Clocked out at 1 pm. Told boss I was leaving. Boss says, "You'll be back by 2?" I say, "Why?" Boss says, "Because I'm leaving at 2." I say, "Well, I mean, I'm on my bike. I guess I can drive back..." Boss says, "You shouldn't need more than an hour for lunch."
Because, you know, the default rule applies regardless of the particular situation.
So, I change clothes and bike home. It takes half an hour or more...when I get home, it's 1:40. I change my shirt and pull some Hot Pockets out of the freezer, then I go jump in the car and drive back to the office. I clock back in at 1:56.
As I'm preparing to nuke my Hot Pocket, the boss says, "Decided to go frozen, eh?"
"I didn't have time to eat," I informed him. "I got home and turned around and came back."
He may have been affected by this, but he gathered himself and responded, "Most employers allow 45 minutes to an hour--"
I cut him off with, "Normally, I'm fine with that. But today--"
"Today, you didn't schedule for that."
"Today, I was on a bicycle. Today, I had no food with me."
That's typically how our conversations go...
I mean, I realize I have no right to expect special treatment or a long lunch or whatever, but at the same time, it's not like I'm demanding extra long lunches every day or something. Today was a special case. And another thing...I don't like dispatch, I don't want to do dispatch, my position has been clear to my boss from the get-go, and the only reason he wanted me here was so I could cover the dispatch trainee. If I had the job I wanted here, it wouldn't really matter how long a lunch I took.
So he gave me some assignments to work on--stuff that's actually interesting--and said he was heading out for his own lunch, because he's the only one here tonight (the usual night dispatcher is off today). Then, you know, he didn't leave. (He managed to get out the door at 2:38.)
On a related note, the go-live date has been pushed back to Friday.
;P
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so i had a look at labor laws the other day (considering where i work, it was the least i could do). apparently workers are entitled a half hour to hour long lunch, no more or less. i think this was a federal law, but i can't remember.
Bah.
Like I said, I'm not trying to claim I have a right to take however long I want at lunch. (But I'm not even full time, so I don't know if federal laws about lunchtimes even apply to me.)
My point was that if you have a good employee who does good work and manages to meet ridiculous deadlines and toils away for pennies, you should give her a break every now and then.
Of course, I'm not completely blameless. I don't really consider my job a real job. I don't have a whole lot of respect for the position, because it's not a position. It's kind of a "come in for however many hours and do whatever needs to get done, regardless of what that might be" gig. There really isn't much stability, and I don't even get a job title. (My boss says, "I hate job titles.") Most of the time I have no idea how to explain my job to people.
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