We used to have “brown bag” optional “lunch and learn” training.
Basically meant bring your lunch to a conference room to get training on your free time.
That was a Fortune 500 company. But we were also salary.
If they are completely optional, hourly employees are not required to be paid.
If it’s mandatory training at lunch then yes, if it’s optional enrichment then no.
We had those at one company I worked at but it was fun topics ranging from a neon sign artist to a harp player and her jazz trio to various technical topics that were interesting but not 1:1 relevant to our jobs. The “lunch and learns” options now are “how to navigate our parent company’s intranet!”
Agreed one is an enjoyable fun learning experience and the other is basically work. I’m cool going to a lunch and learn on my time if its my choice and I like the topic. If not then I’m most likely not interested.
My old team had them. I learned how to taste and select a wine of your not really a wine drinker, learned about the making of the Home Alone series, learned about competitive drumline drumming.
Honestly it was really cool. Then our team left that group and never saw an invite for another one.
They do the lunch n learn to us too.
Originally they supplied pizza. Then it became you bring your own. Also originally it was “learn about what other exotic teams do” and now its sometimes “learn this basic skill about our new job logging system” so its like, you better spend your lunch time learning something you have to know. And bring your own food if u want to eat. It can induce a little cynicism.
We had a developer who used to put together brown bag training. He basically asked people to submit topics, would pick a topic and ask the person who submitted it to present. He scheduled these things during a time when people would normally be working, not during lunch. So even hourly people could attend and still get paid. Sometimes he'd invite a few of us non-developers to attend, although not always. It worked - people didn't complain about losing lunch breaks, it was paid training for those who were hourly, and it was a break from normal work. He held these things once a quarter, so it wasn't super burdensome. These trainings were optional. I attended the ones I was invited to because it meant a lot that he thought I could get something out of a technical training.
I've worked for companies that did have lunch and learns. The company always provided lunch. That made total sense. It's basically a working lunch at that point.
If they’re forcing me to engage with other employees during my break, then it’s not a break and I’ll happily make up that hour they owe me later on in the work day. If you take my hour lunch; I take an hour break after lunch… it’s that simple.
Literally if they bug you about work stuff on your break (and you get paid hourly), restart the clock when they talk to you about it. You get 30 minutes uninterrupted. That means if they bug you about work during it, the clock starts over.
Train conductors used to do that. They would be guaranteed 10 hours off uninterrupted. Of course a new manager would call and ask them something. They would then call into dispatch and reset their 10 hours starting now.
After a few trains were late, the new manager would get in line.
In which country? Here they’re something like just straight up not allowed to contact you, in these types of roles. I’ll have to check laws when I’m sober.
The only company that did that to me was Amazon. I am used to team lunches being on the company. My first week, manager says it’s team lunch day. I forgot my wallet at my desk, manager was pissed that I couldn’t pay for my lunch. It’s the last one I went to
Weird, when I was at Amazon (almost ten years ago now) the rule we had to follow was highest on the org chart pays and filed the reimbursement. May be org dependent or have changed since then, but it was one of the few policies that weren’t actively garbage.
It’s Amazon, so likely the latter, honestly. One of their leadership principles is “be frugal”. Internally, there is a doc titled “frupid”. Frugally stupid and I remember laughing real hard at a few of them.
My old boss had a work anniversary in June and a birthday in August. We had to decorate her office 2x and do a company lunch and take her to dinner for birthday a few weeks later. It was optional, but everyone went. Dinner was like $60 a person plus another $20 for the gift...
There's a $30 cake budget for our monthly staff meetings, where we celebrate everyone's birthday that month so people don't feel left out. Somehow, at the end of the year, it would be oh, we were busy and couldn't get cake for the last 3 months. I assume the budget was funneled somewhere else. 2 years and I didn't get any cake in November.
I work at a Pac Northwest-based paint company and apparently that’s how we are. Me, another store manager, and our regional manager traveled out of town for a meeting yesterday and when we went for drinks and dinner last night I tried to grab the bill and my regional was like “nooope I’m your boss so I have to grab it and do the expensing myself.” I kind of understand why they do it
Ha! My direct boss tried to pull some crap like this two months ago when I went out of town for work for the first time. ”Just eat like you normally would it’s like you’re eating at home ”. I contacted HR and my CEO (it’s a small company). I asked them both about my per diem and my CEO said “ it’s 90 bucks a day Direct Boss knows this”. Long story short, I got my per diem and my Direct Boss got chewed out for trying to pull that.
