The other day I arrived at work on time at 8:00am. I then immediately went to the kitchen to get a cup of tea. I also had a quick 2-minute “good morning” conversation with my boss who came into the kitchen when I was in there. I then went to my desk with my tea to start work. All up, it was about 5-minutes.
I work as an assistant for a superior. Shortly after getting to my desk, my superior told me that they need me to be at work on time and ready to work at 8:00am. I explained that I was at work on time and had simply made a cup of tea. They said I need to come in early if I want to make myself a cup of tea.
After this interaction, I've acquiesced and have been coming into work at 7:50am, making a cup of tea, which takes all of 2-minutes, and then I end up working the remaining minutes until my paid hours start at 8:00am.
It's important to mention that my colleagues and I are allotted an unpaid 1-hour lunch break, though due to a heavy workload, we rarely take this unpaid hour to have lunch. 95% of the time, I will get some food and then eat at my desk while working. For example, today I got myself a pie from the Cafe across the road (10-minutes to get the pie) and then sat at my desk while answering emails and making client calls in between bites. The pie ended up going cold so I didn't eat it all. Other times I bring in food, so 3-minutes to heat it up in the microwave before returning to my desk and working while eating. I used to work a lot of unpaid hours from home, but I stopped doing that after I realised that in one week I had worked 1.5 days in unpaid overtime. So I don't do that anymore. However I still stay back a little bit after work to complete things. It's not much, but today and yesterday I stayed back 15-minutes each day to complete things, unpaid of course.
With the above taken into consideration, my superior has expressed that I need to come into work early if I want to make myself a cup of tea.
This is a perfect example of how employers undermine your contribution to work/the company and instead chastise small things like taking 5-minutes of a morning to make yourself a cup of tea. Thanks for reading.