Scheduling Work Tasks During Lunch?

When I was a young PC tech about 18 years ago, I did not value my lunch hour at all. Now it is sacred. My employer is very strict on lunch, they assume everyone takes an hour lunch break whether they do or not, so you cannot make up for coming in late or needing to leave early by working through lunch. If you do take a long lunch, it shows up on a badge report and you have to explain it to your manager. And yes, a 61 minute lunch is included in this report, even a 60.5 minute lunch , too.

Also, lunch must be taken between the hours of 11:30am and 1:30pm, no exceptions. The wonderful badge report once again catches people taking lunch outside of these hours.

So, you would think that no one would schedule meetings, training, or anything else during the very regulated lunch times. Wrong! It still happens, and very frequently, I might add.

Today I have an auditor asking me to give up my lunch to answer questions...and I am just going to say "No!" If they want to work with my employer to make things more flexible, I am all for it. Otherwise, they can adjust their lunch to coincide with mine :) And we can meet afterwards. Lunch and learn's = crash and burns in my book.

If you have a similar environment with your employer, please express your feelings about this policy here. Don't get mad, get vocal!

Btw, the rules are the same for salaried and non-salaried employees.