Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To take a regular extended lunch break

105 replies

BecomeStronger · 07/11/2020 11:29

I'm really struggling to get my exercise fix atm. In winter I usually run with a club or go to the gym. No club or gym atm and whilst I ran on my own a lot in the summer lockdown, it doesn't appeal much in the dark.

I was thinking about if it's possible to run at lunch but only get 30mins. Realistically, to change, shower and get a decent run in I'd need 1hr20? The building is locked at 5:30 so I can't stay late to make the time up but I can wfh (arguably that's what I should be doing anyway but let's not go there now).

It would be unreasonable though, wouldn't it?

OP posts:
Autumnvisage · 07/11/2020 12:30

That would be massively unreasonable. Just do it in your spare time like everyone else has to.

AppleKatie · 07/11/2020 12:32

Don’t do it.

Or do it once a week make it clear you are doing it to the teaching staff you manage- call it a well-being run. Explain that you will be working the extra hour at home after dark to catch up AND tell them you would like them to find one day a week where their timetable permits them to do this too and do the same if they would like.

If you work in the kind of school where it is simply not possible for the teaching staff to do this I don’t know how you have the brass neck to consider it tbh.

Smallsteps88 · 07/11/2020 12:32

How can someone who has worked in the real, adult world for long enough to be in a senior position even think for a second this would be ok? Confused

Riv · 07/11/2020 12:38

I agree with most of the posters who know what life in a school is like.

Most staff that are working with the children are having to do without any actual lunch break because they are with the children in their bubble, sterilising their classroom, the equipment and toilets as well as getting things ready for the afternoon - some teachers have to be with the children from 8.30 until 4.30 without a break to pee let alone have a run. The extra contact time due to staggered starts and pick ups. Then they have to do their usual (pre covid) prep of about 3 hours after work plus the (covid needed) prep of preparing on line work and resources for children working at home - so 8 hours full on contact time plus 5 or 6 hours in the evening... 12 - 14 hour day maybe?

And you want to cut your in-school hours by an hour a day and make it up in the evening? You have time for that? Don't forget the time at home doesn't come under directed hours unless you can prove every minute of it. And you are a manager? and you wonder if it is reasonable?
Of course it is. IF you want to loose what little respect you may have and any authority to direct staff.

Disfordarkchocolate · 07/11/2020 12:41

Once a week maximum. Even then some people will be really annoyed.

RedHelenB · 07/11/2020 12:45

Having read your update I've changed to you are being unreasonable, sorry. If you work in a secondary school can you run after the kids go home sone days, near work?

Poppystars · 07/11/2020 12:46

I am jealous that you get 30 mins to exercise if you work in a school every day.
I spend my lunchtime supervising my class who eat sandwiches until they finish and go out to the playground. No 30 min lunch hear, I can only dream. Oh and wiping down tables with antibacterial wipes needed too!

AhoyMeFarties · 07/11/2020 12:47

🙄

OneWildNightWithJBJ · 07/11/2020 12:47

I'm a teacher. I can't quite imagine a member of SLT taking an hour and 20 minute lunchbreak when the rest of us barely have two minutes to go to the toilet and eat lunch.

Kez0777 · 07/11/2020 12:47

I work in a school and run in the dark 3 nights a week.
To say I'd be pissed off at a member of SLT having a longer break because it suits them is an understatement.

ilovesooty · 07/11/2020 12:48

@sonjadog

No, I would not do this. Some years ago I worked as a teacher in a school where my head of department went off cycling in his lunch break. The 40 minute break could end up being a couple of hours. Never mind that it was annoying that he got a long break no-one else did, he was also unavailable when you needed to talk to him because he was out cycling, and then when he was actually there, he was trying to make up for all the things he didn´t get done because he was out cycling, so you still couldn´t discuss stuff with him. Parents also got frustrated with him (although they didn´t know about the cycling just that he was unavailable). It ended up in a situation with a lot of resentful and angry people, there was a complaint made and he got an official warning. So no, don´t go there. It seems like a good solution for you, but it will impact your job and your relations with those you manage negatively.
I remember working with a deputy head who timetables herself to have the whole of Friday off. She used to get her hair done. It caused a lot of bad feeling.
Smileyaxolotl1 · 07/11/2020 12:49

Of course YABU.
But surely the OP must be something like a Head of HR or similar?
Surely no normal member of SMT could think it acceptable to bugger off for an hour a day when she should be accessible to staff/ students/ supporting with behaviour management etc?

minipie · 07/11/2020 12:51

If you’re not comfortable running in the dark there are plenty of other forms of exercise you can do at home. Try youtube. Runs can be at weekends.

