Taking Your Lunch Break

[Guest Oblivious Heel]

First off, I just started a new job delivering auto parts and hopefully this is going to be a very short employment because next week I have my first interview with Pepsi. If I get the job I'll have paid training getting my Class A CDL license and then move up over $20 an hour once I start driving, delivering on my own in a few months. Plus, it's all local work and I'll be home nights.

 

Anyway, I'm driving now so I can stop and eat whenever I want. My last job I worked in a small hardware store and they were strict about only taking 30 minute lunches so I use to just bring mine to work. By time I'd get to a place, stand in line or hit the drive through it would be 15 minutes already.

 

I hated eating in the caferteria with idiots I didn't like but it was better then only having 2 minutes to eat a Whooper or Big Mac value meal and feeling like shit for the rest of the day.

 

Do you guys bag it, go out, take out, go home, etc?

[Hawk 34 0]

I'm usually forced with "business lunches" against my will. This usually consists of Applebee's or chinese takeout.

 

When I have a choice, I usually have someone get my lunch and I eat in the break rooms with the shop workers.

[Mik 0]

I can take a 3 hour lunch if I so please.

 

One of the (very few) perks of being a graduate student. Can work whatever hours you want. Get plastered and can't wake up? No problem.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

I live about five minutes from my 9-to-5, so I always just head home.

 

I work at Wal*mart on the weekends and usually one/two weeknites as well. The McDonald's, as well as the Pantry section and the No Frills next door usually means trouble, especially on the weekend when my lunch is an hour. I'm trying to buck that trend. I've actually got a delicious stir fry going (on the bbq) nowfor tomorrow night.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Have a microwave and mini-fridge in my office that I paid for. Usually have cereal for breakfast, something nuke-able for lunch, plus usually some yogurt and a granola bar. Also have a variety of beverages. But the best part: I get to stay away from my co-workers. I used to HATE lunch breaks with other co-workers, especially when they always asked you what you were eating.

[haVoc 0]

I live less then a two minute drive from my job so I usually go home. I can light up a cigarette in my drive way and still have it when I pull into the parking lot.

 

There's a lot of fast food places and pizza/sub shops around here so it's not hard to grab something decent and come home for an hour.

 

There's no way I can stay at work. After being locked up in the process area's and labs, I work in a Pharmaceutical plant, I need to get the Hell out of there.

[the max 0]

I drive 9 hours a day within a pretty large work area. I have a cooler in the truck for bottles of water/juice/some cola. Sometimes, I bring a lunch. Usually, the easiest thing is a sandwich at subway or quizno's or something.

 

Then again, I get an hour that is absolutely fucking mandatory. I have to call into central and tell them when I'm taking the lunch and then call them when I'm off lunch. Too many people (myself included) were just eating while driving and taking the extra 90 bucks a week.

[Guest Princess Leena]

I'll usually go shopping or something... since we're supposed to have 30 minute lunch breaks, but everyone usually goes away for more than an hour.

 

And we can eat at our workstations, anyway.

[LessonInMachismo 0]

We used to be able to chow down at our work stations, up until a competitor down the street was shut down for having a rodent "infestation." They found like one dead mouse. Anyways, it's pretty stupid because the breakrooms are closer to production than the front office area, and there is a lot of food in the breakrooms. Whatever. Everyone does it, anyways.

 

I never feel like going out for lunch. The only time I do so is when I don't have a lunch and if the cafeteria is serving shit, which is usually the case.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

I get a half hour, if even, for lunch every day, and sometimes I'm forced to eat on the road. Usually just go with everybody else and get subs from a few of the local places, and Chinese on Thursday (eat half, nuke the rest on Friday for lunch). Lunch is usually cut short, though, due to dumbass customers coming in and needing something ASAP. I wouldn't complain if it happened once or twice with different customers that don't stop by the offices ever, but it's usually the same four guys that stop in during lunch and need something from the warehouse right away.

 

And then, of course, they take forever to figure out what they need...and when they realize what they need, we either don't have enough of it, any of it, or don't even carry what they're looking for. We've had regular customers - ones that come in pretty much every day - ask us for shit that doesn't even pertain to voice and data work, or even electrician's work. We've had people ask if we sold monkey wrenches. MONKEY. FUCKING. WRENCHES. I know more about voice and data cabling, and I know Jack and shit (and Jack never showed up to the party, nyuck nyuck nyuck) about it, than a good portion of our customers.

