Do you work through lunch breaks if needed?

[Notfatbutchunky]

I work within the nhs high stress job very low pay we are understaffed. When someone takes annual leave the whole place crumbles.

I am WFH today on my own all calls and work have been forwarded to me.

Manager seems to think I should work through my lunch! I’m stressed enough as it is I should be able to take my 30 mins break in peace.

I have flat out refused AIBU?

"If needed".

Define need. For me, it's entirely possible there's a deadline I need to hit - in which case yes, I will work through lunch. I'll also take that time back elsewhere.

If the 'need' is that my boss thinks it's makes them look good to have me busy to the point I don't get a lunch break, then no, I do not.

Yes, but I don’t have a set shift. I work by billable hour, so no one really cares when I work. If I want to skip lunch, I skip lunch and end work early. If I want to take a long lunch, I take a long lunch.

when I worked a job with set hours, I took my breaks.

Yes if I have a deadline, never just for the sake of it and I make sure I have a nice easy day with a longer lunch when I can, to make up for it.

If needed yes, but equally I find I work better after a.bit of a break, even 10.mins. and my mental and physical health is important so I don't go off sick
.
As a manager I encourage and support my teams to take breaks and protect their own health and wouldn't want them to regularly work through lunch, however we work in an area where there will sometimes be an urgent deadline and we just need to respond to it.

Don't do it! Sharing my current situation for you as an example why...
I work with a local council. Over the past 10 years, we have generally been at least 1 person short on the team due to sickness/people leaving etc. We have picked up the slack and found the gap between rerecruitment/getting help was getting longer and longer. During this time, we have made clear the workload is stressing us out to management. Yet we have busted our balls, working late/skipping lunches etc to meet targets. Mainly because we are hard working and conscientious and want to do a good job for ourselves.
A restructure has recently been proposed where they plan on actually removing an officer permanently, despite the cries for more staff. Because the work has been getting done, they see a cost saving here. No regard for staff wellbeing at all.
So my advice is take the lunchbreak you are entitled to and work your contacted hours as you get absolutely zero recognition for it in the end! We as a team have agreed no more favours or making ourselves ill with stress by taking on absent staffs work. If questions are asked why things aren't getting done, or they want to add more on, management will be asked what part of the job we should not do to do the new tasks. And we will involve trade unions if required. You're legally entitled to a break so use it!

No - take whatever break your entitled to; can you forward your phone (if poss to said line manager)

I recently left a job where I'd needed to work 10-12 hours a day, with usually only 15-30 break to eat at lunchtime, and generally a sinking feeling that I ought to be logging in and working at the weekend.
The sense of relief & well being once I was working my notice period was immense,
I've had a couple of holidays since finishing, with job hunting in between; I have three second interviews lined up for next week, and I've been very up front at first interviews about the reason for not staying in the previous role & needing work life balance.

Hardly ever take a lunch break

I get an hour for lunch and almost always take it in full. However, I'm under occupational health and they've stressed the importance of regular breaks.

Plus I don't get paid for lunch so would only work through in an emergency and we're not the sort of business that has an emergency.

I very rarely take a lunch break. Back when I was in the office, I’d simply sit at my desk and eat a sandwich whilst continuing to work. Now I WFH most of the time, I just work through and don’t even bother having something to eat.

HOWEVER. I will take occasional breaks to play a game on my phone/do a puzzle. So I figure I’m just spreading out my longer break into a few short breaks across the day. I’m happy doing it that way, my boss has no issues with it, and I’m still contactable if anyone in my team needs me.

you were 100% right to refuse to work through your break and it doesn’t matter what anyone else does!

I often don't bother with a lunch break...but on the flip side I have a lot of flexibility. If I need to pop to the corner shop for 15 minutes for milk, I just go. Throughout the day I take the odd few minutes to hoover/stick a wash on/unload the dishwasher etc. So I probably have at least an hour downtime, just spread out.

