Greeting ritual

[Chancer]

You have probably noticed how long it can take to do the customary hand shaking and bisous with a group in France, it dawned on me tonight that as the group gets bigger the time increases exponentially. 

I go to diving training with my club one night a week and now try to do both nights, there are around 20 on the Wednesday and 30 Thursday, tonight I realised how much less pool time we get with the bigger group.

About half the group are women who s'embrasse either 2 or 4 times so taking an average of 3 we carry out one thousand seven hundred and forty kisses and handshakes every time we meet, then of course us guys having the weakest memories often ask "est-ce qu'on a deja serré le main?" I can never remember so we do it one more time for good measure.

In the workplace there must be a critical mass of employees that once reached means that no work can get done at all [:-))]

I do remember working at a French subsidiary in the 80's and the first walk through the offices and the shop floor taking a very long time.

How do those of you who work for companies find this?

[Âme]

Ha, yes! In my first job in France it would take a full 30 minutes to complete the 'arrival' procedure, all done on company time.  I thought it was very civilised.  Needless to say, leaving at the end of the shift involved no such palaver!

[Théière]

And if just one of them has ..................[:-))]

you'll all get it [:)]

[Chancer]

I woke up in the middle of the night realising that my maths is probably wrong, I think the true number of greetings is either half, or half plus one of the figure I gave.

[Tricia]

I've managed to reduce the kissing now, and just offer a hand to shake. And greet with "ça va?" or some such.

But I'm afraid I often forget that too, and just launch straight into the point of the conversation. Is this really bad manners to the french? It's so common in the UK.

[Chancer]

[quote user="Tricia"]I've managed to reduce the kissing now, and just offer a hand to shake. And greet with "ça va?" or some such.
But I'm afraid I often forget that too, and just launch straight into the point of the conversation. Is this really bad manners to the french? It's so common in the UK.
[/quote]

Yes Tricia it is.

I once completed a long bike ride and arrived back just in time for a swift half at the local brasserie, I was on my chinstrap and dying of thirst so went to the bar and ordered my demi first, the patron my friend gave me a real dressing down and told me that I must say hello to everyone first, when I had done that he told me that he was closing and I couldnt have a drink!

I also fall foul having lost the sight of my left eye, when someone approaches from that side with an outstretched hand I often dont see them and it is sometimes taken as a snub.

The real faux pas which one can innocently do in the early days is to shake someones hand in the afternoon having already done so in the morning, this is an absolute  no-no.

Bye the way Tricia I hope that you dont tutoyer the people that you shake hands with, I am of course assuming from your user name that you are female.