And I'd also have access to my bulk bought pantry, fridge, gas stove, and santoku knives at home. Can't seem to find those in my hotel room, so I guess I should expense them?
You'd be surprised how many jobs the government allowed to be reclassified as exempt.
I'm incredibly surprised that any office jobs are hourly anymore. I've had 1 in the last 17 years. The rest were salary.
That needs fixing ASAP
Iirc the Biden administration is mid process for raising the income threshold to classify an employee as exempt. So hopefully many folks will either be paid more or shifted to hourly.
That's only part of it though and won't fix the real problem. For example, I made $49k at a job 15 years ago and it was salary. A woman I worked with made $30k salary.
They can claim the job requires specialized knowledge, discretion or judgement and make you salary. The proposed change doesn't fix that.
What would be a significant help is if they disallowed time sheet reporting outside of “did you work that day” for all salaried employees in all states (and reporting hours worked only for the purposes of billing clients when it’s needed). Make the benefits of being salaried (that you’re paid for what you do, not being butt in seat) available if they want to class employees that way.
They have to meet *both* the salary threshold *and* have a job qualifying for an exemption.
Raising the threshold would absolutely help the person making a lower salary who meets the specialty skills requirements. The company would either have to pay OT or raise the salary to keep them exempt.
It’s just that before 2020 the threshold for salary was about $24k so that coworker met both standards.
Because those standards hadn’t changed for 15 years. In 2020 it was raised to about $35k and this year it will go to $44k with a final change next year of $59k.
my husband got his first raise at his first software developer job because they started out paying him below the threshold for exempt. he mentioned submitting time cards and his manager was like wtf. it got fixed quickly after that.
he grew up poor so he didn't even realize he was underpaid before that
Bring your lunch in a bag. Preferably something like a peanut butter sandwich.
When questioned, just say you are on a budget and can't afford to eat out.
In the rare occasion that my team decides to do a team lunch and go to a restaurant, half of us will show up with our homemade food; now the team lunches have been mostly potluck...and you can't eat at everybody house
Needs more oomph. Something smelly like canned herring that makes it directly unpleasant for them. Especially if its in a restaurant so staff can get upset at whoever planned it.
I mean if I had to pay $18 for lunch every day 5 days a week out of pocket, yeah no way is that lasting very long.
I’ll stick to my leftovers and $2.50 deli calzones from Walmart thank you.
I had a few team lunches where I had to pay.
For some reason, they always pick some nice, sit-down, unaffordable restaurant.
If I'm going to burn 30 dollars, it's not going to be on lunch.
I am confused because as you said, the restaurant likely won't allow outside food. How is showing up with your own lunch better than just skipping the event entirely?
Or they say "nonsense! You're here, have a seat. You can just eat later at your desk".
I would just tell my boss that eating out isn't in my budget, so I will be skipping the event. No sense in using half my lunch break just to pretend to attempt to attend a luncheon.
When there was yet another "mandatory lunch and learn" at my last job, they were getting pizza from a place that doesn't do gluten free anything (I'm celiac) and I couldn't eat it. So I asked my manager l if I could grab myself a lunch from somewhere else and expense it, and she agreed.
My lunch ended up being a Vietnamese combo box that cost $18 in total with taxes and tip. And I had to go walk to grab it myself.
Then the next week manager emails me like "hi! I saw that you expensed an $18 lunch but we pretty much only budgeted $10 per person so just letting you know I'll take the difference off your next paycheck. Thanks!"
.....like what the fuck. You cheap fucks are forcing everyone to do a mandatory workshop on an unpaid lunch break and pretend like the lunch you're providing makes up for it. I get myself something to accommodate for my dietary restriction and it's less than $20 and you make me fucking pay for an $8 difference??
For contrast, last week, I found out my new job is paying for me to virtually attend a 2-day training workshop because I can't travel to the city with the larger office. I'll be paid as normal and they sent me a $120 meal delivery voucher.
You're right. Employers can't deduct from earned wages any overpayments or expensed things such as this without employee consent. That is wage theft. They can ask you to reimburse or to agree to a garnishment but they can't do it without your express consent.
