I'm a little confused... are you telling us that (non-)laziness differs by town?
aah... Javo's back! And already working hard to make some more friends.
you have been sorely missed.
so you are a student, been here less than a year & can give a pin-point incite into the Swiss workplace than anyone else on the thread ... marvellous.
am not even going to groan you, as its not fun anymore .
I love this forum.
dave
Javo, m'lad, you talk of things you know nothing at about. I could likewise state "From my point of view the Swiss are generally the hardest-working people in the world" (And I'd even put a verb in the sentence for you.) What would it prove?
By the way, where are these 'hard working towns' - I must avoid them.
You miss a great cultural gulf between the Swiss and many other countries:
Ask a Swiss how there job is and they will tell you how difficult it is and list the problems they have. Now if a British manager told you this you would think 'the poor guy is out of his depth and should do a less demanding job'.
Ask a Brit the same question and they will say things like 'mustn't grumble' and with typical understatement 'not bad' and so on.
Yes, there are some very different ways or working here, whether this is laziness is very debatable. I think the success of the Swiss economy - even if it is based on bringing in foreigners to do the donkey work, at all levels - is a tribute to the astute use of resources by the Swiss...
I think its also because the English guy would interpret such a question as a way to make small talk and develop conversation. The questioner does not really want a serious answer, or indeed want to know.
I recently had a conversation with a swiss colleague that had returned from his holiday in US. I asked him how it went and whether if he had any delays at security and immigration getting in. Rather than viewing as a bit of throwaway chat that was intended, he appeared mildly offended (because he perceived I cast doubt on his choice of destination ?) and proceeded to explain at great length why he experienced no delays.
Im not making any judgements here about either response, except to point out the differences in social interactions even between european countries.
dave
The irony is lost on the Swiss secretary in our place who gets all stressed and hissy that she's got "such a lot of things to do" as she's bashing away at her computer on MSN messenger with her chums.
I ventured one day to say "perhaps you should leave that for a while if the work's piling up..."
Heavens above! I might as well have suggested she pull out her toenails with pliers.
Wonderful irony!
Anyhow, if the Swiss generally are that lazy & inefficient, how come they continue being so wealthy? Is it all the expats slaving away for them, underpaid and overworked?
From what I remember from the Economist country survey, Swiss economy can be divided in 3 very different parts:
Agriculture, which is the most pampered in the World.
Local industry and services, which is not particularly efficient and often operating in cartels or duopolies (retail, plummers, ...)
International companies, which are as good as any in the World (Pharma, banking, insurance, precision engineering).
If workers in the last group were that bad, the companies would not do well, or?
/Martin
When were you here? When I arrived in 1998, we were all very busy, and I could clock up plenty of overtime (great when I was setting up a new home here), and often did the sandwich at the desk trick for lunch, working straight through.
I don't remember exactly when (2000?), but new laws came out regarding working hours, you suddenly had to take a minimum of 30/45/60 minutes for lunch, depending on the total length of day worked, and were restricted in both the total number of hours per week and how many consecutive days you could work without having a full day's break.
Heavy penalties for the employer for not complying with the working hour limits came in, including a personal fine for the manager responsible.
(Thinking about this before hitting "submit", some rules were in placee before, but the penalties announced made the management concentrate on the subject more than they had done before )
I didn't like it personally, as it reduced my earning power, but could appreciate that it was designed to prevent sweat shop type operations and employee abuse.
Exactly what happens in Germany and France with bridge days too.
Have you never taken advantage of a Bank Holiday in the UK to take a week off while only denting your holidays by 4 days?
Let's break banking down at least.
The Zürich arms of the Investment Banking (CS and UBS at least) are small fry compared to London and New York. Don't forget: both CS and UBS bought other investment banks to start there.
Ask anyone who work for the more retail Swiss parts of UBS and CS how difficult it is working with lazy clock watching Swissies.
If you go further into the Wealth Management arms, then the Swiss banks are benefiting from the anti-US sentiment amongst the new wealthy in the Middle and Far East (as well as the perception of Swiss stability).
This is just some comments of the top of my head and not an exhaustive in depth study - but don't assume it's Swiss hard work that put the banks where they are.
Well my Missus is Swiss and certainly not lazy. I can't vouch for any of the others though sorry.
Given that she was an Expat in London for 14 yearss before moving back here probably explains it.
From listening to her experiences it does appear that there are big barriers to making changes and empowering employees to use their initiative here.
All I can say about numerous work practices I've heard about here is "That's insane!!!!"
Don't get me started about their clocking in and out system!
London was bas enough. My Wife worked 80%. So four days a week. Simple yes. So what did the Swiss HR people do. Spent the time to work out all benefits she was entitiled to. Then rounded them down to the nearest whole numbers. Stupid example. all fulltime employees given one extra days holiday. 1 day = 8 hours. My wife would themn only be entitled to 80% of 8 hours. so 6.4 hours. Ah but they only allow whole days or half days. So round it down to a half a day. See what I mean sucks and a waste of time and effort.
I used to work for an American company from the UK. Talk about flexibility. All they cared about is whether the work got done on time and on budget. Not about counting the amount of holiday days /sick days/ hours you worked in a week. Making sure you had done all you hours for that week / month. They understood you had a life. Need to go to the doctor /dentist, be somewhere for your family not a problem. They only wanted to see good results. I guess it's a matter of trust and the type of work you do.
This will be why American companies give only 2 weeks holiday a year to their employees in the US...
