Is French Capitalism Causing Mass Suicide?
The New York Times reports that French workers—beneficiaries of some of Europe's most generous workplace rules—are suffering under the boot heel of their corporate masters. Observe, says the Times, the "spate of suicides at France Télécom" which have "revealed a paradox at the heart of French society: even with robust labor protection, workers feel profoundly insecure, with many complaining that the pace of economic change is pushing them beyond their limits."
One worker was so distraught that he was being moved to a different department (his contract stipulated that he couldn't be fired), the poor lamb stabbed himself in the stomach during a meeting. ''The night before, my manager had called me into his office to tell me that I no longer had the skills required for my job and that I had to change," he said. Change, that is, to a different position in the same company at the same salary.
The union representing France Télécom are demanding that the "massacre" of the company's employees be stopped, presumably by shortening their work week to 15 hours and providing them with comfy pillows. After media and union pressure, France Télécom's "number two" executive stepped down yesterday.
This has been a good issue for rallying France's commie unions, but there is a minor problem with the "spate of suicides" narrative. The Times admits that "In statistical terms, the 24 suicides at France Télécom since February 2008--including eight since the beginning of summer, with the latest confirmed on Monday--are not extraordinary for a company employing 102,000 people in France."
The AFP is on the story too, also admitting that "Statistically, it is not clear whether the 24 suicides and 14 attempted suicides at the former state-owned giant these past 20 months are significant." A curious formulation; the statistics are, in fact, quite clear that suicides of France Télécom workers are in line with the national average.
And check out this extraordinary bit of bias, from the same story: "As France shifts from a paternalist corporate culture to a flexible, market-driven one--symbolised by an invasion of US-style jargon such as "le deadline" or "le benchmarking"--workers are being left by the roadside." No evidence is offered to substantiate this claim, save a few hyperventilating quotes from local union bosses.
While recent studies have shown that French workers are on the clock longer than the much-maligned, government-imposed 35-hour limit (farmers, incidentally, do quite a bit to push up the average), the AFP also misleads when it writes that "Despite a statutory 35-hour working week, many French actually toil much longer with an hourly productivity that is among the highest in the developed world, according to the OECD."
In 2004, the OECD had this to say about French work habits:
Today, annual hours worked per employee in France are 8% below the EU average, and among the lowest in the OECD area (see graphs). This gap widens to 17% when comparing France with Canada, and to 20% if compared with the US, Japan, Australia or New Zealand. A far cry from the 1970s when annual hours worked per employee were almost identical across the OECD area. France also recorded one of the steepest declines in annual hours worked over the past decade, mainly reflecting the impact of the 35-hour week.
In 2008, the OECD provided this chart of average hours worked per year, broken down by country:
Update: The Wall Street Journal story on the suicides at France Telecom adds this rather interesting detail: "Still, France Télécom is having more trouble than others cutting costs: 65% of the 100,000 people at the company have civil-servant contracts--dating to the time when the company was owned by the French state--and therefore can't be fired."
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Is French Capitalism Causing Mass Suicide?
We can only hope.
What? No preview any more? I, for one, welcome our new singularity overlords.
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French Capitalism. HA! I just got that joke!
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is that the next fabled GnR album?
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+1
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+ >9000
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The singularity overlords will be able to manage platform transitions better than us mouth-breathers. It'll be like breathing to them.
And as for comfy pillows, i demand them as part of any employment agreement. That's haggling, gotta start above what you want. The French messed up by not demanding Clouds-From-Heaven-To-Rest-Thyself-Upon in the 1st place.
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Who moved my fromage?
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Paging Lunchstealer, please pick up the white discourtesy phone.
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Oui Oui
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Maybe France should adopt US employment practices if that is what's driving their people to remove themselves from the gene pool.
* World Health Organization via the wonderful basement dwellers at Wiki.
Where did preview go?
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Where did preview go?
Seems to be here for me.
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Me too. Don't tell JsD his handle is right there too.
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Why is my name not showing up in my previous?
(That would be J sub D@5:53PM)
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I think it has something to do with your not having a soul. It was in a vampire movie or something.
