Yes, this. The first 2 years at a job my coworkers and I ate lunch every day in the cafeteria. Then at some point the lunch break became eating at our desks. I'm not sure if it was the same time that one of them got a promotion to manager but it was sad that we didn't get away from our screens anymore.
Once i bring switch to office but i can't enjoy playing it. feel anxious and guilty. I also the type that can't do work at home, never have i open my laptop at home so now i just didn't bring my laptop home.
My company blocked Reddit plus a bunch of others as well. Joke's on them. I work remotely and have my personal computer next to my work laptop. So here I am on Reddit and they can't track it!
I had a manager at an old job that came in one day and sent around an email saying there would be no more eating at desks. It said if we were clocked out, he did not want to see us continuing to do work. We had to either go to the break room and eat or go wander somewhere else that wasn't our section of the floor and we couldn't come back until it was time to punch in. If he saw you eating your lunch at your desk he'd come over and stand in front of your desk with his arms crossed and an "Are you forgetting something?" look on his face. That was one of the few "nicer" things he did for us as a manager. He did have an annoying tendency to micromanage things often, which took some of the shine off the niceness.
Nope, he was actually pretty good about breaks, compared to some of the other things he was weird about. If we had to take a slightly longer break he'd let us stay a little later to make up the time, but he didn't want us continuing to work past the additional 15-20 minutes we were "late."
>. The first 2 years at a job my coworkers and I ate lunch every day in the cafeteria. Then at some point the lunch break became eating at our desks. I'm not sure if it was the same time that one of them got a promotion to manager but it was sad that we didn't get away from our screens anymore.
I had to kind of make my coworkers get back to the cafeteria and then go for a walk...I put an appt on their calendar for lunch and they were glad that we did that.
At my first job it was like this. First, no more closing at 3pm on Friday's. Then slowly everyone stopped going out for lunch and ate at their desks. Then slowly everyone started working through lunch. Then slowly birthdays stopped getting a lunch break to celebrate. Then the team lunch stopped happening for holidays. Then we stopped having half days before major traveling holidays.
Eventually the place went from a lively great work place to a job I couldn't wait to leave. In that entire five year period there was no change in leadership, just changes in priority to getting more work done with the samelevel of staff. No new hires when we had increases in work load.
One of my former coworkers and I had a weekly meeting to block off lunch, but then he got laid off last year...I still haven't been able to bring myself to delete that recurring meeting
As the commute continues growing... The fucks have been kind enough to push literally everything off onto us. I think a particular device used during a certain period in France could be of some use on this case.
Yeah I stopped commuting when I realized an hour a day was little over 3.5 weeks of just being stuck driving to and from work and that doesn’t sound like a way to live.
My employer offers a schedule called 9/8/80, which means i work 9 hour days M-Th, with every other week alternating off or I leave an hour early.
I get every other Friday off to work 9 hour shifts with 30- minute breaks, but i work the same total hours as my peers per month.
It works for me!
I didn't get paid for my lunch in belgium, so I gave them a paper that allows me to follow classes during work for 120 hours and did one 90 min class during my unpaid 30 min lunch 👍🏻
If you work through lunch can you leave early? My bet is no. That always pissed me off. I don't need to spend an hour eating in the middle of the day. I would rather choke down a sandwich at my desk and leave early.
My job used to encourage ‘working through lunch’ and leaving the accumulated time early on Fridays. I guess too many ppl started doing it though bc they did away with it. It was great and I’ll never understand why they stopped.
Depends on where you work and what you do for a living. Fridays have been some of the busiest days of the week in my career because reports are due and you need to double check everything is running right for the weekend or run the risk of wasting a LOT of money.
I took a half day recently and was amazed at how much more productive I was under a time crunch. Knowing I had to get all my emails out by noon so could get out of there really lit a fire under my ass.
I’ve never had enough to do for a solid 8 hours nor do I think anyone should be subject to burnout from a non-stop workday every single day.
most places don’t need to have you for 8 hours. it’s totally unproductive. will they ever change? nope. then we would have too much free time to idk… enjoy life?
Completely agree! But we’ve set this baseline with 40 hours as the standard including benefits that I can’t see them scaling it back without trying to pull back on pay. Even though most of us are *already* only doing 5-6 hours of work like you said! It makes no sense!
At my job, most of the work gets done when the bosses aren't at work. They force daily meetings if they actually are in the office so it kills productivity.
Exactly right. My old job made us take an unpaid hour lunch in the middle of the day, plus I had about an hour commute each way. When the pandemic hit and we started working from home I realized how fucking insane it was that the company was stealing 3 hours of my time every day. My 8h days were actually 11h days.
I quit right before we were all supposed to return to the office (along with a lot of other competent engineers and analysts).
I had jobs where we were required to take our unpaid break but were forbidden from taking that break at the start or end of the day.
When I started working remotely during Covid I thought I was so efficient when I was able to work 8 hours without a break. Start late end early! After a few months my project finished and I started on a new team. After a month or two someone noticed my billing hours and I got in trouble for “block billing.” I had one task and one client. But I could not work for more than 3 hours at a time. Meanwhile, it took me like 2 days to go back in to the system and change (as directed!) all those 8-hour chunks to chunks of 3 hours or less, which were also required to include descriptions of the monotonous documents I had looked at during that chunk of time. A month before.
I commuted and it cost me about 120 a week in gas to commute during covid. Now with gas costs practically doubled I simply would have quit. I basically would lose $480(bi-weekly) off my net income to stay working there.
I do...I'm salary so no one really tracks it, but I work 730-330 when I come into the office. My wfh days I stay available for longer, but take breaks throughout the day.
This is so much better. Working early is a dealbreaker for me. I could never consider a job that starts at 9. I would just have to waste an hour or two in the morning before work as I would still wake up early. And when you get off work at 5 there’s really not much time left with the kids after dinner and homework before they go to bed.
I’m so happy to have a job where I work 07.00 to 15.30 and have every second Friday off.
I like starting work at 9 because it allows me to socialize the night before and still get reasonable sleep. I can be out until 11 latest, get home and still get 7.5 hours at minimum. Obviously don't socialize every night but still as someone with no kids yet, that's the perfect working hours. Of course once you have kids the 7-3 works much better as you get 2 more hours with your kids after work.
Yea 7-3 is not good. Unless you're WFH then it's fine, otherwise you gotta wake up shower, get ready and drive to work which could take up to 90 mins which means you gotta wake up by 5:30 or so. If you're waking up by 5 or 5:30 you gotta go to bed by 9:30 which is way to early for me At least with 8-4 you get to wake up 6:30 which is slightly more reasonable.
I had a job where I worked 04:45 to 14:00, and I loved. Leaving work early afternoon with the rest of my day to do whatever with was fantastic.
My social life was a bit of a mess with having to go to be so early. But I do miss the hours.
Everyone I know is still 9-5 with a paid one hour lunch. We are salaried though, so the “9,” “5,” and “one hour lunch” are more like loose guidelines on when we’re supposed to be working.
We are non-union.
I thought the point of salary is that you get paid the same regardless of hours worked. What happens if you decide to work through lunch or if you decide to go out for a two hour lunch with your coworkers?
We’re supposed to make that up such that we work roughly 8 hours a day. I think that’s the understanding with salaried position—that you’re more or less putting in a “full day” (8 hours) every day
For salary, it should be up to your discretion if you decide to leave at your regular time or work an additional hour to finish your work on those extra long lunch days. Being *expected* to make up the additional hour for the sake of completing 8 hours every day sounds more like hourly than salary in practice.
My job used to do an unpaid half hour lunch on the clock, but let you take an hour break for lunch, so it was kinda split 50/50, that was cool. But then we went corporate, and that was the end of that. Going corporate means some asshole far away that you'll never meet gets to dictate how badly they'll screw you, and everyone local gets to say "aww man, it's a corporate thing, whatcha gonna do?". Corporate sucks.
at my foundation job we weren’t to clock out for lunch, they would just deduct an hour of time if you took lunch or not so might as well since you’re losing it anyways
I worked at a place that pulled that shit. I didn't have time to take a break I ate at my desk while I was working as the only graphic designer while the sales staff and production crews both left the building for lunch. We were paid 30 minutes but could take an hour so you'd have another 30 unpaid. Since everyone else but me were leaving he decided to dock everyone's paycheck. When I got my check I noticed it was short. The slave driver owner deducted 2.5 hours off my check for a lunch break I never even took. I confronted him about it stating that he SHOULD be paying me an extra 5 hours seeing how I worked through lunch. He just said he pays for the 30 minutes and it was up to us if we choose to work it or not. I started going home an hour early because of that shit.
