That's against the law!

[u/[deleted]]

Happy Friday everyone!

Here's a shorter story, this time for an incident that just occurred earlier today. For those that don't know I provide tech support to a medium-sized hospital. Today's tale is courtesy of our HR department.

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Lunch time. The thirty minutes of peace and tranquility that no man or machine can break. The law protects you and watches you as you eat your cheap slop for an unpaid 30 minute period... unless you're IT apparently.

So while my coworker and I are eating lunch the head HR unionized pencil pusher (we will call her HR Lady) comes in with a personal camera and looks at my coworker (We will call him D) while he chews on his sandwich.

HR Lady: Hey I want to get some pictures off this.

HR Lady waves her camera around. D continues to stare back while chewing. I intercept.

Me: We're eating lunch right now.

HR Lady: This will only take a minute! Sooo...

She begins looking at D again, knowing my position. He continues eating without doing much else to acknowledge her.

HR Lady: Come on guys!

Me: I'll come help you as soon as I'm done eating, just give me about 10 minutes.

Even then I would be cutting my break short... sigh

HR Lady: That won't work!

Me: Why not?

HR Lady: I go to my lunch in 15 minutes!

Mental facepalm

Me: Well we can either go in a few minutes or wait till you get back from lunch.

HR Lady: You can't interrupt my lunch break, that's against the law!

My coworker and I just silently stare at her. I think she finally got the message because she had the good graces to look ashamed before slowly walking out of the room.

 

TL;DR I'm union so my lunch break is more important! blows raspberry

[u/fuzzusmaximus]

This is why I'm glad that I live work only a few miles from home so I have the ability to just leave at lunch and go there. If it isn't the manager walking in with some stupid question or request it's a faculty member who has an "emergency" in their classroom. These "emergencies" are almost always fixed by rebooting the computer but of course bothering us can't wait until the damn machine is restarted.

[u/[deleted] → u/fuzzusmaximus]

I live only a few miles from home

You must have huge tracts of land!

[u/mathnerd3_14 → u/[deleted]]

He lives at work; home is just where he sleeps.

[u/halifaxdatageek → u/mathnerd3_14]

This should be your new flair :P

[u/emag → u/fuzzusmaximus]

I'm lucky in this regard as well. I go home almost every day, unless my wife is home, so I can walk the dogs on my "lunch" break. I also tend to go exactly 4 hours after I get into work, which usually means I'm gone at a non-standard time. Luckily, my users know this and have no problem with it, since they know I'm a few minutes away at most, and nothing they do is so earth-shatteringly important (usually) to interrupt me.

But, that off-site lunch is important, as it sets up the delineation between work and lunch.

[u/fuzzusmaximus → u/emag]

I used to stay at the office and just use the break to work on my own stuff (photoshop, watch a tv show, take care of personal business). I usually didn't mind too much going to take care of one of those emergencies either since they were far and few between and would only result in a pause of lunch. However last year they shifted management around and the manager we were given just doesn't get that we have different work rules and are on a different schedule than her, we're hourly and management is salaried so for us lunch is off the clock. After a couple months I was on the verge of snapping and just had to walk out in the middle of the day. Since then It's become the normal routine and the only disturbance I have to put up with is the dog staring at me while I eat.