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The union representing France Télécom are demanding that the "massacre" of the company's employees be stopped, presumably by shortening their work week to 15 hours and providing them with comfy pillows.
What? They still have to come to work? Is there no justice from the bourgeois pigs?
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Most people around the world go to work in order to work. The French go to work in order to protest.
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I have the feeling that French Telecom today is what GM and Chrysler will be in another few years.
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This is the kind of nation that reads Atlas Shrugged and thinks Wesley Mouch is a hero.
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65% of the 100,000 people at the company have civil-servant contracts--dating to the time when the company was owned by the French state--and therefore can't be fired.
Rubber-room anyone?Preview is gone?!?
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I have preview. NAH!
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le DEADLINE?
NOOOOOOOOOON!
*sticks head through noose, kicks chair over*
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I think a lightbulb just went off over the heads of a whole bunch of French bosses that can't get rid of worthless employees.
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It damn well better be a CFL light bulb.
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The French enthusiasm for color-coding things is why they assed up for the Nazis.
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Color coding is discriminatory against the color blind and should thus be outlawed
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Nail these bastards first.
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Team work! I blogged it and Suki spammed it.
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Thanks for the link! I even changed my message to my stalker, from a rant to this.
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While cynicism about America is often well warranted, we are seriously the only Western democracy that isn't afraid of a hard day's work.
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We're gettin there though.
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Oui!
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Koreans desperately need to get a life.
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I think the Koreans are cool AND hot.
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I think I understand why 40% of my neighborhood is now Korean.
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65% of the 100,000 people at the company have civil-servant contracts--dating to the time when the company was owned by the French state--and therefore can't be fired.
Yes, government employment is like a guaranteed income for life. I'm convinced that the desire for such is partly what has driven the growth of government in our own country.
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No wonder Samsung is kicking Sony's ass and the Hyundai isn't such a damn joke anymore.
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Most importantly, happy ending massages.
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France Télécom's "number two" executive stepped down yesterday.
Who is number one?
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You are, MikeP. You have been all along.
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You are number SIX.
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Nice Prisoner plug!
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a company employing 102,0000 people
What's that in Eur0z?
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I think you are wanting metric.
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Yup.
1 Imperial Person = 0.336 Metric Person
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That's why their chicks have to do so many more dudes to become sluts.
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MikeP,
I dunno, but you're Number 6.
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Who is number one?
You are number six.
And damn, Koreans seem to work a lot.
This gap widens to 17% when comparing France with Canada, and to 20% if compared with the US, Japan, Australia or New Zealand.
"I moved here from Canada, and they think I'm slow, eh?"
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Damn you ProL.
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Ah, it's alive! Not telling Suki as she whines on The Facebook about the Singularity silencing her here.
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You can beat me by "replying", you know. This new format allows such dishonorable choices, thus reducing virtue yet another notch.
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I have beaten you.
Yawn!
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Another happy ending joke?
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I am taking the protest route and never "replying", and only doing it the old way. Except for this time, of course, just to be a dick.
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Take it to the streets. With milk!
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grieve général au fonction répondre!
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Look, I'll hate on twitter as much as the next guy, but isn't the threaded system better? The indents help identify new content, and the page isn't so long. And all the noobs aren't messing up html tags to quote something we already read pages up.
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This is what the Twitter looks like? yo, fuck that noise. Sideways bitchez.
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Um, threaded comments go back to Usenet, not Twitter. Now get off my lawn.
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Right on. Groovy man.
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It's too bad the Board of Directors didn't tell Ken Lewis he was being "promoted".
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This is a lot like the Iraq veteran suicide stories that the media was hot to trot with a couple of years ago... one or two suicides would make a trend of shattered lives and post-traumatic despair, even though the suicide rate for 21-year-old guys nationally was higher than the rate for those who'd been in the Army.
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Some of the guys at work were talking about that, as in that was their lane. The press was comparing different years, calling both "the latest data" (or something). The Army data was current, civilian data a couple of years stale.
