Boss orders staff to 'eat faster' — workers who take a 31-minute lunch now owe 60 minutes unpaid labor after 6pm
In his post, he backed the initiative as a 'small productivity rule' at office
Office lunch breaks are more than just a meal. Well, it's a brief relief from an exhausting workday where you unwind, relax, and engage in activities you enjoy. An Indian manager, Pratik Shetty, however, seemed to have a problem with how his employees spent their breaks. In fact, he noticed they took way longer than usual to finish their lunch, so he came up with a rule that punished employees with an hour of unpaid work for every minute they stayed beyond their 30-minute break. Shetty originally shared the controversial notice on his LinkedIn on June 19. The now-viral rule later landed on Reddit (u/positive_actuary_282), with 77,000 upvotes.
The shocking office rule
Unhappy with employees stretching their lunch breaks beyond the assigned 30 minutes, Shetty compelled them to work 60 minutes more without compensation for each extra minute. The notice also provided an example of this rule: “A 31-minute lunch means you leave the office at 7 pm," and was signed by Shetty himself. In his post, he backed the initiative as a "small productivity rule." When his workers complained about the new office rule, he asked, "Employees in my office find this rule shocking... why?"
Lunch break or a waste of time?
While punishing employees for extending their lunch break by even a minute seems overly harsh, some people do misuse break time to avoid work. In fact, a study published by OfficeTeam reported that 85% of respondents take lunch breaks of over 20 minutes. When asked what they do other than eat, 52% said scroll through social media, and 51% reported attending personal calls or emails.
Additionally, close to half (47%) use their breaks to socialize with their coworkers, and 32% run errands during office lunch breaks. Similarly, a survey of more than 1,000 employees, conducted by Salary.com, found that 69% of respondents waste time at work every day, and 11% reported wasting time on non-work-related activities.
'That's wage theft'
Meanwhile, thousands of people who read this post roasted the manager for making this bizarre rule. For instance, u/Ok-Indication202 pondered, “So if you take a 46-minute lunch break every day, then you never get to leave (assuming an 8-hour shift)?” Likewise, u/Craicriture said, “That’s wage theft, abusive and illegal in most sane places.” Another user, u/PsychologicalTear84, revealed, “A 30-minute lunch break is shorter than most times in active duty military. F*** that."
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