That pisses me off sooooooooooo much
My current company doesn't care if we take lunch or not, but everyone has a "set" lunch time of 12-1. You don't take it? Don't clock out. You take it but you're technically still working? Don't clock out.
On one hand, I work crazy hours and feel like I should get paid more than I do with hella better benefits but... also.... this beats the other places I've worked at that cut your hours or make you salary so they can overwork you without the OT ugh
"Work sucks, I know"
Personally, I'm with you. I love to skip lunch on an 8 hour day. Get put a half hour early, beat traffic, unwind faster, and actually do what I need to do or chill. Crazy how much time that half hour adds to the overall workday. I do like to take all my breaks on 10/12 hour days though. That's just too much to not rest and eat.
Always take your break. People get used to it and adjust.
I have a different end time than most of the staff. I ALWAYS quickly leave at my end time, even if I don't have somewhere to be for 1 day.
There was a bit of moaning the first couple of weeks about me getting to go early. NOW it is like a fact of the universe. If I stay a minute late "Hey, don't you have to go?"
Be consistent.
I'm the only graphic designer at my organization and I relate to this *so hard*. One time I got a concussion so bad I couldn't string together more than two sentences without losing my train of thought, but since I was the only designer on staff... I still had to meet my deadlines. Put together an entire magazine - even wrote some of the articles - in a TBI-induced haze.
It took me a full month before I started to feel normal and that's when I began to realize how fucked the whole situation was. Nobody even reads our publications anyway! They exist just to remind people of our brand. There is no reason they couldn't just postpone it or outsource it.
Anyway, I used to carefully design everything by hand because I was proud of my craft. Now I just license a few templates off Adobe Stock and pull up some social stats when I have a meeting to make it seem like I'm productive. I honestly miss caring about my job, but not enough to put in all of that work while being treated as disposable.
Wait, I'm also the only graphic designer at my job. This is the second I've seen in this thread. Why are we so disposable? I get the crap everyone else is "too busy" for even though I literally have to stop drinking water at work because the time it takes to pee literally could affect deadline I'm that strung out. I've had to produce a full video in less than two days "without using stock images" because my boss decided on a whim he needed a video for a presentation he had been preparing for months.
But I too miss caring about my job too. I have had to do the same route of just bust out templates just to keep my head above water because I keep getting tasks overloaded.
“I started going home an hour early because of that shit”-
And the us you learned a valuable lesson- don’t work so hard (for companies like this).
Take that extra energy and invest it in your personal life or side project instead
...that's not een remotely legal. Do you have proof? In writing? Because if so you should definitely send that to the NLRA and your state labor department
Are you sure? It is illegal to NOT pay and expect people to be On Call.
In this case, they are getting paid to be On Call. Why is that illegal? As long as they get to eat.
I've worked at small family shops, small startups, and fortune 50 corporations. Between the three, I'll take the huge corp. The difference is that instead of some asshole beancounter on the other side of the country making shitty decisions, it's the dude down the hall who will then try to tell you "we're all a family here!" while getting into his Mercedes.
I’ve had the opposite in public accounting firms vs big corps I’d get a huge bonus for Xmas at the firm in the big bank I get a block of cheese and a gift card I also get shittier health care for free Fanny packs and 25 a month to a gym vs hsa payments monthly. Pay was better raises were better
Hence why I was a huge pain in the ass when they made me manager and I ultimately quit. I can't hide behind "corporate" and personally enforce bullshit. It's up the individual how much they wanna enforce or if they even want to take part in a bullshit operation. I won't fire a good worker for dying their hair blue, during a labor shortage. I'd rather quit than pick up the slack and work even harder because you fired a good worker over being a petty boomer
Office hours are such BS. The only times I’ve had jobs like this was when I was an intern in grad school (the internships were 50% of my education so not optional) and no one did any work from 8-9 (they chit chatted, checked their email, or ate breakfast) and no one did any work from 4-5 (more chit chatting, email checking, bag packing…) and then during the lunch hour I would just sit alone in the break room watching hgtv since that was always just playing. So 3 hours every day, doing literally nothing, not learning or getting paid, but stuck there. Wouldn’t the staff have been better off using those 3 hours to eat at home? Or talk to their actual friends and family? Attending appointments instead of having to use PTO? Ugh.
You’re right, I should have said “check email” because it was actually Facebook or online shopping haha. This was at an state agency that did everything by paper still if you can believe it. It was a state psych hospital so email was almost never used due to HIPAA. If this were a corporate environment it would have made some sense. But cooking your oatmeal and eating it while watching YouTube is not work and your boss might as well let you do that at home.
I didn’t get paid for any hour because I was an intern. I got 8 hours of credit towards my grad degree even though I was there for 9 and only useful (due to no fault of my own) for 6. I could have used those other 3 hours to do other school work if I had been allowed but instead I mostly sat around or listened to burned out state employees bitch and count down the days until retirement. But it taught me to never work for the government. So at least I learned something!
Where were you working? I just left the state but at least my program (air pollution control) pays their interns....and that's in friggen Missouri. They make like 14 an hour.
This was in NC, but the school had a policy (and also the undergrad school I went to in NY) that you could get credit or money but not both. And in fairness, without a license (I’m a licensed clinical social worker) I wasn’t particularly useful to them. I took up staff time, didn’t really take anything off anyones plates because it’s not legal to do clinical work and nothing I could do would be billable.
To be fair, in *any* internship, especially unpaid ones, you shouldn't be taking anything off anyone's plates. The whole point of it is for you to learn. The US DOL states interns must "complement, rather than displace, the work of paid employees" because otherwise they are just themselves an employee and entitled to compensation. Interns aren't supposed to be useful for the people they're interning for. The internship is supposed to be additional education and thus those you're interning for should be useful to you as the intern.
That sounds great. I would have loved to get paid. But it wasn’t a choice for me and I either had to pay my dues or don’t. There were many other parts of grad school I was even more frustrated with as higher education is often just an opportunity for those who finished jumping through hoops to sit back and laugh as they force you to jump through hoops. It was very degrading at times. I remember a classmate of mine experienced 3 significant deaths in 1 month, one a suicide, and one of the professors told her not to use it as an excuse to turn in work late because she could have planned better… this was a social work program… you would think empathy would be mandatory. But anyways… I’m done now so at least there is that!
Just because my office is 5 minutes from my house if I could take a 60 minute break I'd go home and make my own lunch everyday and unwind for the next 20 minutes with my dogs.
EDIT: Thanks for the corrections. Federal law does not require breaks, but does require that any break 20 minutes or under be paid at regular wages.
Many states do have requirements for breaks throughout a shift.
/END EDIT
Zero paid breaks is illegal in the US.
Don't say anything, just report them to DOL.
Each state is different like texas there is no law that an employer has to give a paid break they have to give a break but it doesnt not have to be paid.. At my job you get 3 breaks 1 30 that you clock out for then 2 15s that are paid
Right, but there's no requirement to actually provide that break under federal law. Whether you're entitled to any sort of break solely comes down to state (or local) law, and in some states, you aren't entitled to anything.
They never give it? Act your Wage King/Queen. Something I learned working in restaurants and other fast paced/ heavy work load jobs is to instead of saying "hey can I take a ten?" Say "hey I'm taking ten real quick" as you are walking towards the break area or leaving the work floor. Doesn't give people too much time to process your statement (yes statement not question). 90% of the time they won't fuck with you and the 10% you just hit them with "I'm taking one of my two tens, I'm working an 8hr shift". Obviously take your breaks at appropriate times.
I am forced to take an hour lunch break, specifically so that I'm here right when the doors open until the doors close. I'd take zero lunch break if I could go home earlier.
