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Depending on your country, that email is a violation of labor laws, and Brenda was dumb enough to send it as written proof. This is all you need to sue and win the lawsuit. Erik F can become a very rich man, if he so chooses.
Yeah, no, I’ve been there.
I started a new job. It was kind of a dream job. Great for my career, 40% pay increase, opportunities to grow my skillset in ways my old job couldn’t offer.
Everything was going great until one day a coworker who was supposed to be in like a mentor position for me asked me to do something. I was on my phone at the time, texting with my wife about my three week old son who was sick with RSV. I heard her request and told her I’d get to it right away.
A few days later my boss called me into a meeting and said that he’d been hearing reports that I was on my phone all the time instead of working, and that the quality of my work was bad. I asked what he meant about my work, if he could give me specific examples, and he threatened to fire me for not taking this seriously. Because trying to understand how I can improve isn’t taking it seriously somehow?
So I buckled down. I put my phone down every second that I was at my desk. I asked everyone –everyone– I’d worked with up to that point about the quality of my work, where I could improve, if I’d done anything wrong. Just as I’d already been told, my work was great. I was learning quickly and performing well.
Then I got called into another meeting. Apparently I was still on my phone too much. I must be addicted to it. I was on it while walking down the hall, and he’d even heard that I was leaving my desk to go to my car and play on my phone. And of course I was on it in the breakroom as well. I explained that I thought checking my phone while walking down the hallway was ok because it wouldn’t interrupt my work, and I went to my car because it was a confidential telemedicine call with my doctor.
So I buckled down even more. I rarely used my phone anymore, took shorter lunch breaks, and kept doing my work. I moved to a different part of the parking lot when I had my telemedicine calls.
I had two more meetings with my boss. The first one, he told me that my work had greatly improved (it hadn’t), and now I was doing great. The next day I asked him into a meeting and told him I quit.
I took a small pay cut and got a new job working from home. It’s not as good for my career. It may screw me over in a few years. But my work/life balance is excellent. I get to see my kids and my cats, and there are no spiteful coworkers looking over my shoulder.
Hi Brenda,
While you were watching me and writing me memos, you could have been making sales.
Don’t ever put pettiness over money, keep yourself focused on your work instead of your coworkers.
Warmest Regards,
Harambe
The proper response isn’t to quit, It to send a response that says that the law requires a break, and you intend to follow the law, even if my supervisor demands that I break the law. I will not follow an illegal directive.
I’m the future, I will take all legal breaks, for their full amount of time.
Further, I will be saving this email as evidence, in case of any future lawsuits by any employees. Any future discussion of this subject will be shared with the state department of labor.
And I would copy HR.
They’d just find a bullshit reason to let you go, then break more laws sharing disallowed details about your employment.
Sadly, in the US at least, the regulatory capture is complete. Any company acting like this (blatantly breaking labor laws and ignoring worker rights) knows they’ll pay less than the cost of keeping the water cooler full in the off chance the labor board sends them more than a mildly worded letter.
Edit: I was feeling pretty pessimistic when I wrote this, I didn’t intend it you come across as “don’t try” but I can certainly see how it comes across that way. We should all be holding the companies and the regulatory agencies accountable, and not letting them get away with breaking laws. Enough people making enough noise can’t be swept under the rug.
No, you can still win lawsuits against companies that do that. They rely on the reluctance of people to sue and on people like you who try to talk people out of defending their rights to get away with it.
I’m not so sure. With that letter, and your response, its going to be hard for them to claim that your firing wasn’t retaliatory.
Yeah, skip the email. Go directly to telling the department of labor.
If it is a private company with a ‘work family’ mentality they’ll ignore it entirely on the gamble those kinds of entities never hire, or pay, anyone enough to afford a wrongful termination lawsuit.
And if so, they’ll be willing to lie under oath. They’re already willing to break the law. They’ll have the remaining employees, in the rare odds they’re deposed, do the same. If they’re already working through lunch, they’ll sign a document for their boss that says you stole something.
Except you’ve got an email where the boss specifically advises you to break the law. They can lie all they want, but that email clearly outlines their illegal policy and expectations.
They can lie, but a judge might declare that to be perjury in light of that email.
Their goal would be to muddy the waters so that their decision is reframed as something other than wrongful termination.
