# Working over lunchtime **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 25, 2001, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/working-over-lunchtime/59383 "2001-03-25T03:42:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Creaky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@Creaky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Creaky)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/working-over-lunchtime/59383/21 "2001-03-26T20:26:54Z")
I am a boss. (I don’t think I’m cut out for it, but right now I don’t see any other way around it.) Like most bosses, I have employees. They rock. They rule. They are, in the current vernacular, the shit. So as long as they get their work done, I don’t care when, what or if they eat. That’s their business. When we all worked for someone else (I was their boss then, too), none of us ever took a traditional lunch break. (I know what the law is, blah, blah, but my guys were and are very flexible and understanding.) If we ate at all, one of us would grab a few bucks out of an orange plastic pumpkin full of cash that I kept filled as our “slush-fund”, and run down the street for take-out sandwiches. We mostly ate at our desks, but man, did we get a lot of work done!! Nobody complained because we were all in it together. Then one day, in unison, we went, “Hey, let’s blow this joint and make money for ourselves! Then if we work 12-hour days with no lunch, we’ll have only ourselves to blame for any stress-related illness!” So we did. Now if we take lunch we go to a cool restaurant and have fun. We still have working lunches, but now we only take jobs that we want. We drink bourbon during meetings (well, okay, I do). We’re on our own time. And we get to talk about excellent subjects like the the lady who recently found a nice crunchy chicken head in her Kentucky Fried order. Hope she wasn’t charged extra. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/working-over-lunchtime/59383/22 "2001-03-26T21:39:51Z")
My employer is somewhat flexible but not utterly. Lunch does not count as part of your 40 hours, but you must take a lunch break. You can make it a 1/2 hour lunch rather than a 1-hr lunch if you so choose, but you can’t choose to not have any lunch break altogether. I think it’s sort of an enforced health/sanity thing. It’s not in their interest to have people “working through lunch” (or skipping lunch) to get home earlier. I think there would be health and burnout issues if that happened every day. ---
**Author:** ![Strainger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strainger/32/244_2.png) [@Strainger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strainger)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2001, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/working-over-lunchtime/59383/23 "2001-03-26T22:46:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JThunder \ ***She was a geology major…** Ah, I see what your problem is now. _::d&r from a certain Doper who shall remain nameless::_ ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2001, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/working-over-lunchtime/59383/24 "2001-03-27T03:36:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CrankyAsAnOldMan \* > \*\*I think it’s sort of an enforced health/sanity thing. It’s not in their interest to have people “working through lunch” (or skipping lunch) to get home earlier. I think there would be health and burnout issues if that happened every day. \*\* Yeah, but it’s different at my company. Lunch breaks aren’t required; in fact, due to the asocial atmosphere, they are tacitly discouraged. If a company _requires_ lunch breaks, that’s one thing. However, if they don’t, then they have no business forbidding people from counting work performed during lunch hour. That policy makes no bloody sense. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/working-over-lunchtime/59383/25 "2001-03-28T06:59:13Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by jayjay \* > \*\* > Is your supervisor an engineer, JThunder? I’ve noticed that most of the friction concerning corporate culture in engineering/creative departments comes from a clueless bureaucrat being put in charge of creatives. Your corporate culture is “I do the best work when I’m allowed to work the way I want,” while his/hers is “For my convenience, you will work these hours. For my year-end bonus, you will not work overtime.”_\* I think that’s a good point. Of course, I also realize that either perspective can be taken to an unhealthy extreme. I’d love to know what the rest of you guys think – especially those who are managers or engineeers. What say you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/working-over-lunchtime/59383.md?page=1)