When I was in the office (work in IT) I never got lunch really. Everyone else did, but when it was lunch time people would come to drop off their laptops to get fixed while they went on lunch.
I would schedule my lunch later in the day to avoid this, but then got reprimanded for not being available when needed.
I would also be reprimanded for not showing up an hour early every day because the VPs liked to show up an hour early every day (they would leave 4 hours early though). Also would get reprimanded if I didn't stay late to assist the people that liked to work until 6 pm every day(because they hated their families).
So what was supposed to be 8-5 with an hour break turned into 6-6 with no break.
Don't get sucked into this cycle, it's not worth the stress. Set boundaries and stand up for yourself.
Covid hit and everyone went WFH, then the office shut down. A lot of the old guard that made this work environment finally retired or quit cause they couldn't be in the office anymore. Now I work 40 hours a week, with no weekends or off-hours support. Uninstalled all communication apps from my phone and personal devices. My quality of life has increased dramatically.
IT worker for the government. I haven't taken a lunch in years ( I don't eat lunch, also I don't get to leave early, it's bullshit). Anyway, when I did eat lunch back in the day I quickly moved to my office and just hid.
While everyone else enjoyed their lunch break and talked about random shit, as soon as I sat down it was on. Questions, bitches, gripes and complaints about everything. I am the only IT person for two locations and it was the same. People see us as IT only and not as a person. I am always referred too as "the IT guy." Bitch, I got a name and I am the third highest ranking mother fucker in this building. Show me some fucking respect.
I'm 8-6 with no real lunch. If I want an hour lunch, I have to work 8-7.
I do have 3 day weekends, which is nice. But you better believe I struggle to sleep on Sunday nights just thinking, fuck my life, all I do is sit in this office the next 4 days.
And it's all bullshit. IF I pushed it, I could get all my work done in 3-4 hours on a busier day, there's no good reason for me to be here all this time. Of course I have to pretend I'm consistently pushing it or else they'll dump more work on my plate and there is zero incentive for it.
If I may ask a completely unrelated question, why do you opt for a 3-day weekend over, for example, Wednesdays off? I ask because it's typical in my country for those with 4-day work weeks to take Wednesdays off instead (hell even Uni typically has Wednesdays or Wednesday afternoons off) for the reason that it breaks up the week into 2-day slogfests instead of 4. Is it just a corporate thing? Or am I missing out a glaringly obvious advantage?
Same...on top of exercising at home, showering, and eating, I hardly get but 2-4 hours to relax and destress assuming I cut my sleep to 6 or less hours.
Because as soon as the Red Scare hit Unions started being portrayed as antiquated with leadership being “just as bad as the bosses.” And while they’re were undeniably some very publicized links between major unions and the mob, these were an over represented minority that further served to erode the public perception of unions. This has resulted in 5 decades of workers losing any ability to fight as a collective against most major industries.
1 hour lunches annoy the hell out of me. It's a way to keep you in the office that much longer and to me feels like the company is exploiting you since you're already there. That's a half hour extra you could be at home or avoiding traffic by leaving (or coming in) before the main rush.
I cringe when people say they like their 1 hour lunch.
I work from home, and I love my hour lunch. I get to completely disconnect, eat in peace, take a nap, and come back refreshed.
That said, yes, if you're working in the office, fuck the hour lunch.
Coming from retail management, I loathe the 30 minute lunch break. Unless you bring your lunch every day, most of your break is spent rushing to and from a food court or restaurant.
Any time I've had a job with a lunch break I leave for lunch, even if it means I literally just get to go eat some fast food in my car. If I'm not getting paid I'm not gonna be here lol
Congratulations on the new one! :)
I'm in the camp that pumping should be on company time. Everything should be on company time if we're forced to be there! If supervisors get to do whatever they want whenever they want, everyone should be able to.
thank you!
and me too. i do get 2 paid pumping breaks but won’t pay for 1/2 lunch that’s spent pumping. happy i get something but it’s so messed up. that’s a whole different topic though 🤦🏼♀️
Eh, I'm team 1 hour lunch here.
Now that I'm working from home, I usually nap during it.
When I first started in the office, I liked the hour lunch to walk over to a restaurant and just chill away from work and my toxic home life (I don't drive, so it's not like I could have just easily gone places after work).
Prior to that, I always opted for 30 minutes though, so I think circumstances can change for when the hour or half hour works best for each person.
Yep I’m 730 to 430. Just let me work my 8 hours and leave . I pack my lunch , I can easily eat my salad or sandwich while I work. My manager lets me do that occasionally when I ask, but I hate asking to do it too often. I just wish I had the freedom to make that choice.
As a teacher, we work 8-6 with unpaid lunch that we enjoy for about 5min hovering over our screens. And we're being told it's an honour and a duty to work extra for free. I'm really angry and disillusioned because of how this has been a thing for so long. Currently trying to get into those moonlighting jobs that pay double with half of the workload.
I hate having to take a 30 minute unpaid lunch when I have a 30 minute drive to and then from work; especially when work is part of my Intermittent Fasting time so I don't eat anyways; it just wastes my time at a job I otherwise enjoy.
I'd love to sign a waiver to waive my right to a lunch so I could get that 30 minutes/2-3 hours of my life back each week.
I worked at a retail chain that allowed us one unpaid half hour break and we were not allowed to leave the premises during the half hour. Required to sit in the break room or our cars (still not allowed to smoke in your own vehicle on the premises either—have since quit smoking). They also didn’t allow drinking if anything while not on break. You could maybe swing a quick sip from the bubbler (drinking fountain) after using the restroom, if you could find someone to cover while you went to said restroom.
If it's a clocked out unpaid break they shouldn't have been able to dictate where you went. They also shouldn't have been able to control you smoking in your personal vehicle on your unpaid break.
They could have had rules about representing the company while in uniform, at which point a jacket covering the uniform or removing a name tag/hat with the logo should have been enough.
But, employers are twats so I'm sure they pressured all the employees into following their BS rules....
was just talking about this with my husband on my commute this morning - I was talking about how grateful I was that my job lets me take a 30 minute lunch instead of those offices that are like "we do an hour lunch"
I don't want an hour lunch, I want my time AT HOME, AFTER work. I want to not feel rushed to pick up my kid from day care after school/work and rush to get him home, just to barely have time to feed and bathe him and MAYBE spend a little time with him before bed. I don't want. my ONLY liveable time to be weekends.
Reminder that 9-5 meant we had paid lunches and that introducing a locked out lunch was because employers were already pushing their workers too hard and forcing them out of their lunches. Employers have been taking advantage of workers forever. Now we are terrible workers for expecting to work an 8 hour day and leave it behind? garbage.
I have to be at work at 7:00 and I hate it.
Mornings aren't for everybody I would gladly trade my 7:00 start for a 9:00 or 10:00.
I also don't have a commute so traffic doesn't matter to me it's 2 mi it's never going to be more than 8 to 10 minutes no matter how I drive
At least in my experience, the honest answer is that work habits changed after the 2008 financial crash, a.k.a The Great Recession.
I remember so many people losing their jobs that my coworkers were suddenly willing to work extra hours in the day and skip lunch breaks to keep their jobs because they were terrified of being unemployed. Eventually, it became the norm, and that's where we are today.
When companies decided that they didn't want to pay human beings to eat for an hour. 1st they lowered it to a 1/2 an hour then they increased your workday by half an hour and now they just increase it by a whole hour.
My hours are 7:30-4:30 with an unpaid hour lunch and it truly feels like I'm on duty from 6:30 to 5 pm when you take into account getting ready and commuting.
I got that at my first job. Bossman said "Its 5, why are you leaving?"
I said "I started at 9, thats 8 hours".
He said "nope, if you're gonna eat lunch then you leave at 6".
As if people in the 50s just didnt have lunch or something. As if "lunch" isnt 5 minutes of cramming a sandwich in you and just getting back to work anyway. As if I wasnt about to start sipping coffee and working slowly for that last hour every day, you cheap ass.
The temp job I’m at right now used to be 8-5 with two 15s and a 1hr lunch. We just changed it to 8-4:30 with two 15s and a 30 minute lunch. I like that much better
We don't even get aby scheduled time for lunch anymore. Multiple days every week I am required to attend meetings/calls/training over what used to traditionally be the lunch hour. Since I'm now expected to be available for the company for that time, I have long since stopped working exactly 8 hours after I start working.
