Morning Greetings

In French culture every morning when you come into work you are expected to shake hands with everyone that you work with. Luckily, I like to get to work early so when I get in there are only a few people on the floor. I make my way around to everyone that has already shown up and shake their hands. It's not limited to the people in your group but rather everyone in your area. For me this is roughly 50-80.

You follow the same rules when you see someone for the first time that day. So at the beginning of a meeting everyone will walk around and greet one another.

As important as shaking hands with everyone is, it is equally or more important to remember who you have already greeted that day. You should NEVER shake anyone's hand more than once in a day. It is considered an insult and as if they were not significant enough to remember.

Début 2

So it's been a long time since I started the blog with the best intentions of keeping it up. At least Kim got started and has done a great job of filling everyone in on our experiences in France. If you haven't seen it yet here is the link to Kim's Blog. I thought a while back that I would start to write about the differences that I have noticed between living and working in France versus the US.

Here's my best shot.