As a newsletter writer, I get a lot of out of office replies. But I never really believe them. While people might be out of a physical building, no one I know is ever really away from their work these days. But that’s apparently not the case in France where employees are officially expected to be away from their work emails after 6pm. And the rule applies to smart phones too. Under a recent deal signed by French unions and the tech industry, “about 1 million workers will be required to switch off their work phones outside office hours.” Ceci n’est pas une emploi…

+ France is not alone. Germany recently banned managers from calling or emailing staff after normal work hours, unless it’s an emergency. “Managers should apply a principle of minimum intervention into workers’ free time and keep the number of people whose spare time is disrupted as low as possible.”

+ But don’t worry. America is changing its overworking ways. A cafe in Vermont saw an increase in sales after they cut off WiFi and banned laptops. (Of course, the sales only increased because people made room for more customers by quickly satisfying their caffeine addiction and then running out to the sidewalk to tweet about it.)