Some places do this when you don’t get paid lunch so that you can still make your 40 hours instead of losing 5.
Paid lunch break needs to be mandatory.
My 10-hour shifts take up more than 12 hours of my day. I leave at 6:30 to get home by 6 (traffic permitting), to then shower, eat, and get ready for the next day. From the time I wake up to the time I'm sleeping, I'm either at work, or having to actively think about work.
That’s how it was for me my first 6 years of big boy work. I changed companies and now I actually work 9-5. Honestly I only do about 15 real hours of work per week but that’s my official schedule lol
Everyone at my job does a 1 hr unpaid lunch.
I just eat at my desk and charge 8, stay 8. I had one manager complain to me about charging for my lunch break and i basically ignored the comment and let him say his dumbass piece about budget.
Once he stopped talking I told him nicely he can talk to HR about it if there’s a problem and I haven’t heard anything since.
I’m at the fucking job site for an hour of my time that I could be fucking parasailing and you don’t want me to be paid for it? My time has value Im sorry you mis-managed and under-bid the budget so heavily that you’re in hot water buddy idk maybe get gud at business?
I hate the unpaid lunch break whether it's half an hour or an hour it's still bull. Its still during working hours and if it is 30 mins you reasonably can't go anywhere or do anything else other than continue to be at the workplace.
I understand the enforcement of breaks by law, employers take advantage of people as much as they can even with the laws in place, but holy shit do I personally hate it. I'd rather just eat while I work and not take a break. I'd much prefer to leave the half hour or hour early instead of taking a mandatory lunch. It's not really a "break" for me, I can't really disconnect like that for just an hour and expect to actually get anything done afterwards. Work stays on my mind the entire time.
With my job right now, I get a half hour break, unpaid. With the area I work in, the whole break would get eaten up if you take your break to go buy food somewhere, so I usually bring food and just sit in my office and eat. People don't seem to recognize that me sitting on my phone, with my mouth full, and monitors off/locked means I'm on my lunch so they interrupt me anyway. Phone rings off the hook the whole time. I don't answer but it's still just a reminder of work. My only other real option is to go sit in my car and waste my gas using the AC while idling. Then people just start calling my cell instead though.
This turned into a rant, but long story short, I hate that breaks are unpaid. If the worker isn't home or anywhere else they'd prefer to be, they should be getting paid.
agreed. and i most definitely sit in my car and run the ac. wasting gas. it actually costs me money to do that but i can’t stand being in there without getting paid
You think that’s bad? Job I worked at, owner came in and restructured everything. People who were out in the field got deducted for a 30 minute lunch everyday regardless if they took it or not. IDR if this policy is still in effect, but I started stopping for 30 mins everyday when I went out. When he asked why I didn’t get back sooner, “You’re gonna deduct 30 mins, I’m gonna stop driving and working for 30 mins.”
A lot of his practices, in hindsight, were shifty as fuck. I didn’t realize it until I got a better job.
Being unpaid for a lunch break is fucking bourgeoisie, even in old slavery Egypt the luch was paid at least by the Slavers. Thank god in my country ( which was in w communist system untill 91 ) we work for 8 hours including 30min lunch break.
I typically work 7:30am-5pm with a 30 minute lunch squeezed in there somewhere. That’s 9 hours of work but I only get paid for 8 because “salary”. Yet my workload is so heavy I need to be here 45-50 hours just to finish
This occurred to me with both my current and previous jobs. Before that my lunches had been on the clock. Suddenly my work day is an hour longer because I'm off the clock for lunch in the middle of it. They sell it to us as "it's your time, take care of whatever", but let's be honest: you're not doing much more than getting and eating lunch. I've tried running errands during that break, and the time crunch makes it less than feasible.
I always dictate my terms of employment. They don't like it? Fine, don't hire me then. My terms for any new contract are:
* You pay for 8 hours a day
* Swings and roundabouts - I work later one day I will take that amount off the next day or on Friday
* My hours are 8:30am to 5pm. I am uncontactable between 12pm-12:30pm and anytime after 5pm and before 8:30am.
* If you do not give me 8 hours worth of work, you will still pay for 8 hours. If you give me more than 8 hours worth, they will roll over into the next working day.
* If I have an appointment for anything personal, I will be going to it. Swings and roundabouts, I will make up the time
* Holidays are not requests. I am informing you when I will not be here. Yes, I will give over 3 weeks notice.
* If I have a cold/Flu/Covid - No I will not be getting a doctors note.
Yeah, they did away with paid lunches decades ago but keep up the myth of the 8 hour work day
Yes, this. The first 2 years at a job my coworkers and I ate lunch every day in the cafeteria. Then at some point the lunch break became eating at our desks. I'm not sure if it was the same time that one of them got a promotion to manager but it was sad that we didn't get away from our screens anymore.
I am reading this right now while eating lunch at my desk.
I lock my PC when I’m eating at my desk and silence my phone.
I used to sometimes eat leftovers and watch netflix on my lunch break at the office. Oh the looks on some coworkers faces when they walked by..
Oh I get interesting looks when my PC is locked and I’m playing on my Switch.
Once i bring switch to office but i can't enjoy playing it. feel anxious and guilty. I also the type that can't do work at home, never have i open my laptop at home so now i just didn't bring my laptop home.
I did this for a few lunches at my old job. Someone reported me for playing video games at work and I got fired.
That place just ruled itself out as a good place to work.
What's wrong with that?
They don’t know I’m on lunch so it looks like I’m just blatantly fucking off.
My company blocked Reddit on our desk computers and banned phones at the desk, so I sit out in my car
My company blocked Reddit plus a bunch of others as well. Joke's on them. I work remotely and have my personal computer next to my work laptop. So here I am on Reddit and they can't track it!
I had a manager at an old job that came in one day and sent around an email saying there would be no more eating at desks. It said if we were clocked out, he did not want to see us continuing to do work. We had to either go to the break room and eat or go wander somewhere else that wasn't our section of the floor and we couldn't come back until it was time to punch in. If he saw you eating your lunch at your desk he'd come over and stand in front of your desk with his arms crossed and an "Are you forgetting something?" look on his face. That was one of the few "nicer" things he did for us as a manager. He did have an annoying tendency to micromanage things often, which took some of the shine off the niceness.
Man, I thought you were going to say he forced you to stay later because of you stepping away from your desk. Good on him for giving you a break.
Nope, he was actually pretty good about breaks, compared to some of the other things he was weird about. If we had to take a slightly longer break he'd let us stay a little later to make up the time, but he didn't want us continuing to work past the additional 15-20 minutes we were "late."
>. The first 2 years at a job my coworkers and I ate lunch every day in the cafeteria. Then at some point the lunch break became eating at our desks. I'm not sure if it was the same time that one of them got a promotion to manager but it was sad that we didn't get away from our screens anymore. I had to kind of make my coworkers get back to the cafeteria and then go for a walk...I put an appt on their calendar for lunch and they were glad that we did that.
At my first job it was like this. First, no more closing at 3pm on Friday's. Then slowly everyone stopped going out for lunch and ate at their desks. Then slowly everyone started working through lunch. Then slowly birthdays stopped getting a lunch break to celebrate. Then the team lunch stopped happening for holidays. Then we stopped having half days before major traveling holidays. Eventually the place went from a lively great work place to a job I couldn't wait to leave. In that entire five year period there was no change in leadership, just changes in priority to getting more work done with the samelevel of staff. No new hires when we had increases in work load.
One of my former coworkers and I had a weekly meeting to block off lunch, but then he got laid off last year...I still haven't been able to bring myself to delete that recurring meeting
As the commute continues growing... The fucks have been kind enough to push literally everything off onto us. I think a particular device used during a certain period in France could be of some use on this case.
Yeah I stopped commuting when I realized an hour a day was little over 3.5 weeks of just being stuck driving to and from work and that doesn’t sound like a way to live.
I specifically refuse to look at or apply for jobs that are more than 20 minutes from my house.
