...the "overworked pawns,"
Oh good grief . How do you say gâtée pourrie in French?
Posted on 11/01/2009 10:42:56 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
A short workweek and the prospect of early retirement. Job-protection laws that make it almost impossible to get fired. Seven weeks of holidays and vacation time a year. Oh, and paid lunches.
A harried American worker might ask: What's not to like?
And a dissatisfied French worker might respond: Plenty.
A wave of suicides at the country's largest telecommunications firm has unnerved France, long viewed by many outside the country as a cushy haven for employees. Experts say the incidents are the most visible examples of the growing phenomenon of stress-induced illness in the country.
Marie Peze opened the first French clinic focused on workplace suffering 10 years ago in a suburb northwest of Paris. She now has 900 people a year consulting her.
A thin woman with wispy light hair, Peze tells stories of her patients: the "overworked pawns," as she calls them, who have become a part of her life.
The young man who staggers into her clinic, his eyes hollowed and cupped in graying bags of skin. The woman so scared of facing her boss that she has developed ulcers, stopped getting her period and jumps at the sound of a ringing phone.
Peze says she handles an average of two to three suicide attempts a week.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Stress among French workers? Are they going now to reduce their weekly working hours from 35 to 30? Hey French, why not just stay at home, do not work, and yet get paid the full salary (extreme sarcasm).
My take: Boo freaking hoo — the planet is better off without these self-absorbed, selfish ingrates.
They get everything on a silver platter and then off themselves because the silver isn’t the level of purity they want.
...the "overworked pawns,"
Oh good grief . How do you say gâtée pourrie in French?
French law makes it nearly impossible to fire the poor performers, leaving management only one tool: make work so miserable that the slackers quit. looks like this method has a side effect...
Shades of the workers’ fate in the movies 1984, THX 1138, and Brazil?
Socialism.
Sucks a person’s spirit right out of ‘em.
The French work? I didn’t know that.
My brother work at tech company that work in France he hate deal with the French he probably laugh his a*** if he read LA Times right now
Sounds like the problem may be totally insane bosses, who of course can never be fired no matter how wildly out of line they are. And of course, quitting and going out to get a new job is probably near impossible, since the no-firing norm means there’s very little job turnover anywhere. And going for one of the openings created by a suicide probably isn’t going to be much of an improvement.
“Suicides force French to confront rise in work-related stress” Work related “STRESS!!??” in France????? PLEEEEZE!
Or being without God and without hope.
Sounds like they should create a huge bureaucracy to look into this and tax the happy people.
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