Never Quitting

First and foremost, please train yourselves always to click on (and add to!) the comments at the end of each post. This will be very important here at Native Observation.

Early commenters have suggested that they are going to quit their jobs in order to keep up with this new blog, assuming that that's how things are done in France. Mais non !

But it does remind me of A Story . . .

When I first moved here, back when I was Young and Innocent, before I had learned all The Ways of France, I had to negotiate my first French employment contract. The HR person--let's call her Glinda--at nGo where I was working (I'd already been working there for a few months before we negotiated the contract, but that's A Different Story) was very kind and patient, explaining all the things that were strange unto my American eyes. "Why doesn't the contract say how much vacation time I will have?" I asked. "Because," Glinda told me, "French Labor Law requires everyone to have five weeks of vacation, unless the Collective Agreement for our sector provides for more. Anything in this contract that contradicted Labor Law or the Collective Agreement would be invalid, so there's no point in mentioning it." "But the contract doesn't say if I have health insurance!" I worried. "Stephanie, you're not in America anymore! Everyone who works in France is covered by French social security. Plus, of course nGo has private supplemental health insurance," the Good Witch told me. And on and on she went, assuring me that my every need would be taken care of by the Wonderful Wizard of URSSAF*.

Then we came to the contract clause which specified my place of work. The clause stated that I was assigned to work in Paris, but that nGo could transfer me on a short- or long-term basis to anywhere in the world, without invalidating the contract. Glinda seemed to think that this would be a sticking point, so she gently explained that while nGo did not foresee transferring me, it might need me to help set up foreign offices in the future, so nGo felt it was important to keep this clause in the contract. I shrugged and said, very matter-of-factly, "That's fine. I took this job because I wanted to live in Paris, so if you ever transferred me to a place I didn't want to live, I would just quit."

Glinda's eyes got huge, and she gasped, "Stephanie! You never quit a job in France, you always negotiate being fired!" I thought that was the funniest and most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.

Six years, and two "negotiated departures" later, I begin to see her point.

So, gentle readers, please do not quit your jobs. If you need more time to devote to this (and other) worthy blog(s), please negotiate an alternative work schedule with your benevolent employers. Of course, those of you in America will probably just need to accept that you're going to be getting less sleep from now on.


*URSSAF is the French Social Security administration. One minor point that Glinda neglected to mention to me about life Over the Rainbow is that instead of a pay "stub", I would received a "bulletin de paie" that would be one to two pages long, to list all the deductions for social security and other benefits. But not income tax! Income tax in France is not withheld from your paycheck by your employer; you have to make quarterly or monthly income tax payments directly to the tax authority out of your take-home pay. So "net salary" in France means after social charges (about 25% of your gross salary) but before income tax (which may be from 0 to 15% or much more of your taxable income, depending on your salary level and tax deductions). Yes, French taxes can be high, but in my experience, it evens out: the French have many public benefits, paid for by taxes, which Americans have to pay for privately, out of their (higher) take-home income.