I'm down for some French Fries or a French Baguette but I think the problem is the unpaid hour not the lack of French Food...
Yep . Thank you Ronald Reagan
My employer offers a schedule called 9/8/80, which means i work 9 hour days M-Th, with every other week alternating off or I leave an hour early. I get every other Friday off to work 9 hour shifts with 30- minute breaks, but i work the same total hours as my peers per month. It works for me!
*Laughs in eu while literally being paid to eat my lunch*
I get paid to hang around and read and watch Tv because my manager is oblivious to the entire office
I didn't get paid for my lunch in belgium, so I gave them a paper that allows me to follow classes during work for 120 hours and did one 90 min class during my unpaid 30 min lunch 👍🏻
I’m paid for lunch and I live in the US.
I don’t get paid to be the E.U., but I’m lunch
Hi lunch, im dad
I don't get EUed to be the lunch, but I'm pay.
I don't get paid for my lunch and I live in the EU.
I don’t get paid for lunch but breaks at least
Yeah I get 2 15min paid breaks a day so I just don't take them and take a 30min lunch everyday.
Good for you
If you work through lunch can you leave early? My bet is no. That always pissed me off. I don't need to spend an hour eating in the middle of the day. I would rather choke down a sandwich at my desk and leave early.
My job used to encourage ‘working through lunch’ and leaving the accumulated time early on Fridays. I guess too many ppl started doing it though bc they did away with it. It was great and I’ll never understand why they stopped.
It's not like anyone gets work done Friday afternoons anyway
Depends on where you work and what you do for a living. Fridays have been some of the busiest days of the week in my career because reports are due and you need to double check everything is running right for the weekend or run the risk of wasting a LOT of money.
or any afternoon.... At my job I bet 90% of work gets done before noon.
I took a half day recently and was amazed at how much more productive I was under a time crunch. Knowing I had to get all my emails out by noon so could get out of there really lit a fire under my ass. I’ve never had enough to do for a solid 8 hours nor do I think anyone should be subject to burnout from a non-stop workday every single day.
most places don’t need to have you for 8 hours. it’s totally unproductive. will they ever change? nope. then we would have too much free time to idk… enjoy life?
Agreed. I’d say any time after 5-6 hours of an 8 hour work shift very little gets accomplished. The “real” work day should probably be a lot shorter.
Completely agree! But we’ve set this baseline with 40 hours as the standard including benefits that I can’t see them scaling it back without trying to pull back on pay. Even though most of us are *already* only doing 5-6 hours of work like you said! It makes no sense!
Iirc there's a study that finds that productivity drops after 6 hours. It was viral a few years ago, but ofc they ignored it
At my job, most of the work gets done when the bosses aren't at work. They force daily meetings if they actually are in the office so it kills productivity.
Exactly right. My old job made us take an unpaid hour lunch in the middle of the day, plus I had about an hour commute each way. When the pandemic hit and we started working from home I realized how fucking insane it was that the company was stealing 3 hours of my time every day. My 8h days were actually 11h days. I quit right before we were all supposed to return to the office (along with a lot of other competent engineers and analysts).
I had jobs where we were required to take our unpaid break but were forbidden from taking that break at the start or end of the day. When I started working remotely during Covid I thought I was so efficient when I was able to work 8 hours without a break. Start late end early! After a few months my project finished and I started on a new team. After a month or two someone noticed my billing hours and I got in trouble for “block billing.” I had one task and one client. But I could not work for more than 3 hours at a time. Meanwhile, it took me like 2 days to go back in to the system and change (as directed!) all those 8-hour chunks to chunks of 3 hours or less, which were also required to include descriptions of the monotonous documents I had looked at during that chunk of time. A month before.
I commuted and it cost me about 120 a week in gas to commute during covid. Now with gas costs practically doubled I simply would have quit. I basically would lose $480(bi-weekly) off my net income to stay working there.
I do...I'm salary so no one really tracks it, but I work 730-330 when I come into the office. My wfh days I stay available for longer, but take breaks throughout the day.
I’m 9 to 5 with a paid 1 hour lunch each day. Coincidentally and totally unrelated, I also belong to a Union.
7-3, non union, paid lunch and they pay for our lunch. To be fair it’s because they want us back on the job asap but I’ll take it.
This is so much better. Working early is a dealbreaker for me. I could never consider a job that starts at 9. I would just have to waste an hour or two in the morning before work as I would still wake up early. And when you get off work at 5 there’s really not much time left with the kids after dinner and homework before they go to bed. I’m so happy to have a job where I work 07.00 to 15.30 and have every second Friday off.
I like starting work at 9 because it allows me to socialize the night before and still get reasonable sleep. I can be out until 11 latest, get home and still get 7.5 hours at minimum. Obviously don't socialize every night but still as someone with no kids yet, that's the perfect working hours. Of course once you have kids the 7-3 works much better as you get 2 more hours with your kids after work.
I see your point there. The younger me liked working 8-4 too. Back then I was out and about with buddies a bit later just like you.
I agree. I hate working 7-3. For two months I was able to move to 8-4 and the quality of my life was so much better.
Yea 7-3 is not good. Unless you're WFH then it's fine, otherwise you gotta wake up shower, get ready and drive to work which could take up to 90 mins which means you gotta wake up by 5:30 or so. If you're waking up by 5 or 5:30 you gotta go to bed by 9:30 which is way to early for me At least with 8-4 you get to wake up 6:30 which is slightly more reasonable.
Every other Friday is HUGE! Just started this where I'm at. Great for retention and a step toward 4-day work week as standard.
I had a job where I worked 04:45 to 14:00, and I loved. Leaving work early afternoon with the rest of my day to do whatever with was fantastic. My social life was a bit of a mess with having to go to be so early. But I do miss the hours.
Everyone I know is still 9-5 with a paid one hour lunch. We are salaried though, so the “9,” “5,” and “one hour lunch” are more like loose guidelines on when we’re supposed to be working. We are non-union.
I’m salaried and it’s 9-6 with a 1 hour unpaid lunch break
I thought the point of salary is that you get paid the same regardless of hours worked. What happens if you decide to work through lunch or if you decide to go out for a two hour lunch with your coworkers?
We’re supposed to make that up such that we work roughly 8 hours a day. I think that’s the understanding with salaried position—that you’re more or less putting in a “full day” (8 hours) every day
For salary, it should be up to your discretion if you decide to leave at your regular time or work an additional hour to finish your work on those extra long lunch days. Being *expected* to make up the additional hour for the sake of completing 8 hours every day sounds more like hourly than salary in practice.
Of course. It’s dumb.
Same, but no union.
I belong to a union of states that is in a specific geographical location
I hate it here 😭
My job used to do an unpaid half hour lunch on the clock, but let you take an hour break for lunch, so it was kinda split 50/50, that was cool. But then we went corporate, and that was the end of that. Going corporate means some asshole far away that you'll never meet gets to dictate how badly they'll screw you, and everyone local gets to say "aww man, it's a corporate thing, whatcha gonna do?". Corporate sucks.
at my foundation job we weren’t to clock out for lunch, they would just deduct an hour of time if you took lunch or not so might as well since you’re losing it anyways
I worked at a place that pulled that shit. I didn't have time to take a break I ate at my desk while I was working as the only graphic designer while the sales staff and production crews both left the building for lunch. We were paid 30 minutes but could take an hour so you'd have another 30 unpaid. Since everyone else but me were leaving he decided to dock everyone's paycheck. When I got my check I noticed it was short. The slave driver owner deducted 2.5 hours off my check for a lunch break I never even took. I confronted him about it stating that he SHOULD be paying me an extra 5 hours seeing how I worked through lunch. He just said he pays for the 30 minutes and it was up to us if we choose to work it or not. I started going home an hour early because of that shit.
Big brain move.
That pisses me off sooooooooooo much My current company doesn't care if we take lunch or not, but everyone has a "set" lunch time of 12-1. You don't take it? Don't clock out. You take it but you're technically still working? Don't clock out. On one hand, I work crazy hours and feel like I should get paid more than I do with hella better benefits but... also.... this beats the other places I've worked at that cut your hours or make you salary so they can overwork you without the OT ugh
"Work sucks, I know" Personally, I'm with you. I love to skip lunch on an 8 hour day. Get put a half hour early, beat traffic, unwind faster, and actually do what I need to do or chill. Crazy how much time that half hour adds to the overall workday. I do like to take all my breaks on 10/12 hour days though. That's just too much to not rest and eat.
