Work Culture in Spain
by Anna
In Spain, work hours are often ruled by the meals. For Spaniards, meal breaks are very important, especially lunch, which it is taken sometime between 1pm and 3pm. Spaniards like to take their time eating, and we spread our meals out during the day. That also means that we adapt our commercial hours and office hours to our eating habits.
The midday meal, la comida as it is called in Spain, is the largest meal of the day. Usually we take a break for between 1 and 2 hours to eat la comida and to drink un cortado(expresso coffe with a bit of milk). This means going back to work after lunch and instead of finishing at 5pm, finishing at 7pm or later. These work hours are very common in towns and neighborhoods with many local businesses. When I was a kid my brother used to pick me up from school at 1pm, we arrived home after a 10 minute walk and we enjoyed a long meal with our parents, who also had a two hour break from work. Schools started again at 3pm and my mother opened the doors of her own local store at 4:30pm.
In my home town near Barcelona all stores are closed between 1:30pm and 4:30pm and rush hour is 6pm. This is changing as more and more big companies open their doors without a midday break. Of course big chains, malls and large stores do not close their doors at lunch time! Work hours are changing slowly, especially in the downtown areas of big cities like Barcelona and Madrid. The standard office hours are 9 to 6 with a one hour break to eat. However, it is not a big deal if you need 15 more minutes to digest la comida.
Lunch is always a time to sit down, eat, and hang out with colleagues. You will rarely see office workers having sandwiches on-the-go, or grabbing a small thing to eat for lunch at the corner store. It is also common in business to stop meetings to take lunch with a long sobremesa (hang out time at the table after the meal is over).
