Snow on the Cars: Work Ethic in Austria

Americans are famous for our work ethic. For many Americans, the 40-hour work week is a myth. Fifty, sixty, even 80 hours a week are not unheard of. Evenings and weekends are fair game. Salaried employees pull long nights at companies where dinners brought in are touted as a perk. Hourly workers will take a second job on top of their 40 hours if that is what is necessary to make ends meet. Lunch at one's desk is common, and may be perceived as a luxury by those who fill their days with working lunches entertaining clients or discussing projects with their team. At least the person eating lunch at her desk gets a few moments of relative peace and quiet.

What do the workday and workweek look like in Austria, and most of Europe? Many businesses are closed during lunch. The "mittagspause" (mid-day pause) is rarely less than two hours. Insurance companies, car dealers, bankers, and retailers in small towns all close up shop. A three-hour work break is not uncommon. In our little village, the post office inside a clothing store (like postal partners in the US). Both are closed from 12:00-3:00 Monday through Saturday.  On Sundays, all businesses are closed. In bigger cities, businesses that cater to tourists are the only places that are open; this includes museums, tour operators, and souvenir shops.  Closing on Sunday is mandated by law. (These laws are strongly supported by labor unions and churches.) The lunchtime closures are decided by each business and venue. For example, the stores in the malls in Salzburg are open through lunch. But the malls are closed on Sundays.

The long lunches and store closures beg a question from this American: what do the Europeans DO during their lunch breaks? If all the businesses are closed, employees are very limited in the errands they can run and the phone calls they can make. (There is a strong preference for phone calls over emails.) Can't go to the post office, your banker is out to lunch, the car dealer won't answer the phone. Maybe you can get a haircut, but you don't need to do that every day, and it doesn't take three hours.

Opening hours at the clothing store/post office

There is more to this work ethic question than just hours. There is the question of "what are they doing when they are at work?" 

My husband has conniptions every time we pass a car dealership where all the cars are covered in snow (that would be most of them!) What are they doing inside? Don't they know they will sell more cars if people could actually see them? We really don't know what the car dealership staff are doing. We have been looking at a certain VW van near our village. We went to the dealership and checked out the van, as well as another non-VW van. The VW was "reserved" for a customer who was considering it. After a few days with no word from the dealership, I called to inquire about the van. Yes, it is still available. My husband has a background in sales and is just stumped that the salesman didn't call an interested lead about an available car.

Now, dear reader, you might be thinking, "don't paint all of Austria -- or Europe for that matter --  with the same brush as the car salesman."  Oh, but we can. There just is not a sense of customer service here. Americans are famous for our customer service specifically because it is so hard to find elsewhere.

The flip side of our zest for customer service culture is that customers begin to believe that they are indeed king. We collectively complain about the sense of entitlement that pervades our culture. Perhaps we need look no further than the checkstand.

We finally decided to buy the van. I called the salesman and made an appointment to come in. Not tomorrow morning, I was told. He was busy.  How about the day after tomorrow? No rush. There is never a rush in Austria. We went to the dealership on Wednesday morning, showed him our passports, signed some papers, and learned that we would get it next week. The dealership needed to conduct an inspection. Apparently, this takes several days. When everyone takes 2-3 hour lunches, you begin to see that everything takes longer to complete.