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Can anybody post on the Ron Bailey story yet?
http://reason.com/archives/200.....e#comments -
The NPR edition had this:
Gauthier Rollin, 52, has been employed by the company for 20 years. He says the work environment has been unbearable since France Telecom was privatized a decade ago.
Sounds pretty damn "bearable" if he lasted another decade, oui?
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Link fail on my part, re-try:
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NEIN! NYET!
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Silly American. You just don't understand.
I mean, now that it's been privatized, they expect people to...you know...work!
How uncivilized.
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Sacre merde, what a bunch of pussies!
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UBS released a study on price of living, work hours, etc. a couple months ago:
http://www.ubs.com/1/e/media_o.....sId=170250
Compares cities, not countries, so take that for what it is, but...
In Paris, average person works under 1600 hour/year, with 28 days vacation...
NYC is 1950 hours/year, w/ 12 days, L.A. is similar...
And yeah, Koreans are productive fuckers, Seoulites work 2,300 hours/year, w/ 12 days vacation, 2nd only to Cairo out of all the cities surveyed.
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2nd only to Cairo out of all the cities surveyed
You got to get clean down that far in Illinois to find productive workers?
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(See inevitable Fugitive reference at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0584014/.)
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Who the hell cares, we can't keep saving the frenchman pussies forever. Why the hell can't I comment on the singularity article... Grrrrrr....
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The Singularities are still ball-gaging us. Mine is hot!
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Guys that I work with from Seoul, or other parts of one of them Koreas, not they are not likable guys, they are, but... they tend to work no more than us mere mortals and some of them tend to mysteriously hurt themselves a couple times a month and miss work(secret ninja training?)
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In my America-only experience, productivity and hours worked aren't really related.
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They have all those benefits, far above those that American workers enjoy, let alone Chinese workers, and yet they still feel insecure.
Ingratitude has been a plague on humanity since the Stone Age.
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Kinda makes sense to me. France's high unemployment rates and high hurdles to getting a job in the first place make it unlikely that anyone who gets fired will EVER find work again. Losing your job probably spells the end of your career, unless you emigrate.
And in that environment, even a transfer might become a black spot on your work record that could prevent getting hired by anyone else.
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That's the story with Sebastien from France, who married my friend Nadine here in NY and stayed to work. He could never get formal employment in France, but he's been able to here. He's had a bad respiratory condition ever since an accident as a near infant (given a caustic liquid to drink) that scarred him.
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Also, how much do you want to bet that the most likely people to get fired would be the people who rock the boat by being a bit too productive and innovative? While a bunch of useless drones manage to stay within the legal protections by doing just enough to avoid pissing people off.
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Do not rock the boat is worth thousands, add 0s to that after a few years. Trust me on this one. Appease and placate the boss, relax, and have job security. It took me years to learn and accept this crap. Well, actually I have never accepted it, but I learned to take advantage of the system. You want to talk straight shit, innovate, work hard, and see it produce results? Start your own business.
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Thanks you two for getting MOTOWN tunes bouncing through my head.
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Ummm, can we comment on the singularity article now, or does leave a comment have a different meaning in the event horizon leading up to the singularity of technology? I've waited too long and missed the singularity, damn, and I've been waiting for so long...., and DAMNIT. PREVIEW DOES NOT EXIST IN THE ULTIMATE CONVERGANCE OF TECHNOLOGY!!!!
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Is there an echo in here? And Suki spammed about it on Facebook (probably every other kid site she is on too).
This comment brought to you through preview!
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Sorry, John, Didn't see your post here, and really, I don't post too much on the kids sites... But GodDamnit, I want a singulatiry thread that is postable!!!
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Awa
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I worked with a Korean guy once. Yeah, he was a hard worker but he fucked up as much shit as he got right. Having to go back and do something a second time does not a good work ethic make. Work smarter, not harder.
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That usually comes with maturity, not race...
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Just more affirmation, as if any was actually needed, that the French are worthless pieces of shit.
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Ya, Da, Yes, Awa.
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Stupid frogs. I too would commit suicide if I had to work with the idiots.
