Lunch breaks

Just curious how many of you are able to take a full lunch break every day, Im lucky in my role if I can take it once a week - its almost always a sandwich at my desk and immediately back to work.

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Repo Man

darkerz wrote: »

I prefer to get off work 1 hour early by skipping lunch; snack all day, lift after work.

Works out fantastically.

That's what I do.

powerfool

kingslayer wrote: »

Im sure I could take lunch every day and no one would say anything, however due to the massive workload I feel that if I took a full hour off every day it would just put me so far behind.

I certainly understand and empathize. I have done the same for the exact same reason on many occasions... it doesn't change it from being a choice, however.

Psoasman

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

My company actually provides food for us. All we have to do is bring drinks

Same here. On the rare slow day, my biggest decision is Deli, Buffet, or Restaurant.

SteveLord

I get 1 hour. Go out most of the time as it's a nice break from the chaos to get out and socialize freely. If I stay in, put up a sign, people still come to me. But I usually browse tech sites or play games.

Essendon

You lucky buggers!! I wish my company provided us with lunch, we do get fresh fruit everyday though. They do throw in the occasional BBQ, but that's about it.

ibcritn

I eat at my desk and continue to work usually, but I do work 9 hour days and get off every other Friday....so I can't complain.

CodeBlox

cyberguypr wrote: »

Man, your stories are making me appreciate my job more than I already do.

We're in a state of mandatory overtime and regardless of the number of hours worked, I only get a 30 minute lunch... Yesterday and today I worked 11.5 hour shifts due to the over time. This is a helpdesk :P

Heny '06

Lunch hour always depends on how busy I am.

Sometimes if its not busy, during my lunch I will close my door turn off the lights and take an hour power nap

SteveLord

Oh yeah, and if I work through/don't take a lunch...that's up to an hour of comp time.

Speaking of which, McAfee just delivered a free pizza for my lunch today just for signing up for a webinar. ^^

snokerpoker

If I am in the office (corporate office) we normally go out to lunch as a group. If I am on-site with the main client I am responsible for, they provide lunch for everyone and I usually eat at my desk and read pdf's or check out a cbt nugget. If I don't do that, I eat with a group of people but only spend about 30-40 minutes and do not take a full hour of lunch.

BrizoH

I tend to hit the gym for 30-40 mins at lunch, I bring my food in with me so I eat when I get back (whilst working)

Getting away from your desk for a while makes a big difference IMO

If I'm close to an exam I do some cramming (just stick the headphones on so no one annoys me), although that doesn't always stop them...

willtech10577

When I can I AWLAYS take a lunch and I ALWAYS leave the building.

You need to refresh your mind and get away from your desk in order to feel more "ahh....relaxed" when you come back to tackle another problem. Somtimes I force myself to take a lunch since I am so into what I am doing but it pays to not burn yourself out and just take the damn break. And no cheating by sitting at your desk, you need to physicaly MOVE to wake yourself up. At least this works for me.

PC509

I take my lunch when I can, if I can. If it's slow, I get my full hour. If it's busy, I take a water break and back to work. Uptime and reliability are priority #1. Overtime, coming in early, working through lunch, midnight calls are all part of the job.

odysseyelite

At my last job we had an hour and it was a planned event. A few of us would go out everyday. We were a desktop support team, so the tickets we got were not sev 1's. I learned sometime ago there will always be work. You will never be caught up, especially in desktop\helpdesk role. Once you get rid of some tickets, more will come in and it will start all over agian.

Now I am in desktop\sysadmin role. We only get 30 minutes and I am a hourly contractor at the moment. It was difficult to go to a 30 minute break. Barely enough time to run out and get fast food. I now bring lunch in most of the time and eat with the network admin guys. Trying to get in their department.

I also find it helps break of the day and keeps me a in good mood.

eansdad

Wow...I feel lucky. Our lunch is mandatory and is 30 min, if we get interrupted we get an extra 15. I usually leave to get something and eat in my office.

tbgree00

I eat at my desk while working, sometimes eating one bite at a time between running to people's desks/remoting in. I use a lot of hand sanitizer on those days. If I take a break it's about 15 minutes to turn away from the computer and eat and that's usually if my wife packed me something messy. Once a month or so I eat out and I occasionally walk to Starbucks if it's a slow day.

I've always worked through lunch unpaid. I feel really bad if I'm setting there seeing emails and calls coming in. At least now I'm salary so I'm not giving free time like when I worked an hourly job.

demonfurbie

at work here they shutdown everything at noon on the dot and wont let us go back on till 1

Mike-Mike

willtech10577 wrote: »

When I can I AWLAYS take a lunch and I ALWAYS leave the building.

