Fast food employee refuses to move during his lunch break as co-workers 'struggle'

Giving our best at our workplace can be an enriching experience. We learn more, get better at our work and are even awarded better compensation. However, establishing healthy boundaries is crucial to preserving a harmonious work-life balance. A video posted by Mario Scott—who goes by @cactusmvrks on TikTok— went viral where he talked about his work-life balance.

He discussed taking a 30-minute break at work in the viral video. Scott regularly posts about his experience as a McDonald’s employee. As of this week, his video has over 1.8 million views. “I know you’re on break, but we’re really struggling,” the overlay text on the video read. However, Scott did not move after he received this information about a supposed rush. He looked unperturbed, sat in his booth and ate his McNugget in peace.

He captioned the video, "Idc if anyone ordered 25 Mcdoubles!! I'm on break," with several laughing emojis. His lighthearted response reflected his commitment to maintaining the boundaries of his designated break time, regardless of the demands of the busy restaurant.

Scott received support from other TikTok users as the video amassed 1.4m views, 261.1k likes and hundreds of comments. @KaliaRose commented, "Breaks are literally 15-30 mins, y’all can handle 30 mins w/o me!!" @matcha_lex commented, "I remember my coworker was on her 30 and our manager made her clock back in because we were struggling, lmao." @alefx commented, "Or when you just clocked out and a customer asks you for help on their order like “Sorry, I ain’t getting paid for that."

According to NOLO, "Federal law does not require that you be allotted or paid for breaks to eat meals. Your employer generally does not have to pay you for meal breaks of 30 minutes or more—as long as you are completely relieved of work duties during that time. Technically, however, if your employer either requires that you work while eating—or allows you to do so—you must be paid for time spent during meals. Also, you must be paid for break periods that are less than 20 minutes."

As for McDonald's policies, according to CFA Journal, "Meal breaks for McDonald’s employees are not paid. However, a worker is entitled to half-hour meal breaks. These breaks can be taken if one has been at work for more than three and a half hours."

In another interesting story about an employee standing up for herself, a woman who goes by the online handle millennial_msfrizzle, she recently quit her job and from what we can see, she seems happier than ever. According to Distractify, Maggie explains why she chose to leave her teaching job for a job at Costco in her video. She claims that, despite working through the holiday rush and working longer hours for more days a week, she doesn't feel as exhausted as she did when she was an educator.

"This is my first year not having a winter break. I do not miss it at all. The pace of my work life now is so much better. I am not sick or exhausted like I used to be when I was a teacher. When I was a teacher, I used my winter break basically to recover and go into the next semester of just surviving." It is essential for everyone to take a stand and have healthy work boundaries!

You can follow Mario Scott (@cactusmvrks) on TikTok for more work-related content.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on June 6, 2023. It has since been updated.