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"One worker, distraught that he was being moved to a different department (his contract stipulated that he couldn't be fired), the poor lamb stabbed himself in the stomach during a meeting."
It's amazingly callous to pick on this poor guy. He's obviously in a bad spot right now or he wouldn't do something that nutty.
You can remember Moynihan's glee at his suffering the next time someone here gets all offended at the stereotype of libertarians as uncaring pricks.
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Moroccan: Naqch
Other Arabic: Moukhannate
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Come on MNG, it's hard to feel a lot of sympathy for a guy who stabs himself in the stomach because he got transferred. It's not like it was an accident either. He self inflicted the wound because he didn't get his way.
I mean, it's just a more psychopathic version of my kid holding his breath until he gets what he wants.
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Stupid English filter
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Arabic? Too many languages, if I go out wandering in a desert on my trusty camel, which will serve me best, Arabic, Farsi, VB.NET, C#, Portugues.. oh hell, who cares, the singularity draweth nigh, and I can't post....
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English with USA dollars.
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If I comment Muslim Wife will we get different ads?
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You stinkie Americans and your hard work *knifes gut*
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Lemmie help ya wit dat, Pedro . . .
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Um... according to that graph, Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes all work less than the French. And the Dutch work a shitload less than everyone.
So where's the article on the lazy Scandinavians?
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Nobody has bothered to write it yet. But my greatest work is here.
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Now, the Dutch know how to live.
MNG,
I wouldn't call Moynihan's reaction "glee". Perhaps callous dismissal, but the internet's based on callous dismissal, just like France is supposed to be built around existential angst, not emo outbursts. You're right, though: one can only assume Monsieur Quasi-Seppuku had some serious personal problems. -
Jeff Berwick had a hilarious account of this French Suicide thing on his blog recently here: http://berwick.com/me/modules......mp;sid=272
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Hi Michael. You're wrong on one point. The Times article says the French have one of the highest "hourly productivity" rates in the world. That's true. It refers to the amount you manage to get done per hour, not how many hours you work. Sitting staring into space for 12 hours a day is not productive, in fact in some countries like Germany, those who stay on after 6pm are often seen as inefficient, not heroes.
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I work in employment law, and it amazes me how many people feel they are being "constructively discharged" because the boss wants them to do their frigging jobs.
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Could be worse: French films about murdering the boss or co-workers are a semi-significant trend.
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As much as I love my 45 hour week I think the take-away here is...Netherlands...WTF? They are working around 26 hours per week. How do I get in on that action. That seems like it would be pretty close to my dream of working 3 days and having 4 off.
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"I work in employment law, and it amazes me how many people feel they are being "constructively discharged" because the boss wants them to do their frigging jobs."
Yuck, Abdul. What does a constructive discharge look like?
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Sitting staring into space for 12 hours a day is not productive, in fact in some countries like Germany, those who stay on after 6pm are often seen as inefficient, not heroes.
A friend of mine was bragging about his "hundred hour weeks" one day; My response: "Yer doin it rong!"
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That seems like it would be pretty close to my dream of working 3 days and having 4 off.
So- you want to be a fireman, eh?
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Je me tuerais, mais pour faire ca, il me faut me deplacer de mon con.
That is French (sort of), for "I'd kill myself, but to do that, I'd have to get off my ass."
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I have little patience or sympathy for suicidal people. It has always just seemed stupid to me.
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Capitalism is a Marxist term describing European (and French) mercantilism, a system of a few elites managing many “maggots?” It has nothing to do with individual freedom and its resulting free market and prosperity; such was known only in America. How can the two systems be equated one to the other? It’s like the differences between 19th century and 20th century Democrats, as cited in THE CHANGING FACE OF DEMOCRATS (Amazon.com) and www.claysamerica.com. The first Democrats followed Jefferson to Cleveland and the modern Democrats follow Rousseau, Marx and Obama.
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In my experience with French workers, one is best off when they're not on the job. When they are, they tend to do x when they're supposed to be doing y, and even then they can't get x right.
Maybe the answer to France Telécom's HR catastrophe would be a frogified Jim Jones-like labor protest leader.
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Good!
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thank u