work

Le travail c’est la santé

Posted on by MELewis

Henri-Salvador-Le-Travail-C-est-La-SanteIt occurred to me the other day that I will probably never retire. Quoi!? I can hear the cries of outrage echoing across France.

The French have a love-hate relationship with work. They spend a good part of their adult lives seeking it, and once they get it, spend the rest of their careers plotting how to retire early. They work very intensely for short bursts, then take long holidays to recover. What saves them is knowing it will all be done and dusted at 62.

Retirement with full benefits is a hard-earned right in France. I won’t go into how the system works here – c’est compliqué. Suffice it to say that like most pension plans, the whole thing will go bust unless the French agree to raise the retirement age. It’s been all over the news lately as the unions negotiate with the powers-that-be over incentives to get people to work for more years.

As I began working in France late in the game, I will likely never qualify for much of a pension. I am trying to max my retirement savings but, realistically, I am destined to become one of those very, very senior consultants.

And guess what? I’m fine with that. I happen to believe that work keeps you happy and healthy. It’s all about doing what you enjoy and getting that work-life balance thing right.

Working as a freelance writer has its ups and downs but at least it is not a physically challenging job like window washer, or as mind-numbingly boring as bean counter. Hopefully it will enable me to stay gainfully self-employed until they roll me away from my computer, hunched and decrepit as I hunt and peck for the keys with fading eyesight.

I had to put my writing career on hold when first we moved here. Back in those pre-social media days, there just wasn’t the demand in provincial France for English copywriting. Over the years I worked at different jobs: teaching English (which I loathed), as an independent translator (which helped my French enormously), translator-speaker at Euronews (I got to use my dulcet voice), executive assistant in the corporate world (I lied and said I’d be happy to serve coffee in between translating emails). Eventually I worked my way back into communications and am now happily building my freelance writing business.

Throughout my career, I’ve jumped back and forth between full-time and freelance work styles. There are benefits to both but at this stage of my life, the advantages of being able to work from home most days outweigh the attraction of daily interactions with a team and a month of paid vacation.

Henri Salvador figured out the secret of youth early in his career. Oddly enough, the bossa nova crooner came to fame in France with this silly song, a far cry from the relaxed, sensual tones of his later recordings.

Contrary to the song’s title, the lyrics parody those who work hard, and advocate a life of leisure activities like pétanque. Here they are if you’re interested:

Le travail c’est la santé
Rien faire c’est la conserver
Les prisonniers du boulot
N’font pas de vieux os.

Ces gens qui cour’nt au grand galop
En auto, métro ou vélo
Vont-ils voir un film rigolo ?
Mais non, ils vont à leur boulot

Le travail c’est la santé
Rien faire c’est la conserver
Les prisonniers du boulot
N’font pas de vieux os.

Ils boss’nt onze mois pour les vacances
Et sont crevés quand elles commencent
Un mois plus tard, ils sont costauds
Mais faut reprendre le boulot

Dire qu’il y a des gens en pagaille
Qui courent sans cesse après le travail
Moi le travail me court après
Il n’est pas près de m’rattraper.

Maint’nant dans le plus p’tit village
Les gens travaillent comme des sauvages
Pour se payer tout le confort
Quand ils l’ont, eh bien, ils sont morts.

Homm’s d’affaires et meneurs de foule
Travaill’nt à en perdre la boule
Et meur’nt d’une maladie d’cœur
C’est très rare chez les pétanqueurs !

How do you feel about retirement? Do you work to live or live to work?

Le plombier Polonais

Posted on by MELewis

Polish Plumber Tour EiffelHave you seen the Polish plumber lately? Let me reassure you: he is alive and well and living in France. The Polish plumber came to life in a cartoon published in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo back in 2004. He came to represent everything the French fear most about Europe: unfair competition from cheap East European labour. Le plombier Polonais emerged from the rhetoric as a terrifying idea:

Imagine, a Polish plumber decides to come to work in France. What will become of French plumbers?