You need to refresh your mind and get away from your desk in order to feel more "ahh....relaxed" when you come back to tackle another problem. Somtimes I force myself to take a lunch since I am so into what I am doing but it pays to not burn yourself out and just take the damn break. And no cheating by sitting at your desk, you need to physicaly MOVE to wake yourself up. At least this works for me.

gorebrush

I sometimes go swimming in my lunch hours, or I waste it browsing the internets.

I recently starting taking my Kindle to work - with the intent of sitting in the car and reading for an hour to get away from "work" (but then to go and read a CCIE book......)

Turgon

If you want a successful career, have a lunch break. You need one. If you want to work harder, get in earlier or work later and get some email out. They have the time recorded on them.. Those extra commitment hours are way more visible than skipping lunch to help someone out...

N2IT

Sushi on Fridays usually take 2 hours

One day a week I go with my boss to synch up and eat Indian.

The other days I usually take 1-2 hours go get some Korean or Thai.

I like to eat healthy so I usually take my lunch.

zerglings

We normally take our lunch breaks. Though, there are times that I eat at my desk and continue working just cause nobody wants to get up and take a break. We go as a group and if nobody wants to get up and eat then we'll be eating at our desk. Hopefully, I'll be able to take lunch at my new job that will start tomorrow.

neathneathneath

What's Lunch

Seriously, I get 30 mins rather than 1 hour and finish 30 mins early every day (mostly).

Just eat fruit for lunch whilst studying for my next exam or even do 20 Transcender questions (or similar) when close to an exam date. 30 mins study during lunch helps with the studies as its not too long to lose interest.

higherho

I should listen to some of these posts and take my lunch break away from my desk (they just reconstructed our cafe area). Because right now I just sit there and eat while working and I'm the only SA with a lot of technologies / projects to worry about / do. I can see myself burning out if I do not get away from the computer screen for the 30 minutes that I'm allotted.

spicy ahi

In all my previous jobs, I've worked on teams or groups and usually do the group lunch. Always. It's the only way to keep your sanity, especially in a busy environment. Even when there was an outage, I would force my team to split up and have one half continue to troubleshoot while the other took a break to eat. By doing that, I know I'd have a fresh group to tackle the problem after lunch without really stopping the troubleshooting process.

In my new role, I'm the sole IT support person (though I do have a jr. admin who's still learning the ropes so at this point he's more of another project on my project list than an asset) and I do get immersed in my work. I started the job behind (the guy I replaced left me a list of about 20 projects and in 6 months I've completed maybe 3 while adding 10 more) so I'm always working. I have a little mini fridge under my desk where I have snacks and sandwich stuff stored in case I don't have a chance to get away (working through a big box of hot pockets from Costco as well; those last forever!) but more often than not someone in the office needs a buddy to go to lunch with and unless I have something pressing, I'm the lunch buddy.

Arysta

I get a 30 min lunch. It's unpaid, and we're forced to take it. We also have to ask permission to take bathroom breaks. So glad I'm moving out of tier 1 help desk soon.

kingslayer

So I dared to take a lunch break today and my boss called me and my colleague after we were out for about 45 minutes, said we had to come back to the office immediately. When we got there he told us off for taking break, saying we should only be taking 20 minutes max and it should be one at a time.

Needless to say I did not work a second extra and left at 6PM on the dot.

Hypntick

kingslayer wrote: »

So I dared to take a lunch break today and my boss called me and my colleague after we were out for about 45 minutes, said we had to come back to the office immediately. When we got there he told us off for taking break, saying we should only be taking 20 minutes max and it should be one at a time.

Needless to say I did not work a second extra and left at 6PM on the dot.

I can see why they'd only want one at a time to go if you have that few staff members. However I would want it addressed what the amount of unpaid time I get per day is, i.e. the scheduled lunch period. If they state 1 hour and want you to only take 20 minutes, i'd be looking for somewhere else pretty swiftly. Unless it's a serious emergency, I don't work when i'm not being paid, lunch hours tend to be unpaid.

kingslayer

Hypntick wrote: »

I can see why they'd only want one at a time to go if you have that few staff members. However I would want it addressed what the amount of unpaid time I get per day is, i.e. the scheduled lunch period. If they state 1 hour and want you to only take 20 minutes, i'd be looking for somewhere else pretty swiftly. Unless it's a serious emergency, I don't work when i'm not being paid, lunch hours tend to be unpaid.

My job description document which I was given on my first day states:

"The analyst should take at least a 45 minute lunch break."

baseball1988

I"m in the same situation as some of you.

I work in a helpdesk environment and receive about 10 calls per hour. The first day I started, it's the "norm" that everyone eat at their desk and talk over the phone. So, no official lunch breaks for me. I feel like the company is taking advantage of us and it's unhealthy to skip breaks/lunch. But, I have no choice but to work.

I'm already looking for an analyst position and trying to get out of helpdesk or phone support.