I met a few expats last week, and it turns out that in most Swiss offices, all workers are required to clock in and out, to ensure that they are working the right amount of time. In many offices, the “right amount” is 8 hours and 9 minutes each day. The standard work day is 8 hours, but some offices give their workers an extra week of vacation between Christmas and New Year, and they compensate for this by working an extra 9 minutes a day for the rest of the year. Many offices also have scheduled coffee breaks twice a day that are sort of like “recess for grown-ups,” as one expat put it. One coffee break is at 9 a.m., as most Swiss like to get in to the office around 7:30, so 9 o’clock is a good time for a mid-morning coffee and snack. At my old office, if we had had a coffee break at 9, very few people would have been in the office in time to make it.
Yesterday was Labor Day in Switzerland, and the police were out in full force, decked out in their riot gear. I haven’t seen so many policemen since leaving New York. Apparently, the Labor Day traditions here don’t center around sales on school supplies, picnics, and barbecues. Instead, they have a workers’ parade (to go with the Labor Day theme), and the local Communist and Socialist organizations try to get the workers to unite. They have a yearly march down one particular street, and the riot police patrol that street very closely, as well as other key points in the city, because if they don’t, the marchers will sometimes decide to do a little bit of once-a-year, organized looting. It sounds like hooliganism, but if you think about it, at least you always know exactly when and where the looting might take place. It’s mob behavior, Swiss-style: planned, scheduled, and organized.
This Thursday, we have a day off for the Ascension, or Himmelfahrt, as they say in German. Being the mature person that I am, I am definitely not sniggering to myself while repeating the word “Himmelfahrt” under my breath. Definitely not. Just like I don’t find it at all amusing to see the word “Ausfahrt” painted on the asphalt at the exits from parking garages. Ahem, right. So I'll be spending Himmelfahrt weekend in Budapest. The next weekend, we have Monday off for Whit Monday, so I'll be in Paris for that weekend. Life is rough, I know.
Holidays and weekends are a source of both stress and relaxation here. Yes, it’s your time off, and there is no chance that you will have to work during that time. However, it is also time off for people who work in shops around town, so if you were hoping to do your shopping and run some errands, you had better get it all done Saturday afternoon, because everything shuts down after that until Monday morning. If you have a long weekend, get everything done beforehand, and shop as if a hurricane were coming, because if your office is closed, it’s a safe bet that everything else will be closed, as well. Planning for a long weekend now entails both figuring out how to spend the weekend, and stocking up on food and supplies, even if the weekend is to be spent lazing around the apartment (which it often does, since nothing is open on Saturday evening or Sunday, and so that standard weekend activity of “going shopping” is nixed).
Movie theatres do stay open all weekend, so if you’re willing to shell out about $15 a ticket, plus some money for snacks and drinks, that’s one way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Be careful what you see, though. Zurich is unique in that most movies are shown in their original language, so British and American movies are shown in English, with German and French subtitles (there are also dubbed options, so that you can see Vin Diesel moving his mouth with German voiceover, which would probably be more entertaining than the original, actually). However, if you go see a movie that was originally in Spanish, for example, the subtitles will still be in French and German, so unless you are fluent in one of those three languages, you could find yourself making up your own storyline and dialogue to go with the pictures.
Himmelfahrt. Heh heh...
Yesterday was Labor Day in Switzerland, and the police were out in full force, decked out in their riot gear. I haven’t seen so many policemen since leaving New York. Apparently, the Labor Day traditions here don’t center around sales on school supplies, picnics, and barbecues. Instead, they have a workers’ parade (to go with the Labor Day theme), and the local Communist and Socialist organizations try to get the workers to unite. They have a yearly march down one particular street, and the riot police patrol that street very closely, as well as other key points in the city, because if they don’t, the marchers will sometimes decide to do a little bit of once-a-year, organized looting. It sounds like hooliganism, but if you think about it, at least you always know exactly when and where the looting might take place. It’s mob behavior, Swiss-style: planned, scheduled, and organized.
This Thursday, we have a day off for the Ascension, or Himmelfahrt, as they say in German. Being the mature person that I am, I am definitely not sniggering to myself while repeating the word “Himmelfahrt” under my breath. Definitely not. Just like I don’t find it at all amusing to see the word “Ausfahrt” painted on the asphalt at the exits from parking garages. Ahem, right. So I'll be spending Himmelfahrt weekend in Budapest. The next weekend, we have Monday off for Whit Monday, so I'll be in Paris for that weekend. Life is rough, I know.
Holidays and weekends are a source of both stress and relaxation here. Yes, it’s your time off, and there is no chance that you will have to work during that time. However, it is also time off for people who work in shops around town, so if you were hoping to do your shopping and run some errands, you had better get it all done Saturday afternoon, because everything shuts down after that until Monday morning. If you have a long weekend, get everything done beforehand, and shop as if a hurricane were coming, because if your office is closed, it’s a safe bet that everything else will be closed, as well. Planning for a long weekend now entails both figuring out how to spend the weekend, and stocking up on food and supplies, even if the weekend is to be spent lazing around the apartment (which it often does, since nothing is open on Saturday evening or Sunday, and so that standard weekend activity of “going shopping” is nixed).
Movie theatres do stay open all weekend, so if you’re willing to shell out about $15 a ticket, plus some money for snacks and drinks, that’s one way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Be careful what you see, though. Zurich is unique in that most movies are shown in their original language, so British and American movies are shown in English, with German and French subtitles (there are also dubbed options, so that you can see Vin Diesel moving his mouth with German voiceover, which would probably be more entertaining than the original, actually). However, if you go see a movie that was originally in Spanish, for example, the subtitles will still be in French and German, so unless you are fluent in one of those three languages, you could find yourself making up your own storyline and dialogue to go with the pictures.
Himmelfahrt. Heh heh...
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