The e-mail, when paired with evidence that smears the terminated party, (forged or not) creates a dynamic where severance appears necessary.
The company can claim they fired the person because they didn’t want to pursue criminal charges for theft or smear their name and hope they find Christ or something. And that works with judges. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing and misconduct: they’ll just be analyzing if the termination was wrongful.
This is one of the many reasons why unions are important, by the way.
This is true. Company could easily wait a while then hit OP with a vaguely worded pip. Bam, magically they get let go for “performance” issues that seemingly have nothing to do with how they take their lunches.
This is one of the many reasons why unions are important, by the way.
Oh, yeah, unionize EVERYTHING. The ONLY reason we have all the employee protections and benefits we have are because of unions. Literally every single thing an employee gets beyond “work harder, or you’re fired from your dangerous low-paying job” is because of unions.
“My apologies, this wasnt brought forward in the interview stage. If it continues to be a problem I will.be reachable on this email address.”
One of the best bosses I ever had was a Korean man who was very religious and yet very kind. He made a similar comment to me once. I was on my lunch break and he came to me to talk about work stuff, I was watching the clock and when my lunch break was up I went to punch in. When I sat back down he commented about how it looked like I was only there for the money.
It was a good job but I don’t feel comfortable speaking other than the truth even for niceties so I leveled with him.
“This is a good job, and I am here for the money. I do respect you and I respect your time but I have bills to pay and I have already been warned about going over 40hrs on the time clock to complete rush cases on Fridays. If we are going to be a team and we’re going to work together then you need to understand that I share a two bedroom apartment with three people and none of us can afford a car. You came to me on my lunch break to talk about CNC equipment and I was about to run out of time on my lunch break so I clocked back in. This is a work conversation so I don’t feel out of line and doing that. Is this not a work conversation?”
He was a little shocked but respected it. It opened up a line of dialogue and a relationship that I felt was quite meaningful. In the following years he and I had a lot of awesome conversations. I miss that dude. I stayed with the company until just after they fired him and then the company went to shit.
Can’t be real… this is ragebait, right?
Fuck off brenda
Hi Brenda,
I wanted to reach out regarding a small observation I made in your last email. In telling me how to spend 30 minute meal break and encouraging me to cut it short for the company’s benefit, you violated US labor law.
Let’s correct this behavior and try to be more mindful of that “our company is not above the law” spirit so we can keep your momentum going in the right direction. :-)
Eric
P. S. I will be retaining this communication in case this remains an issue. Thanks :-)
See, the people that do this shit are well trained though. Brenda didn’t demand that he work during lunch and was in fact clear that he was within his rights to not. Instead, Brenda has simply suggested that it would look better and he would conform better if he worked some unpaid time.
They know how to skirt the law. They can still go fuck themselves though, the gaslighting assholes.
She did also say “correct this behaviour” which is the corpo way of saying “do it or else”
Corpo language is corpo language for a reason though: it is legally safe to deploy. Intent is so very very hard to litigate.
If you were in a jury box and were shown just this message and a note about how he was fired two months later for “not being a team player” you’d infer the intent and vote to hold the company liable for wrongful termination.
Corpospeak keeps a “work through lunch” message from being a self-evident labor law violation even if no adverse action occurrrd. They don’t disguise intent if those later bad actions occur
Workplace litigation effectively never gets a jury.
Particularly in countries that allow employers to force arbitration clauses on employees. You don’t get a jury, you get an “impartial” arbitrator paid for by the company.
Yep. Frustrating.
Because the company knows it can settle to avoid the Discovery process.
Mastercardery & Visary processes too
That is a bald faced lie.
Doesn’t “correct this behavior” very directly imply that the current behavior (in this case, taking your full lunch break) is incorrect and therefore in need of correction, though?
It’s one thing to suggest something, but calling it a “correction” changes things, I’d think.
You’d think. Really, you would, I’m not being sarcastic.
I’ve also been around long enough to know that rational doesn’t really apply to corpos. As dumb and as frustrating as this is, I really don’t think this message would be actionable.
Someday an employee is going to sue you and you will lose.
I’m guessing you didn’t actually read my comment at the start here.
