About two years ago, big corporate forced a mandatory 30 minute lunch into our work day, turning our 8 hour day into 8.5. We didn’t ask for it — we were all perfectly happy eating at our desk. It doesn’t sound like much, but that’s asking for 5 extra hours of our life every two weeks for no additional pay.

Most of us ignored it, and because we were salaried despite having to clock in/out, we still got paid our full FTE.

Well, big corporate is now back to enforce their terrible mandate. Accusing people of “not working their FTE.” Guess we all get to stare at the wall in the break room rather than continuing to be productive all day. Sweet.

[–] yenahmik 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This happened to me when I was working an overnight job. My hours were midnight-8am. They told me I had to take a 30 min break.

What am I going to do at 3am?! Nothing is open at that time. I was already sitting in a room alone most of the time, anyways.

I asked if I could just tack it at the end of my shift and still leave at 8. They said no. What a waste.

[–] sevan 2 points 1 year ago

Most of my career I've had mandatory lunch breaks, either required when hourly or implied when salary (based on the norms of when people arrived and left each day). However, the worst was definitely an overnight hourly job I had stocking shelves. We had a mandatory unpaid lunch break in the middle of the night, but even if there was somewhere to go, we weren't allowed to leave the building for security reasons. The doors were locked for most of our shift and would only be opened for an emergency. I think I quit after 3 months.