 

But yeah. 30 minutes for lunch, usually only eat for 10-15 of that, and it's oftentimes cut short by the president of the company complaining that we take too long to eat (he'll go out for a 3-hour lunch, and we'll just finish a sandwich with a few minutes to spare on our break, and he'll talk about wasting time). I fucking hate my job sometimes, but then I remember working at Bob's and how I was ready to go on a mass killing spree for a short while, so hey.

[Vampiro69 0]

I get about a half hour but since I am a teacher I can cut in line at the cafeteria and head to the teachers lounge.

[Annabelle 0]

i steal the kids lunches. thats how i roll. and they know it. im like the bully teacher.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Once a week or so I'll get whatever deep-fried salty thing the cafeteria offers, other than that, I'll eat a can of tuna and some crackers. Then smoke as many cigarettes as possible in the remaining 24 minutes.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I'm in sales, so I can basically take lunch whenever I want, for however long I want, depending on how busy my day is. I usually eat at home, though, since it's pretty close to my office.

[EricMM 0]

I play ITG2 and get hippie food at the co op.

 

Lets Max!

[CanadianChris 0]

I usually eat lunch at my desk and do some reading.

[spman 0]

I manage a movie theater in a mall. I used to buy lunch or dinner in the Food Court all the time, but the pickings started getting slim, and the food started making me ill. There's 3 Chinese resaurants, Sabaros, Subway, Nathans, Arbys, and Burger King, and all of them are way overpriced. The Chinese food is the best value for your money, but I can't eat it anymore, because it just makes me totally sick. Every once in a while when I hhave the money, I'll splurge on take out at Ruby Tuesdays, but that's a rarity. For the past year or so, I've just started to bring my own food from home for the sake of my health and my wallet.

[gWIL 0]

Sabaros

 

Yum.

[Guest NYankees]

I manage a movie theater in a mall. I used to buy lunch or dinner in the Food Court all the time, but the pickings started getting slim, and the food started making me ill. There's 3 Chinese resaurants, Sabaros, Subway, Nathans, Arbys, and Burger King, and all of them are way overpriced. The Chinese food is the best value for your money, but I can't eat it anymore, because it just makes me totally sick. Every once in a while when I hhave the money, I'll splurge on take out at Ruby Tuesdays, but that's a rarity. For the past year or so, I've just started to bring my own food from home for the sake of my health and my wallet.

 

 

I respect you on that one. Mall food is always overpriced and shit quality. You can save a ton of money and have better food just by brown bagging it.

[Fuzzy Dunlop 0]

Where I work I get an hour-long break and I only live ten minutes away, so I usually go home and make myself a sandwhich.

[Scroby 0]

First off, I just started a new job delivering auto parts and hopefully this is going to be a very short employment because next week I have my first interview with Pepsi. If I get the job I'll have paid training getting my Class A CDL license and then move up over $20 an hour once I start driving, delivering on my own in a few months. Plus, it's all local work and I'll be home nights.

 

Anyway, I'm driving now so I can stop and eat whenever I want. My last job I worked in a small hardware store and they were strict about only taking 30 minute lunches so I use to just bring mine to work. By time I'd get to a place, stand in line or hit the drive through it would be 15 minutes already.

 

I hated eating in the caferteria with idiots I didn't like but it was better then only having 2 minutes to eat a Whooper or Big Mac value meal and feeling like shit for the rest of the day.

 

Do you guys bag it, go out, take out, go home, etc?

Good job scoring a interview with Pepsi on becoming a driver, but whatever you do, don't take up a merchindiser job, worse job that Pepsi and Coca-cola offer, seriously. Just in case they offer you a merchindiser job, you know.

 

I deliver tile now to housing units being built, so I now get to take all my lunch breaks on the road. I can't take as long as I want though because my boss has put GPS units on all the trucks, so everywhere I go now lets him know how long I was there and how fast I was driving for the day......in other words my lunches should be 30 to 40 minutes long and I can't speed. Not that I don't have a problem with not speeding.

[franchise632 0]

I'm a blackjack dealer and we get a 20 min break after every 1 hour rotation. Unless you are lucky enough to get a two table rotation that its 40/20. Basically you have 15 mins or so to eat whenever you have a break. They offer a decent food selection sold to us basically at cost. Not to bad. Usually just eat at work cause its fast and cheap.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I just got a new job as a teacher. I think I'm probably just gonna eat in the cafeteria most of the time, as long as they have some halfway healthy food.