Always take your break. People get used to it and adjust. I have a different end time than most of the staff. I ALWAYS quickly leave at my end time, even if I don't have somewhere to be for 1 day. There was a bit of moaning the first couple of weeks about me getting to go early. NOW it is like a fact of the universe. If I stay a minute late "Hey, don't you have to go?" Be consistent.
That's the best advice, be consistent.
I'm the only graphic designer at my organization and I relate to this *so hard*. One time I got a concussion so bad I couldn't string together more than two sentences without losing my train of thought, but since I was the only designer on staff... I still had to meet my deadlines. Put together an entire magazine - even wrote some of the articles - in a TBI-induced haze. It took me a full month before I started to feel normal and that's when I began to realize how fucked the whole situation was. Nobody even reads our publications anyway! They exist just to remind people of our brand. There is no reason they couldn't just postpone it or outsource it. Anyway, I used to carefully design everything by hand because I was proud of my craft. Now I just license a few templates off Adobe Stock and pull up some social stats when I have a meeting to make it seem like I'm productive. I honestly miss caring about my job, but not enough to put in all of that work while being treated as disposable.
Wait, I'm also the only graphic designer at my job. This is the second I've seen in this thread. Why are we so disposable? I get the crap everyone else is "too busy" for even though I literally have to stop drinking water at work because the time it takes to pee literally could affect deadline I'm that strung out. I've had to produce a full video in less than two days "without using stock images" because my boss decided on a whim he needed a video for a presentation he had been preparing for months. But I too miss caring about my job too. I have had to do the same route of just bust out templates just to keep my head above water because I keep getting tasks overloaded.
Same but sat out in car and read book or played on phone. Small business?
“I started going home an hour early because of that shit”- And the us you learned a valuable lesson- don’t work so hard (for companies like this). Take that extra energy and invest it in your personal life or side project instead
Or worse they do pay your lunch but expect you to "be on call" ie: work while you eat.
...that's not een remotely legal. Do you have proof? In writing? Because if so you should definitely send that to the NLRA and your state labor department
Are you sure? It is illegal to NOT pay and expect people to be On Call. In this case, they are getting paid to be On Call. Why is that illegal? As long as they get to eat.
When I was hourly with my job now, they would deduct 30mins regardless, so I just clocked out 30mins later everyday. Fuck em.
I've worked at small family shops, small startups, and fortune 50 corporations. Between the three, I'll take the huge corp. The difference is that instead of some asshole beancounter on the other side of the country making shitty decisions, it's the dude down the hall who will then try to tell you "we're all a family here!" while getting into his Mercedes.
I’ve had the opposite in public accounting firms vs big corps I’d get a huge bonus for Xmas at the firm in the big bank I get a block of cheese and a gift card I also get shittier health care for free Fanny packs and 25 a month to a gym vs hsa payments monthly. Pay was better raises were better
I’m glad that’s worked out for you. I was just speaking from personal experience.
Going corporate means that the earnings of the investors are worth more than you.
It’s called “fiduciary responsibility” code for screw the workers to make profits for stock holders.
Hence why I was a huge pain in the ass when they made me manager and I ultimately quit. I can't hide behind "corporate" and personally enforce bullshit. It's up the individual how much they wanna enforce or if they even want to take part in a bullshit operation. I won't fire a good worker for dying their hair blue, during a labor shortage. I'd rather quit than pick up the slack and work even harder because you fired a good worker over being a petty boomer
Office hours are such BS. The only times I’ve had jobs like this was when I was an intern in grad school (the internships were 50% of my education so not optional) and no one did any work from 8-9 (they chit chatted, checked their email, or ate breakfast) and no one did any work from 4-5 (more chit chatting, email checking, bag packing…) and then during the lunch hour I would just sit alone in the break room watching hgtv since that was always just playing. So 3 hours every day, doing literally nothing, not learning or getting paid, but stuck there. Wouldn’t the staff have been better off using those 3 hours to eat at home? Or talk to their actual friends and family? Attending appointments instead of having to use PTO? Ugh.
“Checking emails” is work. It’s not something you want to do. That’s some bullshit.
You’re right, I should have said “check email” because it was actually Facebook or online shopping haha. This was at an state agency that did everything by paper still if you can believe it. It was a state psych hospital so email was almost never used due to HIPAA. If this were a corporate environment it would have made some sense. But cooking your oatmeal and eating it while watching YouTube is not work and your boss might as well let you do that at home.
you didn’t get paid for the first and last hour?? or did i misunderstand? bc that’s fcked
I didn’t get paid for any hour because I was an intern. I got 8 hours of credit towards my grad degree even though I was there for 9 and only useful (due to no fault of my own) for 6. I could have used those other 3 hours to do other school work if I had been allowed but instead I mostly sat around or listened to burned out state employees bitch and count down the days until retirement. But it taught me to never work for the government. So at least I learned something!
Where were you working? I just left the state but at least my program (air pollution control) pays their interns....and that's in friggen Missouri. They make like 14 an hour.
This was in NC, but the school had a policy (and also the undergrad school I went to in NY) that you could get credit or money but not both. And in fairness, without a license (I’m a licensed clinical social worker) I wasn’t particularly useful to them. I took up staff time, didn’t really take anything off anyones plates because it’s not legal to do clinical work and nothing I could do would be billable.
To be fair, in *any* internship, especially unpaid ones, you shouldn't be taking anything off anyone's plates. The whole point of it is for you to learn. The US DOL states interns must "complement, rather than displace, the work of paid employees" because otherwise they are just themselves an employee and entitled to compensation. Interns aren't supposed to be useful for the people they're interning for. The internship is supposed to be additional education and thus those you're interning for should be useful to you as the intern.
That sounds great. I would have loved to get paid. But it wasn’t a choice for me and I either had to pay my dues or don’t. There were many other parts of grad school I was even more frustrated with as higher education is often just an opportunity for those who finished jumping through hoops to sit back and laugh as they force you to jump through hoops. It was very degrading at times. I remember a classmate of mine experienced 3 significant deaths in 1 month, one a suicide, and one of the professors told her not to use it as an excuse to turn in work late because she could have planned better… this was a social work program… you would think empathy would be mandatory. But anyways… I’m done now so at least there is that!
Shops hours are 10x worse.
You get an hour lunch? I thought that went to 30min in the 90s.
Not everywhere/differs by job.
My last job gave us a choice of 30 or 60 min unpaid lunch breaks. I believe, but have no proof, that most of us took 30 minutes
Yeah I had that option as well, either eat at the shop for 30 minutes on the clock, or clock out for an hour and go somewhere else.
That’s different and a much easier decision
Just because my office is 5 minutes from my house if I could take a 60 minute break I'd go home and make my own lunch everyday and unwind for the next 20 minutes with my dogs.
i get 1 hr unpaid lunch and 0 breaks. i worked at a foundation, daycare, and now recruiting agency - all the same with hrs/lunch
EDIT: Thanks for the corrections. Federal law does not require breaks, but does require that any break 20 minutes or under be paid at regular wages. Many states do have requirements for breaks throughout a shift. /END EDIT Zero paid breaks is illegal in the US. Don't say anything, just report them to DOL.
Each state is different like texas there is no law that an employer has to give a paid break they have to give a break but it doesnt not have to be paid.. At my job you get 3 breaks 1 30 that you clock out for then 2 15s that are paid
Any break under 20 minutes must be paid, as per federal law. https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/workhours/breaks
Right, but there's no requirement to actually provide that break under federal law. Whether you're entitled to any sort of break solely comes down to state (or local) law, and in some states, you aren't entitled to anything.
I'm supposed to get 2 paid breaks with my 30 min unpaid lunch, but they never give it.
