Was I unreasonable to go to Pilates in the middle of the day? Feel sick....

[SisterJude7]

I work from home and am allocated 30 minutes for lunch. I am chronically underpaid for my level of seniority (I manage a small team). In my view, it is inhumane to expect human beings to only take a mere 30 minutes to recuperate, although many of my colleagues relish missing their lunch breaks and wear their lack of lunch as a badge of honour. I admittedly sometimes go for a run, attend a gym class or run some errands before school pick up which is beneficial for my own wellbeing. No issues with my performance, I work my hours and I have finished late on numerous occasions anyway. The daytime classes tend to be cheaper and use less of my Class Pass points and besides, I have zero time in the evening.

Anyway, on Friday, I attended a 50 minute Pilates class. I don't usually pay much attention to the other attendees, but during the warm-up, I was absolutely blindsided to see a director on the carriage opposite (she has Fridays off). My stomach absolutely dropped-she definitely clocked me and looked stony-faced but briefly nodded. To make matters worse, the shock went straight to my bowels, so I needed to dash to the loo 😭😭. I had no choice but to complete the class which felt like the longest 50 minutes of my life with a churning stomach. She scuttled out at the end of the class.

Do you think I will be in trouble? I have spent all weekend ruminating. I don't want recent minor transgressions to be put under the microscope- I've been spoken to informally about my dogs barking in a client meeting and once I also forgot a teams meeting and popped to the supermarket. I don't want to be forced to go back to the London office as my dogs have separation anxiety and I need to be around to pick up my DCs. Should I say something and get in there first? My DH thinks I am overreacting, it will be fine and that I should just buy a mouse jiggler from Amazon which I don't agree with.

Why is that in quotes? I think they have the right idea.

I wfh full time and think YABU. My work are pretty laidback about this kind of thing, I.e if I need to do the school run I log on an hour early. Same with dr appointments. But if you regularly run errands, take longer breaks etc. then you need to ask for permission and make the time up.

Posts like this just fuel anti-wfh rhetoric.

If you have negotiated to start early/finish late, so yiu can have the odd longer break in the middle, or are making up all the extra time in the evening - not unreasonable. If you are not working your full hours - unreasonable @SisterJude7

Chill. You know nothing about job, role, team, and whether this has any kind of impact on the business or not.

It's not a race to the bottom.

You're either taking the piss out of your employer, or you're taking the piss out of us!

'Inhumane'.

lol.

Ok. I don't know anything about you, but perhaps you have never lived anywhere with significant social unrest. It's terrifying.
Perhaps you're joking.

Maybe you didn’t take lunch the day before and worked through to have the time??

Pharmacy work . Started at 8.30. Got 30 mins for lunch and finished at 5.30. On my feet all day dealing with the great and good of pharmacy patients.
I think you are right to be worried. You feel short changed therefore take to piss.
Its not surprising that businesses are insisting staff return to the office.

Sorry, yes you are being unreasonable.

You might find a 30 min lunch break inhumane, but it’s what you have. If you don’t like it, change job. But the fact is you took over an hour (it’s a 50 min class, 10 mins away from home, and that’s assuming you walked out of the house went straight to the class walked in and got straight back to work) and thought you could get away with it because you WFH.

If by some chance you get away with it, don’t do it again.

And she's gone.

I think you should start doing your job hours. I'm suprised you haven't been rumbled before between school drops and pick ups, supermarket shops, runs and exercise classes.

Indeed.

Us.

I would style it out. If you get into trouble just say that you often only take 20 mins for lunch, so feel that they probably owe YOU time, if anything. I would also mention that you feel underpaid and undervalued in your role.

um, because quotes denote speech and you literally asked "what a French person would say"?

Not really sure why the French come into it - yes they work shorter working hours but nobody is saying they don't work during those hours! If they were out rioting I would imagine their employer would be aware they aren't at work, not pretending they are typing away while actually setting things on fire?

The fact that OP feels sick about being caught makes it pretty clear she knows she was in the wrong.

Not many people have the financial wherewithal to do whatever they want and fuck the consequences. Keep taking long lunches and getting caught and you potentially lose your job.

I used to go to an hour gym class at lunchtime when I worked in office. I’d block 2-3 lunch times a week for that. It helped be perform way better in the afternoon. I did make sure to go to studios where was unlikely to clock co workers.

You don't need a mouse jiggler.

Just weigh down a button on your keyboard with a bottle of nail varnish, then you'll always be on green

@SisterJude7 ‘s own bowels know that she was in the wrong here!

🤦‍♀️

Going to the supermarket on the company dime? Taking 80 mins not 30 for lunch?
Yes I'd say those are disciplinary matters. You're this worried because you know you're in the wrong.

It takes 10 minutes to get there, 10 minutes back, and a 30 minute class? So, you are actually away for 50 minutes. At best. If called out on this, you might have to stop.

OP is probably looking for another job as we speak.

This is one of the reasons why employers including mine are increasingly insisting on employees coming back into the office. Pre-covid, rarely would anyone have been able to fit going to the gym in their lunch break or do a school run - we did the gym in the evenings and had to pay for after school clubs - we didn’t think anything of it, working hours were for work and everything else outside of it.

Its all very well saying you work extra hours in the evening but you need to be available in the working day when everyone else is and when you are paid for to attend meetings plus employers can’t/shouldn’t have to monitor what you are doing in the evening. I get increasingly frustrated when colleagues say they can’t do a meeting at 3pm as they have to do a school run when no one gave them permission to do that, it’s just assumed to be ok where they should be paying for after school club like we used to have to. Also kids are distracting during working hours.

Working from home is a privilege/benefit that doesn’t need to be given. I hope no one pulls you up on it but suggest taking this as a personal warning to take it seriously from now on before they withdraw it