[Maztinho 0]

My work is really bitchy about taking lunches, but we work in produce so we are always snacking on something or other that went out of date that day, so I usually just go home and crash for an hour, or fill out a sheet saying I took a lunch and leave an hour early.

[Guest Princess Leena]

In my one week of working produce... our insane manager wouldn't let us take lunches or breaks. Because dairy/frozen is not your job. It's your life.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

In my one week of working produce... our insane manager wouldn't let us take lunches or breaks. Because dairy/frozen is not your job. It's your life.

I had a manager like that at Bob's. She'd flip when I took my 15 and smoke a BUTT or two, then flip even more when I took 30 for lunch. Bob's tries to get its employees to take all of their breaks at once, but I found it more comforting to be able to work for 2-2.5 hours and then take a break than to work for 4 hours, take 45 minutes off, and then come back in for the rest of the shift. She actually brought up my break schedule once when she talked to me about tardiness and no-call/no-show (I was rarely late, and obeyed the policy of staying under 7 no-call/no-show before a conference, so she was a fucking cunt that just wanted to make an example out of me to the rest of my crew) and how I shouldn't disperse my breaks since it makes it harder to come up with hours worked...despite the fact that the time sheets are done electronically by a computer...yeah.

 

Ames was even worse. Ames was a shitty department store chain in the Northeast, similar to K-Mart only not as diverse or even as high quality (that says something, eh), and this one manager, Anne-Marie, would actually take my card out of my vest pocket (most people kept their cards out back in the breakroom, but I always carried mine with me so that it couldn't be fucked with or lost by somebody else) and punch me out on break while I was still working. I'd then only have 10 of the 30 minutes to grab a bite to eat, so I usually just wound up running down to the Brooks in the same plaza, grabbing a soda and a couple candy bars, and running back just in time to punch back in.

 

Man...I've always gotten fucked on lunchbreaks...especially at the pizza place I worked at, where we were expected to work 6-7 hours straight with no break at all.

[Guest Princess Leena]

I think most of us have had managers like that. If any kids here get stuck with them... just get a new job. It's not worth it. This guy took the cake, though. He'd literally have temper tantrums if someone made the slightest mistake. And would remind everyone constantly how much our section was making/losing, like it mattered to any of us.

 

All my job experience made me realize never to go to fast food places, or supermarkets like that. The types of people that work there forever are like the saddest, most mentally disturbed people there are.

 

This is why you stay in school, kids.

 

I remember Ames from Buffalo, as well. Only had an interview there. They were trying to coerce me into working full-time when I just wanted some filler after school. It would be depressing as fuck being there 40+ hours a day. It's a lower K-Mart, like you say.

[MrRant 0]

I usually go home and take a nap, then make myself some food and bring it back to work and eat as I work.

[Masked Man of Mystery 0]

I work at a Best Buy, and regular workers like me get the legal minimum, half hour per 6 hours worked. I usually get my food from a Papa Gino's, which is a pizza/sub/pasta chain if it doesn't exist in the wider world. The prices keep going up, so they're not as good a deal as they used to be, but I can deal with it. I'm a slow walker, so I don't go across the street to the other mall with a proper food court, plus I feel silly if I'm in my work shirt in someplace other than my mall. I've taken to going to the Master Wok across the street before work on paydays, though, since the bus that goes to my house goes to the malls as well. Master Wok is the McDonalds of Chinese food, but it's pretty reasonable and it's better than always getting pasta, pizza, or meatball subs. There used to be a Boston Market in my mall I went to from time to time, but it shut down, and it's now a Workin' Gear or however the name is spelled, it's one of the odder changes I've seen. But then, my Best Buy was a grocery store when I was growing up.

[NoCalMike 0]

My last job, you got two tens and an hour lunch. I was the only person in my department that was there till five, which was good in some ways, but the problem is, I was the type of person who never even took a first break before lunch and would save it till the end of the day to take a twenty min break. So because I was the only one there, managers from different departments would complain to my manager that I was taking long breaks and/or not working once he left the office. I explained the situation to my boss, but he was a pussy when it came to confrontation, so naturally the situation escalated, and that is one of the petty reasons for which I am no longer working there.