I used to work overnights at a major hotel chain that was operated by the corporate office. My job consisted of mainly front desk/customer service stuff and some minor, basic bookkeeping. During our shift, we were supposed to get two 15-minute paid breaks, and a half-hour unpaid lunch, although it was rare for us to actually have time to take our breaks, besides lunch.
One guy would routinely take at least an hour to come back from lunch, so I asked him what was going on, and his response was, “Oh, I am just taking my 15s and my lunch at the same time.” Well, this went on for a few weeks, so I emailed the boss, and was told, “I am aware, and everything is fine.” So the rest of us did that as well.
Pretty soon, all of us get hauled into a meeting with our boss, his boss, and the HR director, and they start ambushing us and berating us about how they can see on camera that we are taking an hour, but only clocking out for 30 minutes and that this is wage theft…
That is when I reminded the boss of the email that I had sent a few weeks ago. Pretty soon there was a lot more shuffling on the other side of the table, the write-ups start going back into briefcases, and nearly as soon as it had started, it was done, with a terse, “Please just take 30-minute lunches.”