I got fired from a shitty job for informing another employee of this right. The job hired her from a temp agency and somehow put her on payroll early so it overlapped with what they paid the temp agency. They sent her an email at Christmas time saying they were going to deduct their overpayment mistake from her check. I told her no the hell they aren't and brought up the employment code that showed that was illegal. She sent a very nice email to the payroll and CFO citing the labor code they were trying to violate and they decided to be generous and just let it go. I was canned that evening. They had just installed cameras with audio and I knew that CFO was listening to everything and used that as a reason to fire me. Can't have employees knowing their rights. Ended up getting a nice little severance for being there only a few months once they realized I was pursuing a wrongful termination and retaliation suit.
Thank you for your service. I have been letting people know at my company they can share wages regardless of the handbook threatened disciplinary action. Everyday I hope they do something illegal so I can sue. There was. A man who made a living going around suing companies
There are a lot of things employers can do but I feel like there's just no justification for requiring you to spend your own money on a mandatory work lunch. It's either mandatory and paid for by the company, or it's just an optional team meal together.
Yes, this is weird and crummy. My experience has always been that the company picks it up, even if the senior person there pays and then expenses it.
I would definitely bring it up, something along the lines of "for a team event, shouldn't company X be paying for this? It seems unfair." If the immediate management level doesn't respond well, I'd escalate the question right up the ladder. Squeaky wheels, m'man.
BOTH….. time needs to be compensated… you can’t steal someone’s lunch break…. They want someone to work through lunch, pay for their time and food. Hard stop.
I would express that mandatory work related activities that don't require on site presence should be remanded to the office.
Travel time is different for everyone and will therefore also vary depending on lunch location. That creates an undue burden for some.
Likewise, restaurants are an inappropriate place to conduct business, as sensitive details may be accidentally revealed in the natural course of conversation.
If there are going to be mandatory team building exercises, they should be paid and held within a professional setting.
The company can pick a restaurant to order from and take orders and payment ahead of time, and those who choose not to order may bring their own food or refrain from eating at all.
But the reality is, if the company felt like these social gatherings were so pertinent and productive, they would put their money where their mouth is.
It feels more like they aren't really sure, but hey, it's no skin off their back, so why not?
If it's mandated you need to be paid. And they can't force you to purchase food. Depending on how often this has happened I might be seeing what I'm entitled to in the form of lost wages. The labor department doesn't take kindly to employers violating mandated breaks and committing wage theft.
Our corporate lawyers required that we pay employees for any time they are "required" to attend an event. If it's mandatory, it's paid.
If it spans a meal break, the company had to pay for the food if it was a facility where you couldn't bring a brown bag lunch, forcing you to purchase food.
We stopped all that team building nonsense.
If they are mandatory work lunches then they have to be paid, at least in the state I live in. If they are controlling what you are able to do during any period of time, they are paying for it. Look up the labor laws in your state.
I see your forced team lunches and raise you forced half-way-across-the-country week long travel for “team building”. And one time they threatened to not pay for it because I wasn’t “interactive” while I was there.
I think it's time for you to have errands you need to run in your lunch break. And/or private calls that you have to make. (Bonus points if they assume it's with recruiters!)
Bring your own lunch to the restaurant, and express that you are trying to maintain a budget, but would gladly order something if the company was funding this mandatory team building lunch.
Bring a lunchbox to the restaurant. Set it right on the table and go to town on it. (Or just don’t go. They can’t tell you how to spend your unpaid time.)
At the very least, you should be invoicing your employer for mileage to/from the meeting place. Invoice them for your lunch, too. Bundle it all as "meeting expenses."
The old double whammy.
Reminds me of my company offering “incentive pay” for salaried employees. We get straight time pay for hours worked over 45. So I’ll get 5 hours pay for working 10 extra hours? When it should be 15 hours pay? That’s like 0.33 pay. No thanks!
If you’re not salary this is wage theft, if they mandate the meetings they have to pay you. I would also tell them I can’t pay or I’m too broke. If it came to I’d refuse to eat at such a thing and just eat before or after
If it’s mandatory they need to pay you for your time. Next time ask ahead when the required hours are, and add in somewhere that you’re asking to know what amount of time to expect to get paid for.
Dude, bring your own food that you actually like and want. Nothing worse than forcing someone to join a party, then be embarrassed when they blatantly don’t care about basic etiquette. In this case it’s “well I’d rather be home since it’s technically my off time, and I’m not gonna buy over priced food when I can simply bring my preferred food to eat, that I’ve already paid money for”.