No that’s not a “safe” way to say this. It’s a pretty god damn clear demand
Even here in Texas, I’ve learned that “let’s correct this behavior” can be shown as evidence that you received threats of a personal improvement plan
Ianal but “voluntarily” taking a shorter lunch break is still illegal in some states. In my state, my boss would get in trouble if it could be proven that they knew I wasn’t taking the full, mandatory 30 minutes.
Lucky you.
That can be annoying too, I’d rather get home to my family 15 minutes sooner. But of course Brenda isn’t offering a short lunch and leave earlier.
And that’s why you retain the email. Establishing a pattern makes the specific language less important, although in this case there’s a pretty clear implication that the employee will be punished for using their full meal break.
Good luck litigating an implication though. See the “nuh uh” defense success rate.
I’m not saying it’s airtight. But the pattern of ‘recommendations’ certainly helps. It convinced a judge in my friend’s wrongful termination case at a big box retailer.
Lol this but CC your state labor board
Imo the move is to respond with a clarifying question about whether the hr person is asking them to cut breaks short while reiterating that asking them to do so is a violation of labor law and document the hell out of it.
If it happens again, then make a complaint with labor. This shows that you are operating in good faith and giving the company a chance to correct before going nuclear, which further strengthens your case if you do have to report.
Sometimes the hr person is just an idiot. I’ve seen suggestions like this before and it turned out the hr person literally didn’t know you can’t just arbitrarily deduct wages without explicit permission from the payee (and in some states, not even then).
Reply from state labor board: oh hey sorry yeah turns out there’s no laws requiring breaks federally or in then vast majority of states. Maybe find a new job if you don’t like it gl bro
US Labor Law
HahahahahahHahahahahahahahah*wheeze*HAHHAHAHAHA
There are no US laws requiring work breaks.
Less than 10 statesedit: around 20 have laws that require one.In the vast majority of states you could be asked to work a 16 hour shift with zero breaks entirely legally. Most employers do have break policies but it is not law.
The US Department of Labor site lists 20 states and 2 territories.
Right you are, I was going on memory.
Though Maryland and Nebraska’s laws only apply to a small portion of workers, and many more have broad exemptions.
Still gross.
All 50 states though require you are compensated for your work. So if this is a non-salary position still illegal if the break period is unpaid.
Additionally if his work contract garuntees the break period that still has legal standing
All 50 states though require you are compensated for your work. So if this is a non-salary position still illegal if the break period is unpaid.
True, however it isn’t said in the photo that they should not clock back in.
work contract
Employment contracts are extremely rare or non-existent in the US.
Employment contracts are extremely rare or non-existent in the US.
Not at all, very common for salary positions
I work salary and in my industry I’ve never heard of it. I’m sure they exist but I cannot imagine why any company would do it.
Maybe at executive levels?
I’m salaried and part of a union. I have a contract.
Well yeah if you’re part of a union maybe.
Unfortunately that’s 10% or less of working Americans.
Perhaps you are thinking of contract in too grand a scale, any basic employment agreement stating your hours and company rules is a contract.
Yeah but those are basically useless as they all contain the boilerplate that basically says that they can be changed at any time for any reason without notice. They don’t bind the employer in any way.
cc the dept of labor in your reply
Print it and hang it in the break room. No comment necessary. See if your coworkers join you next break.
corporate speak is revolting.
Let’s correct this behaviour :-)
it sounds like an evil nursery worker
Correct bad behavior is all Jack Torrance was trying to do.
This can’t real
If it is, I think it’s illegal in the US at least. By law I think employers are required to give at least one 30 minute break a day.
Employees have rights in the US?
Some of us do, and our employers hate it and try to keep us from knowing/using those rights
That’s what unions are for ultimately. Educate you about your rights and help enforce them. But uuhhh no that’s dirty communism so forget about them.
My company has 14 people in it total. Getting a union figured out for the 8 of us that need it would be a disaster
Only in some states. There is no federal law mandating breaks or meals.
This is why I don’t goto Buc-ees when traveling. They only operate in states with little to no worker protection and they do not allow their employees to have any breaks. Yes they pay a few dollars more per hour but absolute abuse their employees. So as nice as their mega gas stations are , they will never get another dollar from me.
The buc-ee’s simping is so weird to me. It’s just a gas station with a gift shop. Like, I get it, it’s got nice bathrooms, nobody is disagreeing, but so many road trips with big groups somebody wants to go there and spend like 30 minutes shopping. I hate it.
