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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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

120 replies

realteal · 06/09/2021 19:09

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?

OP posts:

MeanderingGently · 07/09/2021 07:29

I don't hate my colleagues but I don't want to spend my lunch break with them.
My current job is hard work and quite physical; we only have half an hour for lunch and I need peace, silence and to be away from everyone for that half hour. Otherwise I really can't carry on during the afternoon.

I wouldn't agree to a forced team lunch at all, if it was supposed to be my unpaid break. I'm not managerial, just a baseline worker so my unpaid half hour should be my own time. At our place of work, we're supposed to sit downstairs for lunch but I don't, I don't want to be with anyone. I have been known to sit in my car at lunch or even in a remote store room, just for some peace and quiet. I can understand if they don't want us to leave the premises (if the fire alarm went off someone might be in danger looking for a person who isn't there) but they cannot force me to sit with the others if it's unpaid time.....

pollyglot · 07/09/2021 07:40

Private school lunches, eaten at House tables in dining hall. Teacher presiding at head of table, serving food, correcting manners, engaging kids in meaningful chat. Compulsory. Every day. After clearing tables and ensuring cleanup done, staff have 5-10 minute lunchbreak, queues for the loos and coffee/tea making facilities. School starts at 8.30 and finishes at 6.15.

Phineyj · 07/09/2021 07:48

Woah Polly! I also work in a private school where we have lunch at separate tables away from the kids. We do have occasional lunchtime meetings. They are formal, with agendas and lunch is provided.

YANBU OP and see if you can do something for the apprentices.

rslsys · 07/09/2021 08:00

Develop a taste for Surströmming and insist on having that for the meeting lunch!

SpanielRadcliffe · 07/09/2021 08:21

If you're paid hourly, then you should be paid for required meetings (probably; depends on law where you're located) even if that causes you to "work" more than your normal hours, or you should be given the extra half hour at another time. Has someone told you this is unpaid work time? Have you tried just putting it down as a half hour worked and not saying anything about it? If you're salaried, I'd just quietly make up the time when you can.

I'm not sure if this is like a BYO situation or a potluck. If it's a potluck it's a bit discriminatory as not everyone has access to a kitchen and also you're presumably using your own money to provide ingredients even if you do cook? I used to work at a company where we had potlucks twice a year and attendance was encouraged but optional, and even then some people routinely avoided the events (usually by working from home that day). Every other week is FAR FAR too frequent for this.

CoalTit · 07/09/2021 08:32

I wouldn’t be impressed with the attitude if you were in my team ...
That is, you would hold a grudge if a team member wanted to stick to a clear, official, prior agreement about her working hours.

LookItsMeAgain · 07/09/2021 08:53

I'd start making personal appointments and putting them in to my calendar at the same time as this 'meeting'. If it's something that happens between 12-1 or 1-2, then I'd not be attending that meeting any more.
Start off with dental work then work to something else. If you don't get an allocated lunch time on those days, then it is a 'working lunch' and you should be paid for it. Otherwise it is your 1 hour to do with as you please and they cannot mandate anyone to attend.

Porcupineintherough · 07/09/2021 08:59

You wouldnt get far at my place of work with this attitude either.

TheSmallAssassin · 07/09/2021 09:04

@Porcupineintherough

You wouldnt get far at my place of work with this attitude either.

Another one, what "attitude"? Self respect? The only thing I would suggest to do differently is to come up with an alternative suggestion that takes place in official hours.

What would be the goal of these pot luck lunches? If some people don't want to be there, then is it achieving that? How does it contribute to fostering inclusive, diverse workforce?

Any manager or company who can only think of this as a way of improving team working or team spirit is pretty lacking.

steppemum · 07/09/2021 09:07

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).

This just makes me laugh!
Most professional jobs you work a certain amount of unpaid overtime. I don't know anyone who sticks to the hours like that.
eg as a teacher, I was expected to be in the classroom/school for certain hours, but there was plenty of work on top of that that is done out of hours /at home.
My dh worked set hours, but when they were finishing up an project or preparing a presentation, they often ran over by an hour or more.

Obviously if this is regular, there is a conversation to be had about work load, but still.

Porcupineintherough · 07/09/2021 09:11

@TheSmallAssassin anyone who felt their self respect was dented by being forced to eat lunch with their colleagues every 10 days would be an extremely poor fit for the organisation I work for. Luckily there are so many excellent people in our field who dont feel like this that we have never suffered from the loss of those who couldn't.

Rozziie · 07/09/2021 09:11

@TheSmallAssassin it's ableism. It's bloody everywhere. No recognition of the fact some people do genuinely need some alone time and an actual break away from people to be able to function properly. The gregarious, extroverted, neurotypical types like to pick on anyone who isn't like them as 'not being a team player'.

Mabelface · 07/09/2021 09:31

Agree that it's ablism. I have asd and spend my lunch alone to decompress. This is absolutely vital for me.

LookItsMeAgain · 07/09/2021 09:48

@Porcupineintherough

You wouldnt get far at my place of work with this attitude either.

Which attitude? My attitude?

Don't plan meetings for my lunchtime then.

SusieBob · 07/09/2021 09:57

Managers who enforce this kind of thing are usually micromanaging control freaks who can't bear the thought of their staff actually having lives. The state of people saying "you wouldn't get far with an attitude like this". What a shitty kind of working environment is that?

Just don't go. I bet if one or two stop going in a few weeks other people will boycott it too.

LastToBePicked · 07/09/2021 10:13

I think everywhere I have worked the culture has been:

-people would generally be happy to partake in a fortnightly team lunch.

-no-one would think to make such a thing enforced, though there might be a general expectation that you would attend, unless you have a reasonable reason not to

-Managers would listen to anyone who didn’t want to attend because they needed the downtime/headspace/fresh air etc on a daily basis.

I would hate to work anywhere where there was a culture that managers dictated that a team lunch was ‘mandatory’ or that staff resented doing anything that was a whisker outside of their official contracted role and hours. Generally I find a bit of flexibility on both sides makes for a better working environment.

TheSmallAssassin · 07/09/2021 11:06

[quote Porcupineintherough]@TheSmallAssassin anyone who felt their self respect was dented by being forced to eat lunch with their colleagues every 10 days would be an extremely poor fit for the organisation I work for. Luckily there are so many excellent people in our field who dont feel like this that we have never suffered from the loss of those who couldn't.[/quote]
You didn't answer the question about what you would hope to achieve from forced lunches like these? How would you measure the success of them, to check you were achieving your goal?

I can't think of any motivational or corp d'esprit aim that could be met if people felt strong armed into taking part, but perhaps I am missing something?

BlackTee40 · 11/09/2021 18:46

Does everyone have to eat the food others brought in?

Even if you don't know how clean their kitchens are and what their standards are like?

Belladonna12 · 11/09/2021 18:55

If the lunch is compulsory, I would expect my employer to provide the food. That's what happened everywhere I have worked.

lunar1 · 11/09/2021 18:58

In my trust we sometimes have to have a working lunch for teaching, if that's the case they have to provide a meal.

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