If I was working solidly, I'd be insisting on a lunch break.

I have actually handed my notice in and this was one of the reasons.

I work in an SEND school and we’re paid pro-rata and doesn’t include lunch.

It is not possible to do everything during their lessons so we have to do it over lunch or after school (which we’re not paid for either).

The most frustrating thing is we’re not allowed off site because there has to be a certain staff to student ratio, yet they still won’t pay us for lunch times even though we have to be there.

In my previous place it's part of the course so to speak that if busy then I'll put work first, plus a big lunch makes me more zzzz, so personally I prefer being busy when it's busy

Don't they have lunchtime staff?

You are right to refuse.

We have to take in turns doing a lunch time duty which we get paid for (£2.40 for 30mins) but there still has to be a certain amount of staff on site at all times.

Not as a regular thing.

But I have a decent boss. The few times situations have meant I've not had a lunch break I've finished 15 minutes early and left early on a Friday too.

Plus my boss is always really grateful and if I say at 2pm - I'm off for lunch now as I'm starving she will just man the radio and respond to calls for me - and I'll go if an emergency but I know she'd never ask me unless necessary.

I'd refuse to miss my unpaid lunch break daily through expectation though.

I'm public sector. I pretty much work through my lunch every day.

Are you a teacher or lsa?

My job is send school too - but I'm a specialist support role and my experience is totally different.

The LSAs always get their lunch break - I sometimes go later because I cover so they can go - and on the odd occasion we are short me or slt do doubles or occasionally support staff who have a late lunch whilst slt or I support in class.

It's very rare I don't get a break over the lunch period but I don't have set lunch hours like the LSAs because of the nature of my role.

Yes I do. I generally take my lunch, but I’m at a level where sometimes I need to work through, I take the time back elsewhere if I can.

£2.40?! Surely that's a typo!

I have sympathy, I work in a school office. It seems to have become a thing that I just work through my lunch, speaking to visitors or callers with my mouth full. It doesn't even look professional, never mind being wrong for my welfare! I do insist on taking an hour once a week every other week or so though but then I'm just stressed cos I'm behind on my work and often I get back to the phone ringing, my colleague's out the office, there's a delivery driver or a parent looking annoyed waiting outside to be let in, or there's a dinner lady looking for me cos one of the kids has fallen and someone needs to ring their parent. Lunchtimes are just so busy in schools. I think schools just take advantage of staff's work ethic - they know that school staff like children and want to do their best for them and their families and so we just get on with it.

But £2.40!!! Can't get over that. That's just a nominal thing. It's not even minimum wage...the lunchtime staff will be getting paid more.

All the time but enjoy flexibility in general - can always get away if I need to for appointments, start early to finish early etc. high level of trust

I’m NHS and they 100% should not ask you to do that! Yes often at work you end up working through but that is when circumstances dictate this due to workload (and it shouldn’t happen anyway) but no manager should ever say that’s an expectation, it’s against the work time directive and illegal.

You just have to have boundaries that protect your mental and physical health and you have to enforce them.

The negative difference that taking protected time for lunch would make to the employer and your workload is tiny compared to the huge negative impact on you of not getting a break and the positive impact that taking that break can have - ideally involving getting up and outside and stretching your legs.

It's not worth it and if your manager doesn't realise that and see the bigger picture then they deserve to end up with zero team members.

Self-preservation, OP.

I regularly work through lunch, but it depends on a mixture of things: what I am having (i.e. cooking eggs or whatever takes time so I end up having a break), what else I have got on at work, if I need to return a library book or whatever. Sometimes I take a super long lunch break and go out for lunch with a friend. Sometimes I take 20 mins off mid afternoon and prep the veg etc for tea. Quite often I do none of the above.

But I'm well paid and part of that is Getting Shit Done no matter what. If I didn't feel well remunerated I probably wouldn't work through my lunch.

I wfh nhs and can't remember the last time I took a break other than loo or kettle tbh. Not being weird just how it is