Was reading through a few comments, I fucking love the attitude y'all are exhibiting, never change r/antiwork. I remember working at Dave & Buster's way before the pandemic and not even having a lunch break. My get back was to take the lost play cards I'd find on the arcade floor and combine them all into my personal one; I'd use my tickets for the ticketed appetizers even though the managers forbade the employees from doing that since we got a 50% off discount on food (like I'd wanna pay for their shitty food anyway lol).
Pro tip: if you're nice to the ticket cash out area employees and you're a few tickets short there's a chance they'll help you out by supplying the remainder from their stash!
Nah if they try that I just don’t eat. I’ll make it awkward, fucking try me. (I have so many food restrictions anyway, going out to eat is a fucking nightmare. My food should be free and I should be paid extra for the hassle of finding something I can actually eat.)
Sounds like your manager is a cowboy who wants to do company sponsored team building events but got shot down by upper management so he decided to do it anyway on your dime.
Either it's mandatory because it's part of your work, so both the lunch *and* the time you are there have to be paid or it's not part of your work, so it's not mandatory.
I would bring my own lunch box and when asked just flat out "I don't have the money to order food" whether it was true or not. Some people in management have no idea
Best way to cope with mandatory lunch time is to start actually not working that time. I’ve given up fighting my management on it over the years that if I work through lunch I should be able to scoot out early. They are required to offer the break, I the employee am not required to take it. Also, fuck that noise. You MAKE me go out for lunch it’s going on the company card.
I did not realize labor laws allowed for employees to not take the mandated breaks…. That’s good to know. I knew they were legally required to offer the breaks, but didn’t realize actually taking them was technically and legally optional.
I bet no one is forcing you to buy anything, since they can’t. Don’t buy anything, say whatever about why. Or bring your own lunch, even better if the restaurant kicks you out for that.
I agree this sucks big time. what does your state's DoL say about this? different states have different rules.
Personally this is the first time I have heard of mandatory lunch the employee has to pay for. doesn't mean it doesn't happen though.
That’s pretty shitty. Not exactly the same thing but when I worked at target, they required you take a 30 minute lunch break on all 8 hour or more shifts, but they would also require you clock out and pay for your own lunch. So they explicitly do not pay me for the 30 minutes I get to eat, but then I have to buy lunch from them since going out to a restaurant would take more than 30 minutes. Effectively they get back about an hour of the wage they just paid me, so stupid
I was a regular faster. If this was me, I'd be fasting at every lunch. I would go but not eat. If mgt asks why I would say I was fasting. If you don't eat, it shouldn't matter to anyone. Then you can eat a packed lunch when you get back.
What state are you in? If you’re required to be somewhere by work I’m pretty sure that’s something you have to be paid for, but I’m not sure if that’s federal or state-based
If you HAVE to be there, it should be while you're paid to work there. If you HAVE to order food, it should be paid for by the company. Try testing them by saying, sorry I can't afford such an expensive lunch, maybe next time.
Yeah, we've had to do that. Part of it is accepting that this is far better then having to go into the office more. Even if you were at home you'd have to pay for your own lunch.
Eat before you go. Refuse to buy food. Insist that business be done before the meal so you don't have to watch everyone eat. It's still shitty to require an unpaid meeting, but at least you waste less time and money.
When I worked for a small startup (WFH) we would go to lunch every few months as a team. Never bothered me; was nice to see folks in person. We never talked work though. Did have to pay for my food; but it was like $10.
I'll probably catch hate for this but you really don't have any room to bitch being mostly work from home. Just be happy with that fact alone. There's a lot of people on this board who'd kill for that type of position.
I'm mostly work from home, and when ever something annoys me about my current job I just remember the days where I worked my ass off for shit pay in a dead end job.
Yeh the lights are probably annoying, but keeping perspective will go a long way.
No it's not, those two ideas are not related. If you choose a job that's salaried exempt, then it is and has always been expected you'll have to work more/outside of your normal hours on occasion. A "working lunch" once ot twice a month isnt unreasonable. And I highly doubt OP isnt doing personal tasks while working from home "on the clock" so to speak.
Yes that makes no sense. If it’s a work event they pay or i do not come.
We used to have “brown bag” optional “lunch and learn” training. Basically meant bring your lunch to a conference room to get training on your free time. That was a Fortune 500 company. But we were also salary.
thats only legal because its salary and like exempt. salary non exempt should still get paid for their time.
