In my experience, lunch is taken seriously in Portugal.
When I first encountered a long Portuguese lunch break whilst running intense financial modelling courses, I found this a little stressful. How was I going to cover all the course material necessary if we were taking a long time over lunch? However, I soon realised that the delegates were actually very productive in the afternoons. In fact, generally far more productive than those who ate a sandwich over their computer over lunchtime whilst answering emails.
Whilst a decent lunch break is important (within balance of course), stopping at a sensible hour at the end of the day is too. It is noticeable on my courses that errors rise significantly after 6pm. The brain has just had enough after 9 hours or so of intense modelling.
And that reminds me of one of my assignments when a client had a problem with a model that was about to be submitted for a bid. The modeller was highly capable but exhausted. I was asked to come into the offices and assist with the model (this was long before Zoom calls). When I arrived the team leader asked me what our first steps should be. My answer was to send the modeller home to get some sleep. Over the next few days we made sure that he had enough rest and his efficiency and clarity increased substantially. The model survived, the bid was successfully submitted and the team leader agreed that my “high risk” strategy of sending the modeller away was the right one, despite being counter-intuitive.
It’s all about giving the brain a break. If the brain is in a constant operational state it’s not operating at its optimal capacity for financial modelling. We need to be able to think in order to be an efficient modeller and to come up with good solutions. Have a look at an earlier blog on light bulb moments: https://camillaculley.com/2020/07/on-financial-modelling-apples-baths-and-fishing-trips/
If you manage financial modellers, please look after them. Give them time to think, make sure they stop modelling at around 6pm and every now and then take them out for a decent Portuguese lunch. It will be worth it.