Saturday mornings

As it is Saturday, I thought I would share one of my few frustrations about living in Switzerland, store hours. Stores in Switzerland are only open Monday to Friday 9-6 and Saturday 9-6. Now the reason why this always frustrates me on Saturday in particular is that I always feel rushed to get our big weekly grocery shopping trip in. Which means that as I am sitting here in my PJs on a Saturday morning, relaxing after a long week, and trying to think of fun/relaxing things to do for the weekend, the question in the back of my mind is always "OK, when should we go to the grocery store"? From what I have gathered since living in this country, the reasons behind these store hours are as follows:

1. to protect blue collar workers: in a society like the US where stores stay open 24/7, you often have people that are working non-stop, 7 days a week to make ends meet and they don't have time off. The Swiss shop hours ensure that everyone is able to enjoy their evenings and weekends.

2. the land of the stay at home mom: In one of the cantons (i.e., "states") of Switzerland, women just gained the right to vote in the 1970s and it never fails to drive me a bit mad that the citizens of this country refuse to acknowledge that not every family has a stay at home mom, dad, or nanny that can go to the grocery store while the rest of the family is at work.  The other interesting tid-bit on this subject is that kids don't go to school on Wednesdays in Switzerland, translation: one parent must stay at home every Wednesday or hire a nanny because the cost of childcare in Switzerland is equivalent to 30-50% of family income.

3. cost: In the land of uber-expensive, Switzerland has determined that employing workers for a few additional hours might not actually be worth the extra revenue that it would bring in.

4. importance of personal/family time: having stores open past 6PM means that time people would spend shopping would be cutting into time they should be spending with their family.

So where does this leave me? Well, still annoyed that I have to spend my Saturday mornings grocery shopping and a bit annoyed at Switzerland's "its my way or else" approach to family values, but I do appreciate their ability to stand up for worker's rights and a world economy that constantly pushes for more. And with that, I'm off to do our weekly grocery shopping trip! Happy weekend everyone.