You Can Have Your Lunch And Eat It, Too — At Noon

I’m onboarding a new starter; we’ve gone over most things already.

Me: “You can take your lunch hour at any time between 12:00 and 2:00, apart from Fridays, where you can leave at 12:00 if you don’t take a lunch.”

New Starter: “Oh, no, I always take a lunch.”

Me: “Okay. If you stay past 12:00, the system thinks you are taking lunch, so it will automatically set you up as on lunch and pay accordingly.”

A couple of weeks in:

New Starter: “My pay is wrong.”

I take a look.

Me: “No, it seems okay to me.”

New Starter: “No, look. Friday I did an extra half-hour.”

Me: “That was your lunch break.”

New Starter: “But I didn’t get paid.”

Me: “You don’t get paid for having lunch. You are never paid between the hours of 12:00 and 1:00 on a Friday.”

New Starter: “Oh, okay.”

They don’t seem sure but they go away.

A few weeks later, I catch them eating lunch at 11:00 for an hour and then going home at 12:00.

Me: “Look, you can’t have your lunch at 11:00. Either have your lunch at 12:00 or leave. You can’t do both.”

New Starter: “Well, that doesn’t seem fair.”

Me: “You are paid for thirty-seven hours; that’s how it works.”

New Starter: “That doesn’t sound right.”

Me: “I’m happy to go through this with you again if you like.”

Instead, they went to human resources, who again explained what they should be doing and warned that if they kept taking time off, they would have to be written up. Instead, they requested to change department. Little did they know, I am probably the most lenient, and the other manager really gives them a hard time now.