Just coming back for lunch I meet a colleague of mine back at school: we were done eating and ready to go back to the work we stopped more than an hour ago. This one team member meant that another 4 were missing. By calling them I would only find out that they had spend the last hour searching for a restaurant that could not be found.
It would take another 2 hours of waiting to find out that the colleague that had been blocking any form of decision making had gone home because of an headache. Another one had to go home because of bla bla bla bla bla and so only two of them came back apologizing for being late. Finally it took us half an hour to divide tasks and wrap the whole thing up. This means three hours of waiting for something that took half an hour.
I always believe that you should prevent stereotypes so for the moment I will not draw any harsh conclusions. Secondly I have heard the stories before so I knew more or less what I was getting into. Thirdly I feel kind of like a guest coming to any country so I feel a certain adaptability can be expected.
This doesn’t mean that I do not fear my future in France right now. However it does mean that I will never ever accept working like this again.