Four to five weeks of vacation is pretty standard in Europe and I don’t think it has anything to do with productivity. AFAIK, a German or Belgian would pretty much get the same amount of vacation. I’m in Montreal and the standard by law here is two weeks but my contract with a local employer is giving me four weeks. And, I’m still working when I’m working, even if I have some vacation time at some point?!

I took eight weeks this year. So you’re saying I (or a French person?) am not getting anything done when I work, because I took some extended vacation time?

I know this behaviour from big corporations is not exclusive to French companies but my type of work allows me to work from home and I’ve never seen a company despise WFH so much than my once French employer.

This was before the pandemic and I had the habit of working from home with my previous employer when I was sick. When I changed employer to work for a French hosting company in Montreal, they were adamantly against WFH. Even if sick. They preferred that you missed a day (or two, you know, take your time to recover!1!!) from work, taking “generous” sick days, than letting anyone from the lower ranks WFH. This was a pretty big red flag for me. Anyway their work culture was pretty toxic and I ended up quitting after a few months, but the “no work from home even if sick” policy is the first thing that hit me when I started there.

My current employer allows me to WFH and I’ve been looking a bit around to see if I could find something else, but they mostly all seem to require some sort of hybrid schedules at the office now, which obviously sucks.

So, where is Saddam Hussein?

TBF, the type of vehicle doesn’t really matter. If you want to murder someone, do it with a car and just claim you didn’t see the person, that you are shocked, and it’s just an “accident”. Nobody will question this.

Unfortunately this one depends a lot where you live.

I never owned a car but I live in Canada and public transit sucks. Our provincial government is actively cutting funds to cities’ public transit. And intercity routes are detained by VIA Rail or coach buses >!!<that sucks.

It’s easier for me to go to the airport and in another country than move in my own province.

VIA Rail trains are infrequent, always late, pricey and most employees are jaded. They also don’t take bikes. It’s a problem. Sometimes you can get stuck as a prisoner on the train, without food, water or toilets for multiple hours.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/via-rain-passengers-stuck-1.7311176

Another one was stuck for 12 hours last year.

Coaches are cramped and also have very limited intercity services. The city I need to go to frequently only has three coaches a day at inconvenient times. They are usually full and they charge $15 to bring a bike.

I’ve been car free for 20 years but I’ve come to hate taking the train or coaches here. I’m slowly realizing that my province really really wants me to get a car.

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In Québec there is a moving company that has been using the same jingle and phone number for decades. Ir’s really catchy and sticks in your head.

Le clan Panneton, pour déménager, faut composer le 937-0707.

The ad from 1997: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBIADSFYoVk

The ad from 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_VYYkFMcFk

Ask anyone in QC what’s the Clan Panneton’s number and they will start signing it.

Reminds me of my father. He’s up super early, like 4 am, and to him 7 am is perfectly late enough to run the wood planer on a weekend day.

I wasn’t aware of her comment. Googling for it showed me an article in English saying she dropped the F bomb. I thought it was in an interview in English but no, she used it in French, which makes it a bit less impressive.

Pour les gens qui veulent pas googler, voici la citation exacte

« Fuck aux réacs, fuck à cette extrême droite, fuck à tous ceux qui voudraient nous enfermer dans la guerre de tous contre tous ! »