Hi Brenda,

I wanted to reach out regarding a small observation I made in your last email. In telling me how to spend 30 minute meal break and encouraging me to cut it short for the company's benefit, you violated US labor law.

Let's correct this behavior and try to be more mindful of that "our company is not above the law" spirit so we can keep your momentum going in the right direction. :-)

Eric

P. S. I will be retaining this communication in case this remains an issue. Thanks :-)

Hahahaha, I'd be forwarding that straight to Dept of Labor

"support your work family"

RUN AWAY!

"It really doesn't look good for you to take your break during your break time, so please avoid taking breaks during your break."

-- Someone that clearly hasn't worked in a while

Cool, so since I only took 20 minutes for lunch, I'll be heading home 40 minutes earlier.

This can't real

We had an HR person complaining to us that a group of us would leave the office every day and go out together to eat lunch.

Didn't complain that we spent too long eating. Just that we went out together for lunch every day....

corporate speak is revolting.

This is too rage-inducing to be real ... Right?

Sure thing, Brenda! I'll be sure to invite my work family to lunch with me for the full allotted time so no one feels unsupported! Thank you for the idea!

Time to take 30 minutes to eat your sandwich.

One of the best bosses I ever had was a Korean man who was very religious and yet very kind. He made a similar comment to me once. I was on my lunch break and he came to me to talk about work stuff, I was watching the clock and when my lunch break was up I went to punch in. When I sat back down he commented about how it looked like I was only there for the money.

It was a good job but I don't feel comfortable speaking other than the truth even for niceties so I leveled with him.

"This is a good job, and I am here for the money. I do respect you and I respect your time but I have bills to pay and I have already been warned about going over 40hrs on the time clock to complete rush cases on Fridays. If we are going to be a team and we're going to work together then you need to understand that I share a two bedroom apartment with three people and none of us can afford a car. You came to me on my lunch break to talk about CNC equipment and I was about to run out of time on my lunch break so I clocked back in. This is a work conversation so I don't feel out of line and doing that. Is this not a work conversation?"

He was a little shocked but respected it. It opened up a line of dialogue and a relationship that I felt was quite meaningful. In the following years he and I had a lot of awesome conversations. I miss that dude. I stayed with the company until just after they fired him and then the company went to shit.

Hi Brenda,

While you were watching me and writing me memos, you could have been making sales.

Don't ever put pettiness over money, keep yourself focused on your work instead of your coworkers.

Warmest Regards,

Harambe

Hi Brenda!

Thank you for your enthusiasm in squeezing my tight knit work family, even tighter ❤️

I will be saving this email for my wrongful termination lawsuit 🤤

Let's keep things going in the right direction, and follow the law 🤣

Mental

If that had happened in Germany, Brenda would have provably committed an administrative offence and should stop unless they want to go to jail:

§ 4 Rest breaks

Work shall be interrupted by predetermined rest breaks of at least 30 minutes for working hours of more than six to nine hours and 45 minutes for working hours of more than nine hours in total. The rest breaks referred to in sentence 1 may be divided into periods of at least 15 minutes each. Employees may not be employed for more than six consecutive hours without a rest break.

§ 22 Penalty provisions

(1) An employer commits an administrative offence if they intentionally or negligently

2. contrary to § 4, do not grant rest breaks, do not grant them for the prescribed minimum duration or do not grant them in a timely manner

(2) In the cases referred to in paragraph 1, nos. 1 to 7, 9 and 10, the administrative offence may be punished with a fine of up to thirty thousand euros [...].

§ 23 Penal provisions

(1) Any person who commits one of the acts specified in Section 22(1) Nos. 1 to 3, 5 to 7

1. intentionally and thereby endangers the health or working capacity of an employee, or
2. persistently repeats, shall be punished with imprisonment for up to one year or a fine.

Yeah, no, I've been there.

I started a new job. It was kind of a dream job. Great for my career, 40% pay increase, opportunities to grow my skillset in ways my old job couldn't offer.

Everything was going great until one day a coworker who was supposed to be in like a mentor position for me asked me to do something. I was on my phone at the time, texting with my wife about my three week old son who was sick with RSV. I heard her request and told her I'd get to it right away.

A few days later my boss called me into a meeting and said that he'd been hearing reports that I was on my phone all the time instead of working, and that the quality of my work was bad. I asked what he meant about my work, if he could give me specific examples, and he threatened to fire me for not taking this seriously. Because trying to understand how I can improve isn't taking it seriously somehow?

So I buckled down. I put my phone down every second that I was at my desk. I asked everyone --everyone-- I'd worked with up to that point about the quality of my work, where I could improve, if I'd done anything wrong. Just as I'd already been told, my work was great. I was learning quickly and performing well.

Then I got called into another meeting. Apparently I was still on my phone too much. I must be addicted to it. I was on it while walking down the hall, and he'd even heard that I was leaving my desk to go to my car and play on my phone. And of course I was on it in the breakroom as well. I explained that I thought checking my phone while walking down the hallway was ok because it wouldn't interrupt my work, and I went to my car because it was a confidential telemedicine call with my doctor.

So I buckled down even more. I rarely used my phone anymore, took shorter lunch breaks, and kept doing my work. I moved to a different part of the parking lot when I had my telemedicine calls.

I had two more meetings with my boss. The first one, he told me that my work had greatly improved (it hadn't), and now I was doing great. The next day I asked him into a meeting and told him I quit.

I took a small pay cut and got a new job working from home. It's not as good for my career. It may screw me over in a few years. But my work/life balance is excellent. I get to see my kids and my cats, and there are no spiteful coworkers looking over my shoulder.

Time to go to my car for my lunch break