# Work emails banned after 6pm (in France). You think we need the same in US? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 11, 2014, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835 "2014-04-11T00:39:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![alexandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@alexandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alexandra)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/121 "2014-04-14T18:55:34Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > what if your daughter died in the emergency room because they couldn’t get hold of the specialist to save her? :rolleyes: Laws protecting workers always incorporate emergency situations and indeed in Britain healthcare employees are often paid to be on call. Unlike the thousands of office-based workers, who just _have_ to check their phones at 11pm to see if their report detailing what they have been doing for the last few days went down okay with their manager. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/122 "2014-04-15T01:30:52Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Proof that my post was right. Work for free or don’t get the promotion. I’m curious what Smapti would do if I were in the mountains and didn’t get the message until late Sunday? Is the expectation that I need to be able to get to the office part of the arrangement? > > And Smapti’s post shows why we need the law. Yes, if you call me on my time to discuss work issues even if it’s “Where’s the light switch in the file room?” then I am working. As I said, I don’t think a 2 second phone call is a big deal every once and awhile. Also, give that Smapti works in a place where an employee can accidently take the keys home, I suspect it’s not a particularly prestigious or lucrative field. You don’t hear about the internet shutting down because someone at Google left the keys at home. It’s one thing if you’re an investment banker pulling down six or seven figure bonuses, working at a law or consulting firm with a track to partnership or at some Silicon Valley startup where you have equity. But I don’t understand this need to be a workaholic in jobs where you simply don’t ever have a chance to partake in any sort of ownership or profit sharing. All you’re doing is making someone else rich. I guess some people make good serfs. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/123 "2014-04-15T01:57:16Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Proof that my post was right. Work for free or don’t get the promotion. When did I ever say I expected anyone to work “for free”? > [@](#): > > I’m curious what Smapti would do if I were in the mountains and didn’t get the message until late Sunday? Make sure that anything I needed from you was handled before you left town. > [@](#): > > Yes, if you call me on my time to discuss work issues even if it’s “Where’s the light switch in the file room?” then I am working. No, you’re doing a simple common courtesy. Are you such a mercenary that you demand to be paid for the imposition of answering a simple question for another human being who needs your help? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/124 "2014-04-15T03:52:44Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > No, you’re doing a simple common courtesy. Are you such a mercenary that you demand to be paid for the imposition of answering a simple question for another human being who needs your help? Yeah, see how often that argument wins you humane treatment from your employer. Common courtesies get stretched into expectations until they become unavoidable impositions. When you have the power of an employer over an employee, your expectations over what consists a “common courtesy” needs to be kept in check by something that supersedes your interpersonal relationship, because once you start getting a foot in the door, the employee doesn’t have proportionate power to keep you in check. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/125 "2014-04-15T06:58:02Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Back when my dad started a job – the last job in his long career as an engineer – he was given a pager on his first day. That evening he dropped it in a drawer and never looked at it again. As he put it, only a life-and-death emergency would necessitate calling him after hours, and since he wasn’t a doctor there wasn’t anything he could do in such a situation anyway. Anything else could wait till the next business day. > > He kept that job until he retired, on a date of his choosing. I think I know your dad. A guy involved with my conference a while ago told me that his company gave him a pager. He said he looked at it, opened his desk drawer, dropped it in, and never thought about it again. He never got fired either. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/126 "2014-04-15T07:01:58Z")
BTW, the Times had an article about this on Saturday or Sunday, and noted that the idea that this was a law came from British papers and their usual love of things French. It also noted that the British articles didn’t mention that this idea was first used in Germany, I suppose because calling the Germans lazy doesn’t work very well. I blame Murdoch. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/127 "2014-04-15T07:06:15Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > No, you’re doing a simple common courtesy. Are you such a mercenary that you demand to be paid for the imposition of answering a simple question for another human being who needs your help? Sure, I need to be paid to talk to you - why the hell would I otherwise? You’re work; you pay to talk to me. Period. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/128 "2014-04-15T07:14:36Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > When did I ever say I expected anyone to work “for free”? > > Make sure that anything I needed from you was handled before you left town. > > No, you’re doing a simple common courtesy. Are you such a mercenary that you demand to be paid for the imposition of answering a simple question for another human being who needs your help? When you said you expect people to deal with company issues no matter how small on their private time. What if you decide you need something after Friday 5pm? Your not a human being - you my boss and it is not a common courtesy, it is dealing with company stuff on my time. The problem is not that to you it is a minor issue. The issue is that there is the expectation that workers need to deal with company business for free PLUS the fact that many bosses do not have a sense of what is minor and what isn’t. Sure it’s overkill to expect to get paid to tell you where the light switch is, but I have seen bosses that use similar logic to you to ask for a half day of free work on Saturday. My dad worked for one company where he was not allowed to be more than 2 hours form work at any time “in case something happens”. He was a CPA but that was the expectation because he was “exempt”. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/129 "2014-04-15T09:18:42Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Your not a human being And you say _I’m_ the one being unreasonable. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/130 "2014-04-15T09:27:52Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > Sure, I need to be paid to talk to you - why the hell would I otherwise? > > You’re work; you pay to talk to me. Period. Alright. How much is the three seconds of your time that it takes me to ask you where the light switch is worth to you? Give me a quote. And then explain to me why answering that is so much of an unbearable burden relative to what it would be to tell your father or brother or husband/wife or friend or drinking buddy or any other random stranger where the light switch is, such that that expenditure of your vocal cords, for the purpose of telling me, an employer who is not a human being and therefore unworthy of any of the common courtesies to which you would without a second thought oblige a total stranger, _worth_ that price, above and beyond the salary you’re already earning. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/131 "2014-04-15T09:53:43Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Alright. How much is the three seconds of your time that it takes me to ask you where the light switch is worth to you? Give me a quote. And then explain to me why answering that is so much of an unbearable burden relative to what it would be to tell your father or brother or husband/wife or friend or drinking buddy or any other random stranger where the light switch is, such that that expenditure of your vocal cords, for the purpose of telling me, an employer who is not a human being and therefore unworthy of any of the common courtesies to which you would without a second thought oblige a total stranger, _worth_ that price, above and beyond the salary you’re already earning. So what generous courtesies do you extend your employees? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/132 "2014-04-15T09:55:58Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > When did I ever say I expected anyone to work “for free”? So when you showed up at your employees’ doorstep when they wouldn’t answer your calls, did you cut them an overtime check ? Honestly, that notion boggles my mind. I would have shut the door in your entitled face something fierce. When I’m off the clock, I’m _off the clock_. Outside the office, you’re not the boss of me. > [@](#): > > No, you’re doing a simple common courtesy. No. I’m not. I am telling you to get off my property and I’ll see you on Monday. What are you gonna do about it ? If the answer is “fire you !”, then that wasn’t “a courtesy” in the first place, was it ? That was always coercion on your part. Work. The only logical answer to which can be “Fuck you, pay me. Sir.” > [@Manda JO](#): > > Why shouldn’t my hard work, skill, and dedication translate into me being in a position to better shape and control that life? I AM paying the price, gladly–why shouldn’t I get the benefits? Well, to put it simply : because letting workaholics workahole can only lead to Stakhanovism for the rest of us. The discussion is essentially the same as the one about minimum wage : on the one hand you’ve got guys saying “But I’m really desperate ! I’ll work for less, just give me some work !”, and naturally employers would be only too happy to pay less too. But the majority of folks don’t want to be paid less or for salaries to spin into a cutthroat downwards spiral. Thus, minimum wage. Thus, maximum work hours. * * * Anyway, yes, after some talk with friends who work in the government and are more informed about this stuff than I am, this is not a real law. It is, in fact, not a law at all. It is what we call an “accord de branche” (sectoral agreement, or industry-wide agreement), which is to say a voluntary agreement between the unions representing every employee and the union representing every boss in a given sector - in this case, engineers and consultants who tend to spend most of their time on the road or otherwise away from their office and as such would or could (voluntarily or not) be made to work longer than what’s stipulated in their contracts or even over the legal standard. It’s also not a blanket agreement that applies every day of the week : the notion is that, by law, everybody has to have 48h of rest time per week. Not necessarily on the week-end, but two days per week. Minimum, mandatory. Because consulting is a specific, very career-driven milieu and due to the contracting nature of the job it’s not at all unusual for consultants to pack all of a month’s worth of work hours inside a single week (another friend opined that back when he was a finance consultant he’d basically work like a crazy person, 70+ hrs a week for 6 months of the year but twiddle his thumbs the rest of the time) they are now “required” to take a break and not touch their work email/phone over those 48h. Not that it’s gonna happen in real life, none of us believes. But there’s paper saying they should, at least 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/133 "2014-04-15T10:07:21Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > what if your daughter died in the emergency room because they couldn’t get hold of the specialist to save her? Doctors and pharmacists have a rolling on-call duty on the weekends so that a minimum level of service is always ensured. I expect cops and fire fighters do as well. Specifically because their job is life or death (or, in the case of urologists, life or no-Viagra, which is even more dire). Your daughter won’t die in the emergency room because your bank’s top financial consultant is out fishing. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/134 "2014-04-15T10:49:16Z")
**Smapti** , do you understand how much implied power you hold over your employees? Because that’s almost certainly why **Cad** is saying things like “you’re not a human being”. Because in that relationship, you’re not _just_ a human being, you’re a human being who wields immense power over the other. So you get seen as a boss sooner than a human. Not that you aren’t a human too, but wielding that much power over others does have a certain dehumanizing aspect. So when you go to your employee’s home during off hours for business, you’re often not going to be seen as his friend (even if you are his friend), you’re often not going to be seen as a human (even though you’re clearly human), you’re often just going to be seen as a boss - an avatar and representation of work, and everything else sort of falls by the wayside. That, plus what others have said - you might be a stellar, reasonable boss who only makes one 30-second phone call every few weeks, but there are tons of bosses who are _not_ like that. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/135 "2014-04-15T11:34:48Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Alright. How much is the three seconds of your time that it takes me to ask you where the light switch is worth to you? Give me a quote. The amount you should have to pay for that two-second conversation should be high enough that you have to give up something else in your budget so that you’ll never want to make that kind of call again and come up with an alternative solution for future incidents. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/136 "2014-04-15T11:47:08Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > …. explain to me why answering that is so much of an unbearable burden relative to what it would be to tell your father or brother or husband/wife or friend or drinking buddy or any other random stranger where the light switch is, such that that expenditure of your vocal cords, for the purpose of telling me, an employer who is not a human being and therefore unworthy of any of the common courtesies to which you would without a second thought oblige a total stranger, _worth_ that price, above and beyond the salary you’re already earning. If you honestly think there is equivalence between family and you, then I’m sorry for you. You’re in my life because you pay me. And only to the extent you pay me, as described in the contract between us. You know about contracts presumably – they define business relationships? If your business is time critical and you think you need out-of-hours contact, then negotiate for that. But not with me, I’d leave instead. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/137 "2014-04-15T13:25:45Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > And you say _I’m_ the one being unreasonable. With all due respect, the point was that you put forth that I should help you out as a fellow human being. Your not just a fellow human being but my boss meaning our relationship is different. A person may feel obliged to help you on their own time or there may be repercussions if I don’t help you. If you were just a fellow human being, I am more free to not help you if I don’t want to. So Ana, Bill and I have information you need. Let’s say no one knew you needed this information before Saturday. You call the three of us and it would take about 15-20 minutes to hunt up the information you need. Ana finds the information after 30 minutes of looking. Bill is on vacation out of cell coverage so he doesn’t get your message. I am getting ready to go to my son’s game and so I decide not to get you the information. Promotion comes up at work. Does the above scenario have any impact on whom you pick? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/138 "2014-04-15T15:22:01Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > So when you get that email or call from Big Bossman (from Cobb County, GA) at 11:16pm That would be some _aether_net cable connecting you to him. . . . The idea is dumb. The idea as law is even dumber. No doubt there are specific situations between employer and employees where this might be workable, but the US lives and works in multiple time zones, in addition to international business. There are multiple shift work situations (sometimes to deal with the time zones, other times to deal with providing services to the multitude of ~9-~5 customers). What happen if someone decides they actually would prefer to work late. Several times I’d be working early in the AM because I couldn’t sleep, and I’d send out information to tee up for the next day, and I’d get a response from someone in the same position (and sometimes I’d be the one responding, even though a 3AM response wasn’t required nor expected). There is no way to write an exception for each and every case that would need one, and if they tried there would be loopholes fly a jumbo cargo jet through. It’s unworkable as nationwide law, and it wouldn’t solve the real problem of bad bosses placing unrealistic demands upon their employees. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/139 "2014-04-15T16:51:40Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > With all due respect, the point was that you put forth that I should help you out as a fellow human being. Your not just a fellow human being but my boss meaning our relationship is different. A person may feel obliged to help you on their own time or there may be repercussions if I don’t help you. If you were just a fellow human being, I am more free to not help you if I don’t want to. > > So Ana, Bill and I have information you need. Let’s say no one knew you needed this information before Saturday. You call the three of us and it would take about 15-20 minutes to hunt up the information you need. > > Ana finds the information after 30 minutes of looking. > Bill is on vacation out of cell coverage so he doesn’t get your message. > I am getting ready to go to my son’s game and so I decide not to get you the information. > > Promotion comes up at work. Does the above scenario have any impact on whom you pick? Unfortunately, he already answered that in #82: > [@](#): > > When I did that it was because I was either genuinely concerned about the employee’s well-being or because I had a critical issue that couldn’t wait until that person’s next day at work. **If I had an employee who was actively avoiding communication, the message that gives me is that they don’t put much priority on their work and they must not be very interested in getting better hours or a higherpaying position. If I had a full-time position to fill, you can bet I’m going to consider the person who’s willing to put in the extra effort over the person who never answers the phone when we need help.** So in Smapti’s world, either you work for free in your offtimes whenever your boss needs you or you’re not a team player who deserves to be promoted ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835/140 "2014-04-15T17:21:46Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > So in Smapti’s world, either you work for free in your offtimes whenever your boss needs you or you’re not a team player who deserves to be promoted While a one-off situation right before promotion time might have an undue impact, especially with a bad boss, the simple fact of life is that most bosses with salary and/or promotion power are going to promote the person who is most likely to make the bosses look better to their superiors and/or increase the company’s ROI the most. Any other way penalizes the person working harder. That is not saying both aren’t working hard, but one is putting in more effort. Life is a competition. One may not want to compete, and may choose not to compete, but rest assured, others are competing against you. When resources are limited (such as raises and promotions), the better competitor will win. (The better competitor will also figure out which criteria are being graded and maximize those criteria, and sometimes it isn’t actually doing better work. And it sucks when that happens, no doubt.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/work-emails-banned-after-6pm-in-france-you-think-we-need-the-same-in-us/685835.md?page=8)