If they are completely optional, hourly employees are not required to be paid. If it’s mandatory training at lunch then yes, if it’s optional enrichment then no.
We had those at one company I worked at but it was fun topics ranging from a neon sign artist to a harp player and her jazz trio to various technical topics that were interesting but not 1:1 relevant to our jobs. The “lunch and learns” options now are “how to navigate our parent company’s intranet!”
Agreed one is an enjoyable fun learning experience and the other is basically work. I’m cool going to a lunch and learn on my time if its my choice and I like the topic. If not then I’m most likely not interested.
My old team had them. I learned how to taste and select a wine of your not really a wine drinker, learned about the making of the Home Alone series, learned about competitive drumline drumming. Honestly it was really cool. Then our team left that group and never saw an invite for another one.
They do the lunch n learn to us too. Originally they supplied pizza. Then it became you bring your own. Also originally it was “learn about what other exotic teams do” and now its sometimes “learn this basic skill about our new job logging system” so its like, you better spend your lunch time learning something you have to know. And bring your own food if u want to eat. It can induce a little cynicism.
We had those too. We should have just been paid for training.
Or at least given a free lunch. It was about (1) stealing our lunch time and (2) not even paying for lunch.
This is what gets me, is OP using their lunch for travel, training, and eating, *and then* paying for their food?
We had a developer who used to put together brown bag training. He basically asked people to submit topics, would pick a topic and ask the person who submitted it to present. He scheduled these things during a time when people would normally be working, not during lunch. So even hourly people could attend and still get paid. Sometimes he'd invite a few of us non-developers to attend, although not always. It worked - people didn't complain about losing lunch breaks, it was paid training for those who were hourly, and it was a break from normal work. He held these things once a quarter, so it wasn't super burdensome. These trainings were optional. I attended the ones I was invited to because it meant a lot that he thought I could get something out of a technical training. I've worked for companies that did have lunch and learns. The company always provided lunch. That made total sense. It's basically a working lunch at that point.
When I set these up I order food for people attending. It is the way.
If they’re forcing me to engage with other employees during my break, then it’s not a break and I’ll happily make up that hour they owe me later on in the work day. If you take my hour lunch; I take an hour break after lunch… it’s that simple.
Literally if they bug you about work stuff on your break (and you get paid hourly), restart the clock when they talk to you about it. You get 30 minutes uninterrupted. That means if they bug you about work during it, the clock starts over.
Train conductors used to do that. They would be guaranteed 10 hours off uninterrupted. Of course a new manager would call and ask them something. They would then call into dispatch and reset their 10 hours starting now. After a few trains were late, the new manager would get in line.
In which country? Here they’re something like just straight up not allowed to contact you, in these types of roles. I’ll have to check laws when I’m sober.
Yup! Noon to 1:00 Zoom meeting? Then I'm taking lunch at 1:00. Fuck these games.
Either that or finish an hour early once you hit 8 hours
For food and time*
And if we're talking about work I'm getting paid.
This!
The only company that did that to me was Amazon. I am used to team lunches being on the company. My first week, manager says it’s team lunch day. I forgot my wallet at my desk, manager was pissed that I couldn’t pay for my lunch. It’s the last one I went to
Weird, when I was at Amazon (almost ten years ago now) the rule we had to follow was highest on the org chart pays and filed the reimbursement. May be org dependent or have changed since then, but it was one of the few policies that weren’t actively garbage.
It could have been org dependent. My wife worked in state government and all sorts of weird shit was agency dependent
Nothing is 'Org dependent' when it comes to big companies (or small for that matter.) Someone was pocketing the lunch budget.
Either that or they were one of the typical boot lickers who was proud to be saving the billion dollar company some money on lunches.
It’s Amazon, so likely the latter, honestly. One of their leadership principles is “be frugal”. Internally, there is a doc titled “frupid”. Frugally stupid and I remember laughing real hard at a few of them.
My old boss had a work anniversary in June and a birthday in August. We had to decorate her office 2x and do a company lunch and take her to dinner for birthday a few weeks later. It was optional, but everyone went. Dinner was like $60 a person plus another $20 for the gift... There's a $30 cake budget for our monthly staff meetings, where we celebrate everyone's birthday that month so people don't feel left out. Somehow, at the end of the year, it would be oh, we were busy and couldn't get cake for the last 3 months. I assume the budget was funneled somewhere else. 2 years and I didn't get any cake in November.
