Work rant

[Nathansmommy1]

So yesterday at the office my team had cake for a special occasion, so we took a tea break. Came in this morning to find that another team had complained that we had a tea break, and not just to our immediate manager but to a senior manager. So our manager had to come back and say it to us this morning and that other teams are busy and doing overtime and just to be mindful of that.. that senior management would be monitoring the overtime worked across the teams and basically our team could end up with more work..
So I got back to my desk thinking I can't believe that this happened the first time we have taken a tea break since last May. And I looked around me at other workers on other teams and noticed that two had taken 35 mins for a tea break this morning when we have no morning break, they do this most mornings, I saw another guy on the internet looking at holidays and rental cars for an hour and ten mins, and another girl spent an hour and a half messaging on Skype, no work open on her computer.
We have a suggestion box where we can put ideas to improve the business etc, and now I'm really thinking of putting in some sort of a suggestion because I'm so mad after this morning. The thoughts of ending up with a bigger workload and ending up with extra over time because someone has made a complaint over one tea break is driving me mad. Would you say something?

[Handsfull13]

I'd be polite in telling your manager and cc in the senior manager that your team is being mindful of the other teams and your sorry if your tea break for x special occasion upset anyone else. But have they let the other teams know this as well as you've noticed several other tea breaks happening.

[Sindragosan]

There's no point. If your manager isn't going to defend your actions, or senior managers won't accept that a brief break on special occasions is acceptable, complaining about anything else won't help. Sure, you might get a few others told off, but all its likely to do is result in more restrictions rather than anyone saying that a group break is fine.

A few passive aggressive remarks to other teams might be in order, depending if you know who complained.

[SnuggyBuggy]

What a miserable nosy fucker

[HK20]

I hate this work mentality of "oh someone's taken a break so they can't be busy enough"
Why can't people just mind their own! Especially when a lot of the time the people seen "taking a break" are the ones who've worked through lunch/late/over the weekend consistently for months on end!

You're not being unreasonable, the miserable sod who reported you just needs to get a life! #rantover 😂

[ErickBroch]

In the nicest way, get over it. Reporting other people for browsing websites or whatever will only really backfire on you in the long run.