work. So I always get tea after lunch… I find it’s helped me be less sluggish after eating, which I always used to be, and it’s nice to not go sit at a desk right after such a large meal.
I leave work at 4:30, and since I come in at 8:30, I “work” for 8 hours a day, which is one hour more than the French do. (For them, it’s 35 hrs/wk, even though people here, being engineers and all, tend to overwork a bit.) It feels like it goes by a lot faster, and it is a lot more enjoyable than working in the States because of the social aspect. My co-workers have helped me a lot to settle in and to figure out stuff like the train, phones, etc. They’re not just strangers who share an office with me, and I like that.
