Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

to have told the new guy to please leave me alone as I'm on lunch?

87 replies

musicboxwoundbyakey · 04/01/2014 00:00

So because the weather was so shitty today and most people are still off work (so had no-one to go out with at lunch) I decided to stay in and eat lunch at my desk and read my trashy magazine.

The new guy (who has been here 2 months now so not too new) came up to me and asked me a question about work, I helped him out and then went carried on eating my lunch. 5 minutes later he came back and asked me another question.

Irritated by that point, I did help him but also said look I'm on my lunch break and don't want to deal with work related stuff right now. (It was obvious I was on my lunch, I was eating and reading)

I feel bad but I wasn't the only colleague around and the job I do is customer facing so can have people ranting at you all day so you need a break just to de-stress.

Aibu?

OP posts:

Grumpla · 04/01/2014 08:27

I don't think you were BU. In fact I think you have probably nipped in the bud a classic situation whereby he would ask you more and more questions and lean on you increasingly. Seriously, lunch break or not, you helped him twice already, if he needed to ask you another question so quickly he obviously either failed to listen or hadn't thought about his first two questions carefully enough!

I hate working with people who find it easier to ask question after question (usually in the hope that someone else will step in and take over the task for them) rather than either find a solution independently or at least identify the problem so they can be supported efficiently to do so.

There were other colleagues available, you were helpful and polite up to a point. Don't feel guilty about refusing to be a doormat.

themaltesefalcon · 04/01/2014 08:37

Can't believe anyone thinks you were anything but over-polite.

paynoattentiontothecat · 04/01/2014 09:01

I think it was rather rude, sorry OP. That said I'm not sure it was unreasonable, as such.

I do know that when those SAHM vs working debates fire up, one of the things that is always stated is that working people have it easier because they get a proper lunch break and hot drinks of tea! Not where I work, and not anywhere else I've worked either!

Probably shouldn't be that way, but it is.

paynoattentiontothecat · 04/01/2014 09:05

I think it was rather rude, sorry OP. That said I'm not sure it was unreasonable, as such.

Probably shouldn't be that way, but it is.

paynoattentiontothecat · 04/01/2014 09:05

Sorry

ISeeYouShiverWithAntici · 04/01/2014 09:14

I think that starting with the word look was the problem.
I don't know why, but that often comes across as aggressive.
well, apart from when you are asking someone to look at something!

it would have been better to have said
oh, hi x, I am on my lunch break at the moment, I'll come and find you after my break, this weather is miserable isnt it? I much prefer getting away from my desk for lunch.

no matter how nice you tone of voice is, "look" always betrays an irritation or impatience, imo.

BobPatSamandIgglePiggle · 04/01/2014 09:16

Yanbu at all! People saying you should have helped then eaten lunch - what if it was a set 30 minutes? Op helps twice = no break to eat as time used up helping!

I'm a teacher - we've had to agree in our office that if someone is eating they don't get disturbed - others field calls from parents / visits from students at the door etc.

Perfectlypurple · 04/01/2014 09:17

This is why I never have my lunch break in the office.

louwn · 04/01/2014 09:25

Do people really take lunch breaks every single day other than to go and buy a sandwich/pick up dry cleaning/nip to boots? I don't work in a job where people consider lunch - quite normal for things to be scheduled right through the middle of the day and you eat when you have a minute to grab something.

BobPatSamandIgglePiggle · 04/01/2014 09:40

Why though louwn? Unions have fought for breaks for employees because people need downtime - especially in stressful jobs. I function much better in the afternoons after a bit of headspace.

paynoattentiontothecat · 04/01/2014 09:46

Good post, ISeeYouShiver

SquidTableau · 04/01/2014 09:51

YANBU. I used to hate the idea that unless I spent the hour outside in the cold my unpaid lunch became free time for my employers. I found headphones the answer (though I genuinely didn't mind being seen to be unapproachable & antisocial)!

Pipbin · 04/01/2014 09:54

YANBU.
But I am shocked at the amount of people here saying that they don't get a lunch break.
I am a teacher and therefore I often get called into meetings or set stuff up over lunch but that is up to me and understood to be part of the job. Also, it's only a couple of hours until the children go home and you have a chance to eat then.
When I worked in retail we took our full hour of lunch unless it was super busy or someone was off sick.
When I worked in an office you could opt for a 1/2 hour, 1 hour or 1 1/2 hour lunch. It all sorted itself out with the time you went home.
One poster said she worked an 11 hour day with no lunch. How are employers getting away with this? I'm sure that you could technically take a break but it would be frowned on.

Anyway YANBU but it rather depends on the tone you used to tell him you were on lunch.

