I get 30 minutes for lunch, plus two 15-minute breaks. Since I work in a call center and part of our performance is based on schedule adherence, this 30 minutes is rigidly timed. I bring my own lunch with me, which is probably just as well since a steady diet of Wendy’s or Burger King can’t be good for you in the long run. Even though several fast food places are within a half mile’s drive for those days when a tasty cheeseburger would hit the spot, 30 minutes is barely enough time. At my last job we had the choice of taking 30 minutes or 60 minutes. I chose 30 minutes, but I could also be 10-15 minutes late and nobody would care (no, that’s not why it’s my “last job”).
I’m salaried, so I get no official break times. I take my lunch whenever I feel hungry in the middle of the day. Usually I grab some food from the complex cafeteria and eat at my desk, just in case someone wants to talk to me right then. (Everybody eats on a different schedule in my office, so one never knows if someone else has a problem right when I’ve got a mouthful of food.) It usually takes about 20 minutes to actually eat.
Ed
I am exempt, so anywhere from 5minutes to a couple hours. Generally about a half-hour.
An hour and it’s very flexible. But I don’t use it for lunch. I bring in my lunch and eat my lunch around 12 noon. That usually only takes about ten minutes and I’ll surf the web, or, if it’s busy, work through it.
At 1 pm I go out and do errands, or whatever I need to do.
I honestly have no idea. It used to be an hour, but about six months ago, my company took an employee survey that indicated a strong desire for “flex time”. Now, we’re a small nonprofit whose industry pretty much demands that we keep regular 9-5 hours, but management wanted to be seen as accommodating. The end result involved everyone kajiggering their individual schedules by an hour here and fifteen minutes there, editing lunch and start/end times in ways that kept the “core hours” but allowed for a bit of leeway. As for me, if I can’t have my dream schedule (and I can’t, no use even asking), I don’t really care what hours I work, so I never bothered to figure out a new plan.
I rarely take lunch anyway, but when I do, I take however long it takes, which is anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes. There’s probably a set amount of time I’m supposed to be taking, but I don’t know what it is, and nobody much seems to care.
Most employees have 30 minutes. Unfortunately, by an accident of geography, while our office is in a fairly good location, all the fast food places are about 6 miles away down a 45 mph road with a very large number of signal lights. You basically have time to run down there, go through a drive through that isn’t backed up (don’t chose the ones with the lines), buy something and wolf it down on your way back.
We’re not allowed to eat at our desks.
Consequently, most people bring their food every day, and order delivery occasionally.
My group of new employees were the first to be offered ‘experimental’ one hour lunches. I volunteered in a heartbeat, and I love it. I have plenty of time to drive down to the fast food places, sit down and eat, and even stop for an errand or two on the way back.
Of course, back in my IT days, lunch was “however long it took us to go out and eat”. But that was years ago and I’ve been used to much shorter lunch times since then.
When I worked in a Call Center doing technical support it was technically from 1 PM to 2 PM. The reality was, it was whenever you got off your last call before 1 till 2 PM. It was so variable that I just started bringing my lunch every day and eating at my desk since I never new how long I had.
When I took a job as a software architect my lunch time (and breaks) became things I simply schedule around the meetings / work I have that day. Most days I can take about an hour for lunch, but it could be anywhere from 11 - 3.
To be honest, I kind of miss the days that I ate my lunch at my desk and kept on working. It made me want to shave 45 minutes off the end of my day that I didn’t use at lunch.
After reading all of this, I think I may go back to that.