The Polish plumber and his cohorts are back in the news again – with the Greeks on the verge of exiting the EU and the Brits about to vote on their future in it. In France, the latest demon is the ‘Uberization’ of French taxis, which will also bring about the certain demise of its trains and buses. Clearly, we need to stop all forms of progress in order to protect the over-taxed and under-worked French system.

Anyone who has ever tried to find a workman in France can attest to the fact that a little competition can only be a good thing. Case in point: I’ve been trying to get some blinds installed on the south-facing side of my house to protect us from the summer sun. I began in March, signed the quote and left a hefty deposit in April. Last week, after begging and cajoling, I reverted to a threat: if the blinds were not installed this month, I would cancel the order. They called back with a date for end of next week.

We also needed some painting done in our basement. Of course we could do it ourselves, but neither husband nor self are particularly handy. I contacted a company that has done various small jobs for us in the past. They provided a quote the next day, then informed me of a date in mid-June, apologizing for being too busy to start immediately. They came when promised with no reminders on my part.

Plombier Polonais

The Polish plumber became a cheeky tourism campaign for that country. Clever Poles!

The man who runs this business in Polish. He is a charming fellow, although unfortunately he looks nothing like the poster from the tourism office. Monsieur V. hires his labour from the home country and supervises the workers in his native tongue. So I have Polish painters, if not plumbers. They were here first thing yesterday and stayed until 8:00 last night to finish the first part of the job. He has built his business up to a point where his easily identifiable if atrociously decorated vehicles can be seen at job sites all over our area. This leads me to think he must play by the rules and pay the Polish workers a fair wage and benefits in keeping with French law.

This kind of competition should be a wake-up call for the French. Unfortunately it is simply another reason to curse the EU and go out on strike.

Et vous? What’s your experience with the Polish plumber – or his equivalent?

Avoir le cafard

Posted on by MELewis

CockroachI was feeling a little low last week. For a few days, everything seemed sort of overwhelming and pointless. Guess you could say the cockroach came to visit.

‘Avoir le cafard’ (literally, to have the cockroach) is the how the French say they’re down in the dumps. They even turn it into a verb: cafarder (which, by the way, also means to snitch on someone). It is the opposite of how you are supposed to feel: ‘Avoir le moral’. To be in good spirits.

You will often hear the French say:  “Ça va? Tu as le moral?”

Most of the time I do. I am an optimistic, happy person. But we all have bad days, occasionally even bad weeks.

I had a job to hand in and it felt too hard. I was afraid of failing and therefore put so much pressure on myself that I became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Then, my accountant made a comment about how I needed to consider whether it was really worth working freelance if this was all the money I was going to make (he didn’t put it quite that way but that was how I took it). The same day my husband announced he was going to the US this week, throwing a bunch of plans we’d made into havoc.

That was when the cockroach moved in.

It was nothing that others haven’t felt before me. It seems the expression was coined by Charles Baudelaire back in 1857, 100 years before my birth, inspired by the way les idées noires (black thoughts) have a tendency invade your brain rather like cockroaches infest a home. Come to think of it, if I really did have cockroaches in my home, that would be depressing.

The good thing is, at least with me, the cockroach never stays too long. I was able to pull myself up by the britches (“Failure is NOT an option!”), stick my nose to the grindstone and deliver the job the following day. The client is happy. I feel much better. And my accountant actually made a good point – one that is causing me to reconsider my priorities – how hard I want to work and how much money I need to earn doing it.

Le cafard packed his bags and left. I found this video and played it to celebrate.

Makes me realize how hard people with depression have it.

The fact is, we all have our shit to deal with. Mine is: fear and anxiety, a noisy and often negative inner dialogue, a tendency to blow my stack when feeling stressed. But the beauty of having a bad day is that, almost always, the next day is better.

How about you?

Système D

Posted on by MELewis

macgyver

MacGyver, aka Monsieur Système D

The French have a secret weapon. It gets them through many a sticky situation and even allows them to pull off some pretty amazing stunts. It’s called le Système D.

