Page 12 - #64 eng 电子版

c Cover Story

In many offices, you’d be hard-pressed to find a desk
without a half-full coffee mug, or an employee who doesn’t stop to
refill at some point throughout the day. Unsurprisingly, the origin
of the “coffee break” is entwined with the evolution of the eight-
hour work day, adopted by many factories in the early 1900s. Within
a few decades, coffee breaks had become a workplace ritual. There
is an idea that the kaffeeklatsch—a German domestic tradition of
gossiping around mugs of coffee—had been adopted by the American
corporate culture and served as a time to unload, to kvetch in
solidarity with one’s co-workers.

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