To consider a team lunch to be a meeting, not my unpaid lunch break?

[realteal]

Prompted by the ‘is it ok to arrive at work at 9am’ thread.

We have fortnightly team lunches where we all bring in a plate and eat it in the staff room. It’s not optional.

AIBU to consider this a work meeting, and not to consider it as my unpaid lunch break?

I’d hate this. I often cut short my lunch break to work, so I’d be really annoyed to be forced into this, particularly unpaid! YANBU.

That's working lunch, right there

How many of you have to attend? What would they actually do if you joined it late and finished early?

It’s a stupid idea but then it sounds like it’s a place where ‘collaboration’ is used to keep people in the office.

@hibbledibble

It sounds like a lunch break to me. You are eating lunch and socialising. Do you resent spending time with colleagues?

I do. I need my "me time" away from the office

In the pre covid days I would make a point of going out for half an hour if I was made to have one of those team lunches or lunch and learn meetings

@hibbledibble

It sounds like a lunch break to me. You are eating lunch and socialising. Do you resent spending time with colleagues?

A big fat old “yes” from me.

@hibbledibble yes, if spending time with them means I have less time to do my work and spend time with my family/friends.

I’d start having appointments in that lunch break! Or phone calls. And start the day with “sorry i can’t make lunch today!”

I agree with you but (as a salaried professional and middle manager) I can't see any way I'd personally be able to object or avoid. It's a tricky one.

I hate this sort of thing - its so oblivious of people's different circumstances, eg what people would otherwise do with their lunch break and whether (sharing?) food together throws up any challenges re: budget, capacity for food prep, food issues like EDs or social anxiety stuff. It should be optional.

I'm wfh at the min, and too often work through my lunch anyway, but when I did have a lunch break it was literally the only time I had to meet friends without dragging my kids along, or grab some shopping without dragging my kids along, or have twenty uninterrupted minutes reading or walking or eating MY food without leaping up to wipe sticky fingers or issuing reminders about chewing with mouths closed etc. I'd resent having to give that up to make compulsory small talk with colleagues, whether I liked them or not. Sometimes I'd have lunch with colleagues, but on an optional basis.

We have this occasionally at work but it’s once a month and lunch is put on for us so it’s free (and quite nice). No expectation to stay for longer than 30mins. Some people will make occasionally make excuses to rush to Boots or whatever. But we keep it pretty light.

I’d be annoyed if I had to bring/buy my own lunch and sit down awkwardly with all colleagues and it was every two weeks.

Enforced fun is not fun. For anyone.

@Prolapsy

I worked somewhere where there were ‘compulsory’ meetings scheduled at lunch time - around once or twice a week. They were scheduled over lunch because it was NHS and it was the only time there were no patients to see. It drove me mad. Quite often just made excuses why I couldn’t attend, it was made to seem compulsory but obviously they couldn’t enforce it. YANBU.

we used to have lunchtime team meetings in the NHS for the same reason but it was always clear that this was a required meeting at which lunch could be eaten (and the other manager and I would spring for cake or something) I don't think we ever formally gave back toil for it but we operated flexibly so people could start late/leave early/take a longer break and so on. If you work closely with a team as we did, its not difficult to see who are the piss takers and who are the reasonable people.

Of course it's work time, but the questions is (as it should always be when ever it involves work) - are you getting anything out of it personally and is there a proper balance in what is being expected of you and what you are able to expect from the company you work for?

In the end you owe your company for the hours in your contract and nothing more. If your contract says your lunch is unpaid (as mine does) then that time belongs to you.

Weird some people talking about being 'salaried' or 'a middle manager' but I assume they are American. I'm both salaried and a middle manager, but my contract still says 37.5 hrs a week - if they want more than that from me they either pay me or give me a bloody good reason why I should work for free (like a bonus scheme or a realistic chance at a pay rise\promotion, but seeing as the only decent pay rises come from moving jobs, then good luck incentivising me with that).

Your company don't care about you, other than as a resource - if you died they would replace you within days or weeks and your manager would soon have forgotten you'd even existed.

I'd be refusing to take part in a shared lunch on safety grounds at the moment. Sharing utensils and food sounds like a recipe for Covid transmission. Very irresponsible of your employer to allow it.

Once in a while I’d do it but not as a regular thing unless I could take my break at a different time. I’d start making excuses about oh I’m meeting an old friend who’s just in town for one day / have some urgent calls to make etc.

Bloody hell. 22% say YABU - they must have their tongues so far up the corporate arse that their managers have to stand during their lunch meetings.

Do you resent spending time with colleagues?
God, yes. Bad enough the 8 hours I’m paid to spend with them, let alone my own time too.

My work has enforced lunch sessions but we’re a fully remote company! Desperately need a laptop break but no, there we all are on Teams with our sandwiches, forced to virtually socialise as a break from… being on Teams.

Wow, I had no idea so many mumsnetters hate the presence of their colleagues.

Personally I quite like mine, but each to their own.

It must be quite exhausting to be constantly so miserable!

@hibbledibble

Wow, I had no idea so many mumsnetters hate the presence of their colleagues.

Personally I quite like mine, but each to their own.

It must be quite exhausting to be constantly so miserable!

Just a bit over-dramatic. It may be a strange concept, but I think most people just like to choose who they spend their free time with.

We have working lunches regularly. When we're at work and work supplies the food and it's a 'lunch and learn' session that's fine, when it's a customer meeting that's fine (and we tend to let people disappear off 'to do the day job' but also just to allow a bit of downtime because customer meetings are full-on). But during Covid they have become zoom meetings and it's HR that have organised them. I'm sorry but I'm not listening to a diversity talk when I'm at home and having lunch with my family. Immediate decline to those invites.

I used to work in a professional field & our bosses insisted that our weekly team meetings take place at lunchtime (with our own lunches not catered) to try & get a higher attendance.

Usually they were boring as heck with profitability targets & high end clients discussed & most of us muttered on & thought about other stuff.
But one of our senior colleagues hated them too, thought it smacked of disorganisation, so he'd attend, then leave the office for a slightly later lunch break. So just a thought for you to consider for your own forced meeting situation :)

@hibbledibble

Wow, I had no idea so many mumsnetters hate the presence of their colleagues.

Personally I quite like mine, but each to their own.

It must be quite exhausting to be constantly so miserable!

Give over.

You spend all day, several says a week in the presence of colleagues.

Not wanting to be forced to spend time with them, when you aren't being paid is not miserable.

Imagine, being so judgmental of people who want to spend their free time as they choose to.

If the lunch was at a Michelin-starred restaurant and provided for you would you feel the same?

@hibbledibble

It sounds like a lunch break to me. You are eating lunch and socialising. Do you resent spending time with colleagues?

Don't be so fucking ridiculous.

Make something laced with magic mushrooms. It will be the last team lunch ever.

@hibbledibble

Wow, I had no idea so many mumsnetters hate the presence of their colleagues.

Personally I quite like mine, but each to their own.

It must be quite exhausting to be constantly so miserable!

Ever thought you might be lucky with your colleagues, and that other people might not?

I actually really liked my colleagues, but my job was extremely intense and people-y. I had to actively interact with my team under difficult circumstances for every minute of every day. My lunch hour was the only part of the day that I could switch off from that kind of intensity, and without that time alone I couldn't have done the job.

Some of my team members were the same. Others managed it by sitting in the staffroom with people from other teams and having a laugh/debrief. We're all different.