The D stands for ‘débrouille’, meaning to get on with it, figure it out, use any means available to do something. It also stands for ‘démerde’, a slang way of saying the same thing. Either way, tu te débrouilles or tu te démerdes is a very French way of getting it done. System D has now been adopted in English, thanks to Anthony Bourdain.

The French love a challenge. It’s probably just as well given the number of challenging situations they must face daily in the form of strikes, traffic jams, holidays and life in general. They love the television character MacGyver for his ability to get himself out of any situation on nothing more than wits and a Swiss army knife.

How has living in France taught me to use le Système D?

Traveling. No one is there to help you or tell you what to do when you arrive in a place not knowing what’s what. Even if you speak the language, it may not be clear where to go or what to do in a given situation – buying a ticket, signing up your children for activities, figuring out the best way to get from point A to point B. The information is always there, somewhere, but it’s usually hidden behind a counter or an unfriendly face. Système D teaches you to find it.

Communicating. Expressing yourself in a foreign language can be a matter of survival. You want your meat cooked rather than raw? Have a plane to catch? Refuse to accept such poor service? Better figure out how to get that across. In conversational terms, this means grappling with French grammar and a limited vocabulary to share your nuanced, erudite thoughts. Or just to let off steam. If you don’t know the word for something, you have to figure out another way to say it. Or say something else. Either way, it’s System D.

Cooking.  I used to cook by the book. Or by the recipe. One-half teaspoon of this, carefully folding that. But cooking in France is different: ingredients, pan sizes, cooking temperatures. French cookbooks use terms I don’t quite understand. Now I look at recipes for inspiration and then wing it. Use my imagination, substitute ingredients, taste while cooking. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s not so great. Rarely is it the same twice.

Working: Somebody wants to pay you to do something and you really aren’t sure you can do it? One thing I learned in France is that you have to act like you know what you’re doing if you want to be respected. Teaching. Translating. Interpreting. Assisting. Coordinating. As Nike said, just do it. That said, there is a strict framework that must be respected. Customs. Laws. Hierarchy. So System D only goes so far.

Socializing. You’re at a crowded apéro and are dying of thirst but there’s a chatty person between you and the drinks. Do you: a) wait until he or she naturally runs out of steam and you can politely manoeuver your way to the bar, b) create a distraction by pretending to see someone you know and grabbing a drink or c) engage the person in conversation while discreetly rotating so that you can reach the bar?  Answer: B or C. if you said A, you need to work on your Système D.

What about you? Do you stick to the rules or are you a débrouillard?

Costard cravate

Posted on by MELewis

Costard-cravateDid you know that French men wear costumes to work?

‘Costard-cravate’ is the familiar term for a suit and tie, the uniform of the French businessman. The official name is le costume, or more correctly, according to the dictionary, le complet, although I have never heard this term used.

For special occasions, in a funny turn of franglais, they wear un smoking, or what we call a tuxedo. A.k.a. a monkey suit.

The business casual craze has been slow to catch on in France. Le costume is still de rigueur for les hommes in the corporate world, finance and politics. For women there’s a bit more flexibility but classic apparel for the career girl is un tailleur, or skirt suit.

This is slowly changing, however, in the much of the European business world. My husband, who now manages IT projects for a biopharma company, goes to work in jeans and sports gear. Dressing up means wearing chinos and a shirt with a collar. I have to admit I prefer this most of the time. But I sort of miss seeing him in a suit now and then.

When I was a kid, my Dad would leave for work every morning in a suit and tie, usually topped by an overcoat, a hat on his head and carrying a leather attaché case. I thought all men did this, until I discovered that not everyone’s Dad worked in an office.

Not having to wear a suit and tie is one of the reasons I’m grateful not to be a man.

When I first left school and went to work in an office, I hated having to put on stockings and heels. Dressing up like a secretary felt a lot like wearing a costume. So I decided to get a job in advertising, where only the suits wore suits. Copywriters and art directors could get away with just about anything as long as they were ‘creative.’

Now I work freelance and when I go to out to client meetings I try to look professional yet still feel like myself. The rest of the time, working at my home office, I might wear the same clothes that I do for yoga.

What about you? Is it costard-cravate or do you prefer to keep it casual?