WFH - am I entitled to a lunch break today?

[millerjane]

I've been lucky enough to work from home during this pandemic. All morning I've been unable to sign in due to a network wide issue (according to the IT help desk). It appears I'm the only person in my team having this issue. Whilst I've been unable to work I have had to message/speak to the IT people and follow their instructions. So obviously I haven;t been working as normal.

But am I entitled to have an hour lunch despite this? Manager just rang me and seemed annoyed when I asked her to ring back in 20 minutes as I was in the middle of lunch (consists of going for a walk and eating my sarnie).

AIBU?

During the working day I'd have prioritised the work considering not much constructive have been done all morning. I'd have took a break after the call.

If you didn’t speak in any detail when you took the call, how did you know that it would mean you having to do an hour’s work on a spreadsheet?
If you were expecting the call then you should have put time aside to do the work, but it sounds like you had meetings later in the day so would not have been able to do it anyway?

a) she had and b) hanging on the line and following IT instructions is dull but tense, and quite draining.

Maybe, but I suspect her boss will see it as no productive work.

If you were my line manager I'd wonder why you had so little to think about that you thought about me cleaning my kitchen

I'm a serial multi tasker so when IT are trying to fix my laptop, I am usually doing something else with one eye on what the technician who has remoted onto my laptop is doing.

I am a senior manager and I say that OP was working all morning. She was ready to work and liaising about the IT issue.

I would also expect you to take your full lunch break which is important to mental and physical health as well as maintaining an effective work force.

This terrible toxic culture of presenteeism being cited by so many here is bad for people. Now especially we must challenge these practices.

If I were your manager I’d be pleased with your boundary setting and I’d have said so. I’m sorry I’m not.

I totally agree with you @RhiWrites.

As you'd already taken 40 minutes (!), you should have taken the call and then taken the 20 minute walk later in the afternoon. Definitely another one interested in the wording of what you said to your manager and what made you realise she was annoyed with you.

But it totally depends on how OP responds:

Response 1" Hi boss, I'm just outside at the minute. Let me ring you back once I'm back at my desk. Will be before 2pm"
Response 2" I'm taking my lunch at the minute and still have 20 minutes to go. Ring me back after 2"

As a boss I totally would be fine with Response 1 , but not 2 although they are more or less saying the same thing.

I'm a senior manager, too, and while i broadly agree with @RhiWrites I think we all need to be a bit more flexible and also take into account that people in Grad schemes need to know how to read the room, as it were.

I would also expect you to take your full lunch break which is important to mental and physical health as well as maintaining an effective work force.

I cannot disagree with this at all. The question is: is lunch from 12-1pm without fail regardless? Or is it an hour give or take a few minutes that can be made up elsewhere with flexibility (for, say, tea breaks, smoke breaks, simply standing up and stretching occasionally).
In Germany if you work one minute over 6 hours and haven't shown that you took at least 30 minutes break your company is in the poop. So for those with time-management systems the trick is either not to work a second over 6 hours or else you're stuck there (people working 30 hours p/w, for example) for 30 minutes longer. Or to make sure you time your breaks carefully.
I'm lucky that I've only ever had one job where it was literally "everyone down tools now" on occasion. But on other occasion we worked 36 hours straight (but then, the military - while having great respect for downtime - dances to its own tune sometimes)

This terrible toxic culture of presenteeism being cited by so many here is bad for people. Now especially we must challenge these practices.

Is also spot on. up to now "flexibility" in a job usually means that the employee is flexible about hours worked and salary and the employer reaps the benefits. (excellent and good employers are available). But we also need to recognise that if we want all round flexibility and WFH to be much more accepted and acceptable, we have to agree that there are ways of doing things. It's all in the execution rather than the principle of the thing.

Hopefully OP will learn to recognise when she can "can you call me back" to her boss and when she should "yep, what do you need?". That comes with experience, and getting feedback from other people (like us)

Agree with @rookiemere

Asking anyone - let alone your boss - to ring you back for your own convenience is rude. Politely asking if you can ring them back is usually not.

Maybe, but I suspect her boss will see it as no productive work.
That sounds like a bad boss.

@IntermittentParps ok but see it from the bosses point of view.
X needs to be done by say 3pm. For reasons outside of the OPs control she cannot do it in the morning. Boss knows that op is going into meetings in the afternoon so won’t be able to work on x.
She’s (understandably) frustrated - not at OP but at the situation.
IT issues get sorted she calls OP - OP “call me back I’m on lunch”

Can you see why boss may be pissed off? It will be the combo of the situation but also OP hasn’t really made things any better either.

million, thanks for the patronising walk-through.
The OP hasn't indicated at all that her work was that time-sensitive. Your scenario is not the same as criticising the OP for doing 'no productive work' and therefore isn't especially meaningful or relevant here.

Not sure why you thought it was patronising - are you usually so quick to take offence?

The op saying that she knew she’d spend an hour right there and then on a spreadsheet does indicate that there may have been a time sensitive issue.

But who knows? Not us and not the OP as she didn’t actually take the call.

And the fact is - she hasn’t done any productive work has she? Not her fault but fixing IT issues is while necessary - not productive

Am starting to wonder if you actually are the OP?

Exactly what @rookiemere said.

@amillionnamechangeslater000

I agree with your scenario and that is how I read this situation as well.

I’ve been following this thread and realised why the op’s post seems unreasonable. I think it’s the word ‘entitled’ in the title. Firstly, it escalates her position above above everyone else. Secondly, no-one actually disagrees she shouldn’t have her lunch break. However, be flexible about when she has it, especially when she is wfh.

million, 'Can you see why boss may be pissed off?' is the height of 'Can you tell me what you think is happening in this picture, children?'

And no, I'm not taking offence, just responding, and no, I'm not the OP (why do people always say that if someone doesn't agree with them and won't be persuaded?

And the fact is - she hasn’t done any productive work has she? Not her fault but fixing IT issues is while necessary - not productive
If she can't do her everyday work until they're fixed then she cannot be productive without sorting them. And it's not piecework; her salary isn't predicated on how much she 'produces', whatever that means.

If she can't do her everyday work until they're fixed then she cannot be productive without sorting them. And it's not piecework; her salary isn't predicated on how much she 'produces', whatever that means.

No one is saying she wasn't ready to work, just that IT issues prevented her from working. It is not unreasonable for us to assume she is busy with a lot of work to complete and her manager wanted that work done and hoped for some flexibility.

It is reasonable to have lunch but you need to be flexible, I would have taken the call and gone for a walk later.

It would have gone down very badly in my company, I'd have just explained that I was having a sandwich and ask for a minute to put it down etc , I would have taken the call and had my lunch afterwards. I think you've blown any chance of being kept on after your get ad scheme. It would say a lot to me about your attitude to work .