UK-France: Coffee against beers

Two neighbor countries but two very different way of life. Our first topic will be life at work in the UK and in France, which could be summarize by:

Coffee against Beers.

In France, we use to have a coffee break at least 3 times a day with colleagues, and these breaks are almost mandatory if you want to be included in a team. The first one will be upon arrival around 9 to 10pm in the morning, just the time to check your emails and then, here you go, the first coffee break of the day. The second one will be after lunch, this one is almost sacred, supposed to help your digestion. The third one will at 4pm, this is our tea time)). The french working day are much longer than in UK starting later, but also finishing much later well after 7 or 8pm. Somehow, one could consider that French working day is however much less efficient than UK working day, as the same task will take longer time.

In UK, the way of life at work is quite different, and this is an english "quite". Another subtle and diplomatic way to say that they are really different. If their day tends to start earlier, it will end-up much earlier too. This is rare to see a lot of people still in the office after 6pm, because they are all in the pub, and believe me, this is not cliche, I worked in 3 different places, and it was like that in each of them, the level of friendship in the team being the driver in term of pub visit frequency. So, i was saying that after 6 they are all drinking together, chatting and chilling out after a not so long day at work, but a much more intense day. It is quite common to eat lunch in front of your computer, having a sandwich while answering emails, or having a meeting or a teleconference. So finally, in a shorter day, you tend to do much more.

Not necessary to specify which way of life at work I do prefer.

I have enjoyed UK way of working so much that now I am not too happy now with the 3 coffee breaks and long lunch break that force you to stay in office up to 8pm, and having no private life in the evening. Not to forget that in France, it is very uncommon to socialize and become REAL friend with your colleagues. Work and personal life remain separated worlds, which make having new friends quite a challenge when you are new somewhere in France....

But this could be another topic....In summary, only one common point, we both love gossiping, French around the coffee, Brits around a beer, but well, i imagine this is simply human nature, isn't it?