TLDR; why are employers so anti lunch break? Have they always been?
(Background, I live in a workers have basically zero rights state, so only employees under the age of 18 are required to have a break of any kind.)
I was recently fired (position terminated) and am aggressively looking for jobs and in my exit interview and in an actual interview today, managers mention lunch breaks and how it’s “free time” or time they really shouldn’t be paying their employees for – items to that effect.
Newsflash, they don’t really notice if you take it or not – I skipped lunch for a month to see if my manager changed her tune at all. She didn’t. So I said screw it if I am allowed the break I am going to take it. In fact, taking the hour or half hour long break in the middle of the day made me far less stabby and benefited me creatively.
But if they’re anti lunch break, why not allow one less hour of work, or allow the extra hours worked to be compensated if there isn’t a break, idk I’m just rambling.
I don’t recall this being much of a conversation in jobs prior to 2020 and I don’t really understand why managers are this way other than for the simple fact of being micro managers that are tight wads regardless of how much money they’re actually making.