MsAwesomeDragon · 07/11/2020 12:54

I would be really, really pissed off if a senior person in my school was taking an hour and 20 minutes to run in the middle of the day when I barely have time to eat and go to the toilet!! If they were officially working from home I wouldn't know so wouldn't be annoyed, as I know I did similar in the first lockdown, working at odd hours rather than the official school day. But when everybody is in school it would be demoralising for the rest of the staff if senior positions can take time in the middle of the day that we can't.

nosswith · 07/11/2020 12:56

Yes it would work for you, but I think it would make it difficult given that others could not realistically do this. Unfortunate.

Of course the real issue is that gyms where there is membership (so track and trace is available) should have been kept open as should have outdoor swimming pools. The Prime Minister whose only exercise seems to be with his latest mistress in the bedroom does not appreciate such matters, and the minister for sport is not part of the inner circle.

MaddieElla · 07/11/2020 13:07

Totally unreasonable, and I say that as a runner and as someone who would get away with it in my work culture.

I run 6 times a week, never on work time. 4pm I'm out the door, sometimes 5pm. If it's dark I just stick to paths and residential areas rather than the fields I'd run around during the day.

No reason not to run in the dark. Every reason not to take the piss with work several times a week.

CluelessWriter · 07/11/2020 13:08

@BecomeStronger

Not in daylight no.

The job is a senior role in a school. I could make it work quite easily, but it wouldn't be an option for many others, including most of those I manage.

Honestly I think you'll piss a lot of a people off that way.

We'd all like a bit more time but when you work in a school lack of flexibility is part of the deal albeit fucking annoying

KeepOnKeepingOnKeepingOn · 07/11/2020 13:12

Head torch, hi vis, go in the dark, like we all do

flumposie · 07/11/2020 13:17

Wow. Another teacher here who cant actually believe you would even consider this given the current situation in schools at the moment Shock

Bitbusyattheminute · 07/11/2020 13:18

I have 30 minutes for lunch. Except by the time I've walked 5 minutes to the fridge, then found somewhere for lunch, it's more like 20. I run in the dark and it's shit. And at weekends, if I'm not busy marking, doing data or planning. I would see my arse.

Singlebutmarried · 07/11/2020 13:20

I read it as it took you 30 mins for your run.

If you only get 30 mins then you are properly talking about extracting the yellow stuff.

Do what the rest of us have to do.

Fit it in on your own time.

BillysMyBunny · 07/11/2020 13:20

I’m a teacher in a school and info a member of senior management took an extended lunch break to go for a run in the middle of the school day whilst everybody else was expected to take their half an hour I would be unhappy and I imagine many of my colleagues would too. It’s horrible over winter when you leave for work in the dark and come home in the dark but that’s the way it is for most people and I would be annoyed if members of senior staff at my school got special lunch break privileges just because they’re in non-contact roles.

jessstan1 · 07/11/2020 13:26

Could you not just have a half hour lunch break on one day to make up for it?

Or run in the evening, plenty do.

MadameMinimes · 07/11/2020 13:29

I’m pretty horrified by this. As a senior member of staff in a school, I can’t quite imagine swanning off for almost an hour and a half in the middle of the day. How can you have so little to do that you can even consider this? I’ve never been so busy in my life and the rest of the senior team in my school are all similarly busy. I can’t imagine how resentful the rest of the staff and other SLT would feel if one of us was disappearing for a run over the busiest part of the day for an extended lunch break.

CluelessWriter · 07/11/2020 13:30

@BrutusMcDogface

Dear god. Why would you even consider this at the moment? I couldn’t go and pick up my prescription the other day in my “lunch break” as you guessed it; I didn’t get one. But I’m just a lowly teacher dealing with kids and stuff. Yabu, massively.
Sounds par for the course. I'm support staff and have to jump through all manner of hoops (form filling, requesting written permission from the Head) to take my elderly mum for a hospital appointment.

If members of the SLT were taking 3x their lunchbreaks for a hobby if be even more pissed about it than I already am!