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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 :-)
See, the people that do this shit are well trained though. Brenda didn’t demand that he work during lunch and was in fact clear that he was within his rights to not. Instead, Brenda has simply suggested that it would look better and he would conform better if he worked some unpaid time.
They know how to skirt the law. They can still go fuck themselves though, the gaslighting assholes.
She did also say “correct this behaviour” which is the corpo way of saying “do it or else”
Corpo language is corpo language for a reason though: it is legally safe to deploy. Intent is so very very hard to litigate.
If you were in a jury box and were shown just this message and a note about how he was fired two months later for “not being a team player” you’d infer the intent and vote to hold the company liable for wrongful termination.
Corpospeak keeps a “work through lunch” message from being a self-evident labor law violation even if no adverse action occurrrd. They don’t disguise intent if those later bad actions occur
Workplace litigation effectively never gets a jury.
Particularly in countries that allow employers to force arbitration clauses on employees. You don’t get a jury, you get an “impartial” arbitrator paid for by the company.
Yep. Frustrating.
That is a bald faced lie.
Doesn’t “correct this behavior” very directly imply that the current behavior (in this case, taking your full lunch break) is incorrect and therefore in need of correction, though?
It’s one thing to suggest something, but calling it a “correction” changes things, I’d think.
You’d think. Really, you would, I’m not being sarcastic.
I’ve also been around long enough to know that rational doesn’t really apply to corpos. As dumb and as frustrating as this is, I really don’t think this message would be actionable.
Someday an employee is going to sue you and you will lose.
I’m guessing you didn’t actually read my comment at the start here.
Even here in Texas, I’ve learned that “let’s correct this behavior” can be shown as evidence that you received threats of a personal improvement plan
And that’s why you retain the email. Establishing a pattern makes the specific language less important, although in this case there’s a pretty clear implication that the employee will be punished for using their full meal break.
Good luck litigating an implication though. See the “nuh uh” defense success rate.
I’m not saying it’s airtight. But the pattern of ‘recommendations’ certainly helps. It convinced a judge in my friend’s wrongful termination case at a big box retailer.
Ianal but “voluntarily” taking a shorter lunch break is still illegal in some states. In my state, my boss would get in trouble if it could be proven that they knew I wasn’t taking the full, mandatory 30 minutes.
Lucky you.
That can be annoying too, I’d rather get home to my family 15 minutes sooner. But of course Brenda isn’t offering a short lunch and leave earlier.
Lol this but CC your state labor board
Imo the move is to respond with a clarifying question about whether the hr person is asking them to cut breaks short while reiterating that asking them to do so is a violation of labor law and document the hell out of it.
If it happens again, then make a complaint with labor. This shows that you are operating in good faith and giving the company a chance to correct before going nuclear, which further strengthens your case if you do have to report.
Sometimes the hr person is just an idiot. I’ve seen suggestions like this before and it turned out the hr person literally didn’t know you can’t just arbitrarily deduct wages without explicit permission from the payee (and in some states, not even then).
Cool, so since I only took 20 minutes for lunch, I’ll be heading home 40 minutes earlier.
corporate speak is revolting.
Let’s correct this behaviour :-)
it sounds like an evil nursery worker
This can’t real
If it is, I think it’s illegal in the US at least. By law I think employers are required to give at least one 30 minute break a day.
Only in some states. There is no federal law mandating breaks or meals.
Quite surprising that it’s based on state law, rather than something that’s mandated by the US Federal government. Employers being able to forbid their employees from having lunch unless their particular state, or medical requirements force their hand does not seem like a legal thing.
It does track, since the US was also one of the few countries that does not consider food to be a mandatory right (their official justification here), but still.
There isn’t a state where there is no mandatory unpaid meal break.
Yes, all states mandate meal breaks except Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming (source)
I live in Arizona, I can assure you it is mandatory.
Can you give me a link the law mandating meal breaks? The only bit of Arizona legislature I can find regarding meal breaks is HB 2797, which did not pass into actual law.
Employees have rights in the US?
Some of us do, and our employers hate it and try to keep us from knowing/using those rights
That’s what unions are for ultimately. Educate you about your rights and help enforce them. But uuhhh no that’s dirty communism so forget about them.
