We have flex hours, the only requirement being that we’re on duty between 9 and 2 and that we clock 8 hours. So I could come in at 6, break for lunch at 11, come back at 2 and stay till 5 if I wanted. Or I can eat at my desk while working and just put in 8.
I typically take the work-thru-lunch option, but if I ride in with my husband, I’ll take an hour lunch with him.
I love my job.
I’m on flex hours, as well. It’s the only civilized way to do things.
I usually take 30-45 minutes, but occasionally I take a longer lunch. As long as I get all my work done, and I’m relatively easy to reach if an emergency pops up, they don’t care.
30 minutes. much shorter that what i’m accustomed to. i bring a sandwich and have a book.
Grocery store job: 30 minutes.
Hairdressing job: whenever you have a chance to scarf something down. At this crazy time of year, I’ve learned that when I get a chance to eat or pee, TAKE IT! It might be a while otherwise. 
Two and a half hours.
In China people expect to go home to a hot meal and a nap at lunch. I just finished teaching a lesson on American food, and they were all completely floored by the idea that the richest nation on Earth has only thirty minutes to scarf down their sandwiches.
30 minutes. That’s fine with me as I work ten hour days and I don’t want to spend another minute at work if I don’t have to. I bring my lunch every day. There is an onsite cafeteria, but it is over priced and I don’t like to waste time going there.
50 mins. It’s supposed to be an hour, but you have to go back to class, and sometimes classes run over. So it’s really more like an average of 50 mins rather than an hour.
I also teach. From 12:30 until 1:30 I am supposed to (at least by contract, we all know how realistic those are) have an hour of free time to pretty much do as I please. In reality, I am usually shoveling food into my face within 15 minutes, quickly brushing my teeth, and then I’m back to grading papers, designing lessons, or tutoring students (of course, some of this I do with occasional breaks to check SDMB ;)).
On some days, I have outside business to do in the afternoons (workshops, school visits, meetings at city hall), and these are usually scheduled for 1:30. I don’t have a car, so I have to usually catch the bus at 12:42, which means madly rushing to eat my food and do all my chores in 10 minutes, leaving 2 minutes to dash, full tilt, out the door to catch the bus downtown. This usually means I arrive at my destination up to half an hour early, so some so-and-so generally quips, “Oh, wow, you’re here early… Guess you didn’t have much work to do at school!” :mad:
Right now, seeing I work from home, as long as I damn well please.
At school/uni, mandatory 1h30 break for teachers and teachees alike.
Back when I was working on site :
The software company had a 1 hour rule, but since the whole company went out to eat together at a nearby cafeteria, it boiled down to “as long as it takes the slowest eater to finish his yogurt”.
The TV post-production company had no rule whatsoever, as long as shit got done in a timely fashion. Since “in a timely fashion” usually meant having it done by yesterday, we ordered deliveries and ate at our consoles/computers most of the time.
An hour. But it’s stretchable, sometimes I go from 12.45 to 2.15, 2.30, things like that.
Of course, then there’s the days where I have to eat at my desk, or have a client meeting through lunch…
In the 11 months I’ve been at my job, I think I’ve had lunch away from my desk maybe 5 times. I work through lunch – there’s enough to do that I just stay there. Sometimes I go to the union and grab food, but I bring it back to my office and eat there.
30 minutes, scheduled, no flexibility. Unpaid.
Sigh.
I rarely eat lunch away from my desk. If I wanted to go out, I don’t think there would be a limit. If I was consistently out for a couple of hours or more every day, then someone might say something, but as long as I meet my target utilization (about 65%), noone really looks. (I don’t, but that’s another story). Actually ingesting food takes about 20 minutes, and that is prime Dope time.
Thirty minutes, paid, but in return for the paid break we’re not supposed to leave the building so we’re there in case we’re needed. In practice, it’s possible to leave (after asking) once in a while for important things that come up, or to get lunch because you left your lunchbox on the kitchen table/the cupboard was bare - but we’re expected to not make a habit of this.
An unpaid hour, with flexibility due to the department and shift that I work. I’m at a much-hated big-box retailer. For this break, we clock out and are allowed to leave, though we rarely do since we can just walk over to the grocery department and buy fresh food, then watch movies or HD broadcasts on the widescreen plasma installation in our break room as we eat. I’ll occasionally take extra time if I need to finish some homework, or if I want to go home and nap, or for the occasional interesting midnight opening of a new movie; I can basically take as many hours as I need as long as my work is done by the scheduled end of my shift.
We also get two paid 15 minute breaks, which are monitored much more closely. Management also looks the other way for the occasional 5 minutes away from work (bathroom, getting some gum or a drink) as long as we don’t push it.
Pretty much the same for me. We have to sign in and out at the beginning and end of the workday. But for lunch, so long as you are covering your workload, no one is watching the clock.
I generally workout over lunch (tho not 5 days a week). It is not uncommon that I get back slightly more than an hour after I leave. But historically I’m always one of the top producers in our office. I always say to myself if anyone starts being strict on my lunch hour, I’ll say "Fine, now tell me what the average production is and I’ll reduce my output accordingly."
45 minutes, but flexible.
Some days I eat at my desk while working, and some days I take about an hour and a half.
Nobody gives a damn, as long as I finish my work.
Sometimes none, sometimes more than an hour.
I work in our ER, and because I’M the only RT on duty at night, sometimes it is very busy and we all eat “on the run” standing up.
Now, according to law, the employer is supposed to give you 30 uninterrupted minutes to eat, and if you do not get them, you are to notify your immediate supervisor who then adds those minutes back into your time.
However, as I am “weekend option” (Fri, Sat and Sun 7p-7a), I don’t make a big deal out of it, since as I said, it evens out on the “not busy” nights.
Q
We’re given an hour fifteen, or you can take a forty five minute lunch and two fifteen minute breaks. I generally scrap the whole system in exchange for getting up to have a cigarette whenever I want one and not taking a formal lunch. I’ve been on this system for nine years now and nobody complains.
I also don’t usually eat during the day, which helps.
Officially, I have no break times. In reality, there’s almost always plenty of downtime when nothing’s going on.