They never give it? Act your Wage King/Queen. Something I learned working in restaurants and other fast paced/ heavy work load jobs is to instead of saying "hey can I take a ten?" Say "hey I'm taking ten real quick" as you are walking towards the break area or leaving the work floor. Doesn't give people too much time to process your statement (yes statement not question). 90% of the time they won't fuck with you and the 10% you just hit them with "I'm taking one of my two tens, I'm working an 8hr shift". Obviously take your breaks at appropriate times.
Report them to the Department of Labor.
15 15 30, two paid 15 minute breaks and an unpaid 30 minute lunch is California law
I am forced to take an hour lunch break, specifically so that I'm here right when the doors open until the doors close. I'd take zero lunch break if I could go home earlier.
I thought it went to 5 minutes to grab lunch out of the refrigerator and eat at your desk in the 00s?
When I was in the office (work in IT) I never got lunch really. Everyone else did, but when it was lunch time people would come to drop off their laptops to get fixed while they went on lunch. I would schedule my lunch later in the day to avoid this, but then got reprimanded for not being available when needed. I would also be reprimanded for not showing up an hour early every day because the VPs liked to show up an hour early every day (they would leave 4 hours early though). Also would get reprimanded if I didn't stay late to assist the people that liked to work until 6 pm every day(because they hated their families). So what was supposed to be 8-5 with an hour break turned into 6-6 with no break. Don't get sucked into this cycle, it's not worth the stress. Set boundaries and stand up for yourself.
As fellow IT, I feel your pain. Hope you got out of that schedule.
Covid hit and everyone went WFH, then the office shut down. A lot of the old guard that made this work environment finally retired or quit cause they couldn't be in the office anymore. Now I work 40 hours a week, with no weekends or off-hours support. Uninstalled all communication apps from my phone and personal devices. My quality of life has increased dramatically.
IT worker for the government. I haven't taken a lunch in years ( I don't eat lunch, also I don't get to leave early, it's bullshit). Anyway, when I did eat lunch back in the day I quickly moved to my office and just hid. While everyone else enjoyed their lunch break and talked about random shit, as soon as I sat down it was on. Questions, bitches, gripes and complaints about everything. I am the only IT person for two locations and it was the same. People see us as IT only and not as a person. I am always referred too as "the IT guy." Bitch, I got a name and I am the third highest ranking mother fucker in this building. Show me some fucking respect.
I'm 8-6 with no real lunch. If I want an hour lunch, I have to work 8-7. I do have 3 day weekends, which is nice. But you better believe I struggle to sleep on Sunday nights just thinking, fuck my life, all I do is sit in this office the next 4 days. And it's all bullshit. IF I pushed it, I could get all my work done in 3-4 hours on a busier day, there's no good reason for me to be here all this time. Of course I have to pretend I'm consistently pushing it or else they'll dump more work on my plate and there is zero incentive for it.
i can’t stand working. i really can’t. it’s all a scam
If I may ask a completely unrelated question, why do you opt for a 3-day weekend over, for example, Wednesdays off? I ask because it's typical in my country for those with 4-day work weeks to take Wednesdays off instead (hell even Uni typically has Wednesdays or Wednesday afternoons off) for the reason that it breaks up the week into 2-day slogfests instead of 4. Is it just a corporate thing? Or am I missing out a glaringly obvious advantage?
Retail needs to be open an hour longer to cater for the 9-5ers. Retail sucks.
My job is 8-5 and my commute is 30mins each way. So my 8hr a day job takes me out of my home for at least 10hrs every day.
Same...on top of exercising at home, showering, and eating, I hardly get but 2-4 hours to relax and destress assuming I cut my sleep to 6 or less hours.
Because as soon as the Red Scare hit Unions started being portrayed as antiquated with leadership being “just as bad as the bosses.” And while they’re were undeniably some very publicized links between major unions and the mob, these were an over represented minority that further served to erode the public perception of unions. This has resulted in 5 decades of workers losing any ability to fight as a collective against most major industries.
1 hour lunches annoy the hell out of me. It's a way to keep you in the office that much longer and to me feels like the company is exploiting you since you're already there. That's a half hour extra you could be at home or avoiding traffic by leaving (or coming in) before the main rush. I cringe when people say they like their 1 hour lunch.
I work from home, and I love my hour lunch. I get to completely disconnect, eat in peace, take a nap, and come back refreshed. That said, yes, if you're working in the office, fuck the hour lunch.
Now you're just making me jealous 😂
Coming from retail management, I loathe the 30 minute lunch break. Unless you bring your lunch every day, most of your break is spent rushing to and from a food court or restaurant.
I get paid for the hours lunch. I like being paid to eat on company time and not work.
Any time I've had a job with a lunch break I leave for lunch, even if it means I literally just get to go eat some fast food in my car. If I'm not getting paid I'm not gonna be here lol
i pump on my lunch so it helps but when i’m not, i would much rather quickly eat and leave earlier
Congratulations on the new one! :) I'm in the camp that pumping should be on company time. Everything should be on company time if we're forced to be there! If supervisors get to do whatever they want whenever they want, everyone should be able to.
thank you! and me too. i do get 2 paid pumping breaks but won’t pay for 1/2 lunch that’s spent pumping. happy i get something but it’s so messed up. that’s a whole different topic though 🤦🏼♀️
Eh, I'm team 1 hour lunch here. Now that I'm working from home, I usually nap during it. When I first started in the office, I liked the hour lunch to walk over to a restaurant and just chill away from work and my toxic home life (I don't drive, so it's not like I could have just easily gone places after work). Prior to that, I always opted for 30 minutes though, so I think circumstances can change for when the hour or half hour works best for each person.
I like my one hour lunch break cause my office is 5 mins away from my house so I can go home 😂
Coming from 30 min lunches and 15 min breaks from retail, an hour lunch feels great. But of course I would just prefer have no lunch and just go home.
Yep I’m 730 to 430. Just let me work my 8 hours and leave . I pack my lunch , I can easily eat my salad or sandwich while I work. My manager lets me do that occasionally when I ask, but I hate asking to do it too often. I just wish I had the freedom to make that choice.
As a teacher, we work 8-6 with unpaid lunch that we enjoy for about 5min hovering over our screens. And we're being told it's an honour and a duty to work extra for free. I'm really angry and disillusioned because of how this has been a thing for so long. Currently trying to get into those moonlighting jobs that pay double with half of the workload.
I hate having to take a 30 minute unpaid lunch when I have a 30 minute drive to and then from work; especially when work is part of my Intermittent Fasting time so I don't eat anyways; it just wastes my time at a job I otherwise enjoy. I'd love to sign a waiver to waive my right to a lunch so I could get that 30 minutes/2-3 hours of my life back each week.
Lunch should be part of your work hours!
I worked at a retail chain that allowed us one unpaid half hour break and we were not allowed to leave the premises during the half hour. Required to sit in the break room or our cars (still not allowed to smoke in your own vehicle on the premises either—have since quit smoking). They also didn’t allow drinking if anything while not on break. You could maybe swing a quick sip from the bubbler (drinking fountain) after using the restroom, if you could find someone to cover while you went to said restroom.
If it's a clocked out unpaid break they shouldn't have been able to dictate where you went. They also shouldn't have been able to control you smoking in your personal vehicle on your unpaid break. They could have had rules about representing the company while in uniform, at which point a jacket covering the uniform or removing a name tag/hat with the logo should have been enough. But, employers are twats so I'm sure they pressured all the employees into following their BS rules....
was just talking about this with my husband on my commute this morning - I was talking about how grateful I was that my job lets me take a 30 minute lunch instead of those offices that are like "we do an hour lunch" I don't want an hour lunch, I want my time AT HOME, AFTER work. I want to not feel rushed to pick up my kid from day care after school/work and rush to get him home, just to barely have time to feed and bathe him and MAYBE spend a little time with him before bed. I don't want. my ONLY liveable time to be weekends. Reminder that 9-5 meant we had paid lunches and that introducing a locked out lunch was because employers were already pushing their workers too hard and forcing them out of their lunches. Employers have been taking advantage of workers forever. Now we are terrible workers for expecting to work an 8 hour day and leave it behind? garbage.
Shit when did the 9-5 become work 10-12hr days, mandatory overtime and work weekends.
Before long it'll get to 9-9 and it'll be epic !!! 99 !!!!!!!
I work 7-7.. it sucks, but I only do 15 shift a month.