My company has 14 people in it total. Getting a union figured out for the 8 of us that need it would be a disaster
“Illegal” who enforces that lol. You complain to get fired unless you have a legal team ready to go against a corrupt corporation. I’ve watched companies break all kinds of laws my entire life and it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
There are labor lawyers that take cases like this on contingency. A case like this is a slam dunk for them. You don’t have to just sit there and take it.
Oh I see you still have hope that our system works for anyone except the corporations and oligarchs. That has not been my experience
It can real.
I suppose this shit is from u$ or another such savage country. In Europe the company would pay a huge penalty for putting pressure to limit the break time.
That’s illegal in the US too.
The OP has a pretty solid case, the manager laid it out in writing. This should immediately get forwarded to HR, upper management. Depending on their response, everything goes to the Department of Labour.
The hard part is proving retaliation, (also illegal). Calling out these types of “team player” people leads to indirect stuff like poor performance reviews, smaller raises, denied PTO, and getting passed up for promotion because you didn’t play on their team.
Labor lawyers love these cases since you have the illegal act in writing. At that point, even with the made up performance reviews it’s super easy to prove a subsequent firing was retaliatory.
If they’re smart enough to only break the law face to face, be sure to send an email summary to them and HR and bcc a copy for yourself. If that’s not possible, then keep detailed notes with timestamps.
Illegal in California
Illegal even in Florida. If you have to clock out for breaks you get 1/2 hour minimum lunch on an 8 hour shift. Plus I think 2 paid 15 minute breaks, on the clock. I can’t imagine this is real because no manager would document the illegal request in an email.
This is too rage-inducing to be real … Right?
This specific email from Brenda is most likely a fictional version of something that does actually happen fairly regularly. There are laws in many countries and even in some US states mandating breaks because of companies or leadership or HR encouraging them to never stop working.
Correct.
If this is real, I’m bigger than Ron Jeremy.
deleted by creator
I’ve never seen one of these where the company actually got named.
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!
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.
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
- 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
- intentionally and thereby endangers the health or working capacity of an employee, or
- persistently repeats, shall be punished with imprisonment for up to one year or a fine.
Also she didn’t laminate her email so it’s not valid anyway
Can you please adopt me and my small family? We need a path out of this hell hole.
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
Brenda is going to need new tires soon
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
The fact that you guys only have 30 minutes to eat is insane! We have 1:30 hours by law and It’s barely enough time to go down, get something and eat. Even if you eat fast food (which we don’t like) you won’t be able to go there, buy, eat and be back in 30. You need a revolution!
Yeah well we can’t all be French. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but 30 minutes is standard even in Europe.
30 is common, but I wouldn’t say standard. An hour a day feels standard.
In office work, you usually get it all in one chunk, whereas if you work physically demanding or shift-based work, you get 15 minutes coffee break, then at lunch 30 minutes, then another 15 minutes later. This is true at least for all the western European countries.
They’re talking like “bring food from home” is not an option. Do French people not have home kitchens and Tupperware?
The French would never do that. They take an hour and a half for lunch and go to a restaurant that serves wine and a choice of cheeses.
Even then they are rushing things, from my understanding a sit down meal in France consists of anywhere between 2-6 days.
Tupperware is treason
All I want to add here is that I fell completeley in love with france over just two weeks working at a customer’s site there.
I mean I can choose. It’s good to have a choice. One day I have left overs or salad so I take it to work and leave early. Other days I want to seat and eat proper food, with a fork and a knife, and I can. It’s a choice. It seems like you only have 30 minutes but if you eat in 15 you go back even faster. That’s not good for your physical or mental health
Man fuck that. If you bring something from home half an hour is perfectly fine. I can’t imagine having to just wait an otherhour around so that I can finish my 8 hours. I want spent my time at home and not on break at work.
Ehh I’m satisfied with 30 minutes to heat up or otherwise prepare my lunch. I’d want a sofa to sleep on if my break was any longer than that.
What in the actual fuck did I just read?
I would publicly in office shame the shit out of this maggot and then quit right there.
It must… be fake, for the internet rage points, surely ?
Yeah this smells rage baity to me as well.
I wish I had your confidence with things like this but honestly, you COULD be right.lets hope?
It’s not confidence, it’s my last remaining glimmer of hope that humanity isn’t quite as bad as that post makes out.
“Accidentally” CC your reply to the mailing list with everybody in it.