The comnpany I work for are surprisingly very understanding when it comes to holidays & paid leave. I was ill last year for an extended period & was unable to work for a couple of months, they carried my holiday over into this year, so I have 7.5 weeks insted of five.
Similarly, with unforseen stuff, they are v enlightened, Dr appoinment ? stick in your MS Calendar so that everyone can see where you are, no problem.
They are very sticky about people working from home, however, wife is sick? stay at home for three days with the kids & do as much as you can ... no reduction in time etc.
Travel, loads of compensation for commercial & shedloads of over time for the techies.
I have my gripes with some of the Swiss employment ethics, but this sort of stuff is gold dust, compared to daily grind back in Blighty.
Yeah some of my US colleague were a bit (US term not uk) "Pissed" at that. Since I had 5 weeks a year. Worked 37.5 hours a week. Compared to their 40 hour week and much smaller vacation time. However this was all off set by there larger salaries (even for the same jobs and grade) Plus the cost of living there was vastly cheaper than my living in the suburbs of London.
I am not wprking as of now and a stay at home mom for the first time. God knows I have worked all my life till now doing night shifts and what not. I do get annoyed at the laid back attitude and dont care a damn about your problems .
I am ranting, as am very upset. I guess I have a right to be after paying thru my teeth to a very rude dentist who billed me a significantly larger and different amount from the one he and his receptionist told me on the phone and then literally kicked us out of his clinic.
Also trying to get the bill for my French clasees ( at 100 CHF / hour), since the last one and half months!!!. Have written so many mails to them, seems like one or the other person is always on leave and they cant issue me an invoice. Does it take 2 months to send an invoice. Come on I am asking for a bill not a fee waiver. I want to pay those guys as I need to get it reimbursed from our company who have a stipulated deadline. But does anybody care here???
Well since working hours are so unreasonable here it is no wonder that hardly any work gets done and things are so expensive. And please I cant compare to other European countries as I am not a European and it is my first experience here but have lived in Non EU countries where people do work a lot harder and longer hours!!!!
In the last few years, lunch time was enforced. Until then, many chose not to take it. After that, quite a few people would work at their desk anyway but submit a timesheet that said they took lunch (with their leaving time adjusted to compensate) and the managers didn't seem too bothered about it.
As for 'bridge days' , I'm commenting on the fact that the bridge days are all used religiously and they're booked the very moment it's possible to do so. If you weren't on the ball reserving them practically the moment the system would allow you to put a 'booking' in, they were gone.
Between taking every possible long weekend, compensation days, frequent sick days, training for every irrelevant subject possible, days off to do fire brigade training, army service or Zivilschutz and month long summer breaks there were quite a few people that seemed to spend more time out of work than in.
Not everyone was like this of course but there were many, many 'clock-watchers' and that culture was much more prevalent than almost anywhere else I've seen. In many ways, it reminded me of the stereotype of the Civil Service in GB except that this was a major international business (albeit the domestic part).
To be honest, I haven't really seen that. Of course there are folks who are very sharp off the mark at 16:00, the ones I've come across have been early starters too.
I saw pretty much the same in Germany. An English friend who used to work in Germany has a tale of him getting in first with a block booking for his holidays. His colleagues did not like it, but he got there first, and there was nowt they could do about it.
Now, Germany I do have a grouse about. Even the banks closed at lunchtime, and I started there just at the beginning of their big run of bridge days, the boss encouraging me to take all of them. I simply couldn't afford to do the job if I was allowed to do only 3 day weeks, so packed it in sharpish.
Again, I haven't seen much of that. In fact I've seen the reverse in a guy who was consistently told to take time off, because he couldn't leave work alone.
To be honest, I've become a bit immune to whatever goes on over the years. As long as I can get on with my job, I'm not too bothered what the others get up to.
Maybe the Swiss have got the right balance in life: Work to live rather than live to work.
I'm all for that... I've done my stint of working my socks off doing 12-13 days for months on end but got the same bonus as the lazy arses ( not Swiss by the way) knocking off at 5 on the dot.
Yawn, is it 5 o'clock yet? No? Must be time for another coffee...
I assume you mean 12-13 hour days there. Yes, I agree with you that the Swiss have a much better work-life balance than the UK. I once witnessed a US manager forcing his staff to do 60+ hour weeks, and it didn't work well at all. Everyone got jaded, productivity sank, and it ended up in several divorces.
D'oh! Yes, 12-13 hours a day, racking up hours and hours of overtime which never seemed to get used up.
I have to say now I am quite happy to bound out of the office before 6 every evening. Got energy to do stuff in the evening and seem to get less colds. Although that could be something to do with eating a bit more healthily...
Okay, I know the majority of the posts on this thread relate to matters in the workplace, but I’m bumping it because I have a complaint about the constant resistance I’ve encountered when I’ve sought help on health-related issues. (Mods: if this post is in the wrong place, I apologize. Feel free to move it)
Why are doctors here SO reluctant to prescribe medications/antibiotics when there is an obvious need? I don’t mean for colds and flu. I mean when it’s clear there is an illness or condition which warrants treatment with antibiotics or medication. Instead, they prefer to let a patient suffer.
Also, why are they so averse to doing diagnostic tests (like blood work) or providing treatments (like HRT or allergy immunotherapy) that are standard elsewhere, yet will recommend surgery for something that is treatable with medication? In the instances I have made suggestions, I get "no, we don't/can't do that here."
This is not Rwanda, pharmaceuticals are abundant here, the country has a reputation for offering some of the best medical treatment. I just don't get it. Is it laziness or something else? Has anyone else experienced this?