It’s like a Walmart, Cracker Barrel, and a Sheetz had some unholy abomination of a child. I went exactly once to see what gives everyone such a hard-on, and couldn’t get out fast enough.
Quite surprising that it’s based on state law, rather than something that’s mandated by the US Federal government. Employers being able to forbid their employees from having lunch unless their particular state, or medical requirements force their hand does not seem like a legal thing.
It does track, since the US was also one of the few countries that does not consider food to be a mandatory right (their official justification here), but still.
I don’t find it surprising at all.
The whole idea of breaks during the work day came from early-day capitalists (check out Factory Act and how it came to be. And for those who don’t want to/can’t - it wasn’t from the goodness of their hearts, they noticed that their workers were making too many costly mistakes, like getting themselves rolled into heavy machinery and dying, so they asked doctors to “figure this shit out”. The Factory Act is the earliest iteration of what eventually became OSHA), some of whom showed at least a semblance of honour, and following the actual tenets of capitalism (giving back to the community).
It became the “everybody knows this” kind of thing.
Then times have changed. Today’s capitalists are a bunch of babies with way too much power, who don’t know how they came to be, or why the “gentleman rules” that were in place happened. All they see is that if someone takes a 30 minute break, they’re not working for 30 minuts (making shareholders cry! :( ).
The federal government didn’t need to mandate this, because “everybody did this anyway”, and if one state was having issues, it mandated that on their own.
There isn’t a state where there is no mandatory unpaid meal break.
Yes, all states mandate meal breaks except Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming (source)
I live in Arizona, I can assure you it is mandatory.
Can you give me a link the law mandating meal breaks? The only bit of Arizona legislature I can find regarding meal breaks is HB 2797, which did not pass into actual law.
“Illegal” who enforces that lol. You complain to get fired unless you have a legal team ready to go against a corrupt corporation. I’ve watched companies break all kinds of laws my entire life and it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
There are labor lawyers that take cases like this on contingency. A case like this is a slam dunk for them. You don’t have to just sit there and take it.
Oh I see you still have hope that our system works for anyone except the corporations and oligarchs. That has not been my experience
Like everything, it depends on how influential the company is.
I reported a restaurant job for wage theft, and when I was terminated, got a nice paycheck from the local government a few months later.
Major telecom company that rhymes with Bomcast as customer service. I had a manager demand that work means “when you’re at your desk”, so lunch, walking to your desk, bathroom breaks, aren’t supposed to be tracked as work. People we’re eating at their desk and working just to meet the definition.
Lawsuit went nowhere.
It can real.
Woah.
“support your work family”
RUN AWAY!
A New Optimization Opportunity
But… we bring you loooooovvveee…
That was the first thing that jumped out. If anyone said that to me, I would be sending out resumes during that 30 minute break.
To render unto Ceasar… work is the second kost discussed topic during my theraoy sessions, right after family trauma.
This reads like someone collecting momentum to fire OOP anyhow.
The Brenda person seems like someone that’d get featured in LinkedinLunatics.
I suppose this shit is from u$ or another such savage country. In Europe the company would pay a huge penalty for putting pressure to limit the break time.
Even in Latin American countries where protections are weaker, this would be considered wildly unacceptable. Only Americans would do this
Living the American dream I guess.
Everybody want to come here! Yeah for sure /s
That’s illegal in the US too.
The OP has a pretty solid case, the manager laid it out in writing. This should immediately get forwarded to HR, upper management. Depending on their response, everything goes to the Department of Labour.
The hard part is proving retaliation, (also illegal). Calling out these types of “team player” people leads to indirect stuff like poor performance reviews, smaller raises, denied PTO, and getting passed up for promotion because you didn’t play on their team.
Labor lawyers love these cases since you have the illegal act in writing. At that point, even with the made up performance reviews it’s super easy to prove a subsequent firing was retaliatory.
If they’re smart enough to only break the law face to face, be sure to send an email summary to them and HR and bcc a copy for yourself. If that’s not possible, then keep detailed notes with timestamps.
Illegal in California
Illegal even in Florida. If you have to clock out for breaks you get 1/2 hour minimum lunch on an 8 hour shift. Plus I think 2 paid 15 minute breaks, on the clock. I can’t imagine this is real because no manager would document the illegal request in an email.