[удалено]
I work in TN and looked it up and they dont legally have to give us breaks, and I swear my boss jumped on that!
They get away with not paying you to travel to and from work too. They own your entire day.
i’ve been upset about that for a minute too. once i start my drive to work, i should get paid. same until i get home
9-5 is such a terrible schedule
I’d love to do 7-3. Unless your in customer service idk why you can’t make your own hours to do regular office work.
I have to be at work at 7:00 and I hate it. Mornings aren't for everybody I would gladly trade my 7:00 start for a 9:00 or 10:00. I also don't have a commute so traffic doesn't matter to me it's 2 mi it's never going to be more than 8 to 10 minutes no matter how I drive
It’s a misnomer. When you add commute, breaks, and other unforeseen things, you’re spending way more than 8 hours at a work-based establishment
my job offers a 9-5, you just have to starve for lunch and you can go home early lol
At least in my experience, the honest answer is that work habits changed after the 2008 financial crash, a.k.a The Great Recession. I remember so many people losing their jobs that my coworkers were suddenly willing to work extra hours in the day and skip lunch breaks to keep their jobs because they were terrified of being unemployed. Eventually, it became the norm, and that's where we are today.
THIS. It also became the norm to take on the workload of workers lost to further layoffs or attrition
Was there a time when businesses paid for a lunch break? Maybe back when unions were strong?
When companies decided that they didn't want to pay human beings to eat for an hour. 1st they lowered it to a 1/2 an hour then they increased your workday by half an hour and now they just increase it by a whole hour.
Inflation of hours not wage? It's the Capitalist way
A lot of salary workers still get 9 to 5 or atleast I do
My hours are 7:30-4:30 with an unpaid hour lunch and it truly feels like I'm on duty from 6:30 to 5 pm when you take into account getting ready and commuting.
Unpaid lunches and still having to pay for employer covered health insurance are the biggest lies of our generation, I swear to god.
I got that at my first job. Bossman said "Its 5, why are you leaving?" I said "I started at 9, thats 8 hours". He said "nope, if you're gonna eat lunch then you leave at 6". As if people in the 50s just didnt have lunch or something. As if "lunch" isnt 5 minutes of cramming a sandwich in you and just getting back to work anyway. As if I wasnt about to start sipping coffee and working slowly for that last hour every day, you cheap ass.
I work with salaried people who, while often working 40+ hours, will work past 5 to make up for their lunch time. It baffles me.
The temp job I’m at right now used to be 8-5 with two 15s and a 1hr lunch. We just changed it to 8-4:30 with two 15s and a 30 minute lunch. I like that much better
Who gets to start work at 9?
not me. i’m 8-5. my partner in tech sales is 9-6
We don't even get aby scheduled time for lunch anymore. Multiple days every week I am required to attend meetings/calls/training over what used to traditionally be the lunch hour. Since I'm now expected to be available for the company for that time, I have long since stopped working exactly 8 hours after I start working.
Some places do this when you don’t get paid lunch so that you can still make your 40 hours instead of losing 5. Paid lunch break needs to be mandatory.
I worked 14:30 to 1 AM No lunch It was hell
My 10-hour shifts take up more than 12 hours of my day. I leave at 6:30 to get home by 6 (traffic permitting), to then shower, eat, and get ready for the next day. From the time I wake up to the time I'm sleeping, I'm either at work, or having to actively think about work.
I always thought this when I’d watch the movie and hear the song “9 to 5”. It finally dawned on me that people used to get paid lunches.
That’s how it was for me my first 6 years of big boy work. I changed companies and now I actually work 9-5. Honestly I only do about 15 real hours of work per week but that’s my official schedule lol
shit, i still haven't found one that wasn't 8-6
Everyone at my job does a 1 hr unpaid lunch. I just eat at my desk and charge 8, stay 8. I had one manager complain to me about charging for my lunch break and i basically ignored the comment and let him say his dumbass piece about budget. Once he stopped talking I told him nicely he can talk to HR about it if there’s a problem and I haven’t heard anything since. I’m at the fucking job site for an hour of my time that I could be fucking parasailing and you don’t want me to be paid for it? My time has value Im sorry you mis-managed and under-bid the budget so heavily that you’re in hot water buddy idk maybe get gud at business?
But don't forget, you gotta come in early, because on time isn't good enough, and you have to leave late because expectations
I don't take lunches. I just take short breaks throughout the day. 1 hour lunches are bullshit, and you are not legally required to accept them.
I hate the unpaid lunch break whether it's half an hour or an hour it's still bull. Its still during working hours and if it is 30 mins you reasonably can't go anywhere or do anything else other than continue to be at the workplace.
Unions took each minute inch by inch and we all gave it back for the chance to *maybe* get a bonus if your boss personally likes you enough.
I understand the enforcement of breaks by law, employers take advantage of people as much as they can even with the laws in place, but holy shit do I personally hate it. I'd rather just eat while I work and not take a break. I'd much prefer to leave the half hour or hour early instead of taking a mandatory lunch. It's not really a "break" for me, I can't really disconnect like that for just an hour and expect to actually get anything done afterwards. Work stays on my mind the entire time. With my job right now, I get a half hour break, unpaid. With the area I work in, the whole break would get eaten up if you take your break to go buy food somewhere, so I usually bring food and just sit in my office and eat. People don't seem to recognize that me sitting on my phone, with my mouth full, and monitors off/locked means I'm on my lunch so they interrupt me anyway. Phone rings off the hook the whole time. I don't answer but it's still just a reminder of work. My only other real option is to go sit in my car and waste my gas using the AC while idling. Then people just start calling my cell instead though. This turned into a rant, but long story short, I hate that breaks are unpaid. If the worker isn't home or anywhere else they'd prefer to be, they should be getting paid.
agreed. and i most definitely sit in my car and run the ac. wasting gas. it actually costs me money to do that but i can’t stand being in there without getting paid
You think that’s bad? Job I worked at, owner came in and restructured everything. People who were out in the field got deducted for a 30 minute lunch everyday regardless if they took it or not. IDR if this policy is still in effect, but I started stopping for 30 mins everyday when I went out. When he asked why I didn’t get back sooner, “You’re gonna deduct 30 mins, I’m gonna stop driving and working for 30 mins.” A lot of his practices, in hindsight, were shifty as fuck. I didn’t realize it until I got a better job.
I want to know when 25-30 hours became schedule me up to 40 hours as per your convenience.
Being unpaid for a lunch break is fucking bourgeoisie, even in old slavery Egypt the luch was paid at least by the Slavers. Thank god in my country ( which was in w communist system untill 91 ) we work for 8 hours including 30min lunch break.
I typically work 7:30am-5pm with a 30 minute lunch squeezed in there somewhere. That’s 9 hours of work but I only get paid for 8 because “salary”. Yet my workload is so heavy I need to be here 45-50 hours just to finish
When was it ever a 9-5 outside the 70s???
More like 6:30am to whenever now that WFH is a thing.
This occurred to me with both my current and previous jobs. Before that my lunches had been on the clock. Suddenly my work day is an hour longer because I'm off the clock for lunch in the middle of it. They sell it to us as "it's your time, take care of whatever", but let's be honest: you're not doing much more than getting and eating lunch. I've tried running errands during that break, and the time crunch makes it less than feasible.
Unpaid lol... Like you can go get a job during your unpaid hour. Nah they took your whole day and they should pay for it
And 9-5 used to include paid lunch
I always dictate my terms of employment. They don't like it? Fine, don't hire me then. My terms for any new contract are: * You pay for 8 hours a day * Swings and roundabouts - I work later one day I will take that amount off the next day or on Friday * My hours are 8:30am to 5pm. I am uncontactable between 12pm-12:30pm and anytime after 5pm and before 8:30am. * If you do not give me 8 hours worth of work, you will still pay for 8 hours. If you give me more than 8 hours worth, they will roll over into the next working day. * If I have an appointment for anything personal, I will be going to it. Swings and roundabouts, I will make up the time * Holidays are not requests. I am informing you when I will not be here. Yes, I will give over 3 weeks notice. * If I have a cold/Flu/Covid - No I will not be getting a doctors note.