Lovecat · 04/01/2014 09:59

Yanbu or rude. He was, by interrupting you at lunch. I worked for many years in a highly pressured environment and we had no lunch facilities - everyone ate at their desks and it was a given that you were not to be bothered while eating. I'm struggling to see how you were rude.

Bunbaker · 04/01/2014 10:04

"I hate working with people who find it easier to ask question after question (usually in the hope that someone else will step in and take over the task for them) rather than either find a solution independently or at least identify the problem so they can be supported efficiently to do so."

Some of the stuff I do at work is so complicated it would take me several hours to work out how to do something. If someone can spare 5 minutes to explain the procedure I get a lot more done. Life isn't always that simple.

snakeandpygmy · 04/01/2014 10:05

Do people really take lunch breaks every single day other than to go and buy a sandwich/pick up dry cleaning/nip to boots?

I do. What's more, if I notice that any member of my team hasn't taken a break I will tell them to do so. They are entitled to a lunch/rest break and this is for very good reasons.

I went for years with just grabbing a sandwich at my desk before I realised that this was doing nobody any favours and that I was much more productive if I went out and took a brisk 20 minute or so walk. So now I walk to the other end of the High Street (about half a mile) to M&S, buy a sandwich and, depending on the weather, eat it in either the park or back at my desk. If meetings are scheduled for when I normally take lunch I will just go a bit earlier/later.

Having said that I am not militant about it and if there is a real emergency will happily work through.

Potus · 04/01/2014 10:07

Is it not really unprofessional to eat at your desk in a customer facing job? What do you do if a customer comes up to you wanting help?

Even if they're speaking to one of your colleagues, doesn't look good if an employee is munching away next to them. Go to thr staff room and get some peace and quiet!

limitedperiodonly · 04/01/2014 10:18

It was a missed opportunity for a lesson about priorities for both of you, OP.

Was the new guy's question urgent? If not, you could have asked him to wait.

If it was, then you should have helped.

Only you know whether you're flexible or rigid over your meal-deal and Take A Break time.

Emilycee · 04/01/2014 10:29

YANBU. It drives me bonkers at work when its obvious you are on lunch and people still witter on about work. I have a precious half hour just for me to not think about my tedious job so bugger off! (I would never say that however, I now have to leave the building or sit in my car to be truly left alone!)

SuburbanRhonda · 04/01/2014 10:35

I know it's the law to have a break, but as a couple of teachers have said on here, in a school you often just can't.

The children are in the playground, where most of the problems occur, and if our head teacher gets to eat all her lunch in one sitting without being called to intervene in a situation, that's cause for celebration!

She didn't even get to eat her school Christmas lunch last term

BobPatSamandIgglePiggle · 04/01/2014 10:40

Suburban - in schools teachers may not get the full break that unions have fought for but it is really important to take some of it!

AGoodPirate · 04/01/2014 10:51

YwNbu!

ShadowFall · 04/01/2014 11:00

YANBU. You're entitled to a lunch break.

The new guy should have had the decency to let you eat in peace unless his questions were so urgent that they genuinely couldn't wait for 30 minutes.

lottiegarbanzo · 04/01/2014 11:00

Well, you must feel your behaviour, entirely reasonable if done kindly, was unreasonable or seen as such, to post. Why do you feel that?

You're clearly in a workplace where people do habitually take their break, as you usually go out, so different experiences from people who aren't are not all that relevant.

Is there no lunch-room in the building that you can go to? If not, that is the problem.

I've worked in a number of places where people did take lunch breaks. Most had a dedicated room, or used the meeting room and in smaller places everyone went for lunch at once, which was really good.

The one that drove me mad was where there was a culture of eating at desks and, though there was a designated meeting space, the culture of not using it was so strong that it wasn't always kept free and if you dd eat there there'd be no-one to talk to.

What I hated most was the opposite problem to yours; trying to work in an office that turned into a rolling social-space, with added smells, while people took lunch at different times over the course of an hour or more and chattered away. I also missed the social aspect of sitting round a table with people I wouldn't talk to much otherwise.

My advice is to avoid this scenario, for everyone's sake, so, do not eat at your desk. If you need to lobby for a lunch space, do it.

Original poster

musicboxwoundbyakey · 04/01/2014 11:18

Is it not really unprofessional to eat at your desk in a customer facing job? What do you do if a customer comes up to you wanting help?

A customer has never and will never be inside the office. So please don't start with you "you are very unprofessional speech", because I am professional.

And aside from that point we all have an allocated lunch break (ranging from 12-2:30) in our team as we have a weekly rota made up for us. I'm very surprised too that a lot of people on here don't seem to have a lunch break.

OP posts:

Flip

1 2 3 4