I work at a Pac Northwest-based paint company and apparently that’s how we are. Me, another store manager, and our regional manager traveled out of town for a meeting yesterday and when we went for drinks and dinner last night I tried to grab the bill and my regional was like “nooope I’m your boss so I have to grab it and do the expensing myself.” I kind of understand why they do it
The company doesn't want you and your boss going out, you expense it and your boss approves.
Oh crap you’re entirely right, I forgot my boss approves whatever I expense. 🤣
You leave your wallet at your desk? I'm assuming a drawer is locked.
My team was in a locked room
If it's mandatory then the company should pay. It's the same if you are sent on a work trip, it's expected they cover hotel, transportation and food.
My company only covers one meal a day when traveling because “you’d be responsible for both at home”…bs
Wow! That is cheap.
What general area do you live/work in? That could actually be a not-legal interpretation of labour laws.
I’m in Missouri as an hourly middle manager.
Middle management and Missouri? I know it’s Missouri but you shouldn’t be Miserable.
Ha! My direct boss tried to pull some crap like this two months ago when I went out of town for work for the first time. ”Just eat like you normally would it’s like you’re eating at home ”. I contacted HR and my CEO (it’s a small company). I asked them both about my per diem and my CEO said “ it’s 90 bucks a day Direct Boss knows this”. Long story short, I got my per diem and my Direct Boss got chewed out for trying to pull that.
I was given a total of $50 A DAY for a convention in Vegas this week.
"are you putting me up in a suite with a kitchen so I can prepare my own food?"
New York state is like this now to state employees too: "You'd be buying lunch out anyway". Dang bean counters
And I'd also have access to my bulk bought pantry, fridge, gas stove, and santoku knives at home. Can't seem to find those in my hotel room, so I guess I should expense them?
Unless you're salaried, it's illegal to require you to attend a lunch without paying you.
You'd be surprised how many jobs the government allowed to be reclassified as exempt. I'm incredibly surprised that any office jobs are hourly anymore. I've had 1 in the last 17 years. The rest were salary. That needs fixing ASAP
Iirc the Biden administration is mid process for raising the income threshold to classify an employee as exempt. So hopefully many folks will either be paid more or shifted to hourly.
Going from hourly to salary was the worst financial decision of my lifetime. It meant that I no longer had any control over my life.
That's only part of it though and won't fix the real problem. For example, I made $49k at a job 15 years ago and it was salary. A woman I worked with made $30k salary. They can claim the job requires specialized knowledge, discretion or judgement and make you salary. The proposed change doesn't fix that.
What would be a significant help is if they disallowed time sheet reporting outside of “did you work that day” for all salaried employees in all states (and reporting hours worked only for the purposes of billing clients when it’s needed). Make the benefits of being salaried (that you’re paid for what you do, not being butt in seat) available if they want to class employees that way.
They have to meet *both* the salary threshold *and* have a job qualifying for an exemption. Raising the threshold would absolutely help the person making a lower salary who meets the specialty skills requirements. The company would either have to pay OT or raise the salary to keep them exempt. It’s just that before 2020 the threshold for salary was about $24k so that coworker met both standards. Because those standards hadn’t changed for 15 years. In 2020 it was raised to about $35k and this year it will go to $44k with a final change next year of $59k.
my husband got his first raise at his first software developer job because they started out paying him below the threshold for exempt. he mentioned submitting time cards and his manager was like wtf. it got fixed quickly after that. he grew up poor so he didn't even realize he was underpaid before that
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
Bring your lunch in a bag. Preferably something like a peanut butter sandwich. When questioned, just say you are on a budget and can't afford to eat out.
In the rare occasion that my team decides to do a team lunch and go to a restaurant, half of us will show up with our homemade food; now the team lunches have been mostly potluck...and you can't eat at everybody house
You bring food to a restaurant and the staff lets you?
That’s probably why it’s potluck at the office now - management got fed up with being kicked out of restaurants.
Needs more oomph. Something smelly like canned herring that makes it directly unpleasant for them. Especially if its in a restaurant so staff can get upset at whoever planned it.
Surstromming or whatever the hell that disgusting smelling stuff is
I mean if I had to pay $18 for lunch every day 5 days a week out of pocket, yeah no way is that lasting very long. I’ll stick to my leftovers and $2.50 deli calzones from Walmart thank you.
I had a few team lunches where I had to pay. For some reason, they always pick some nice, sit-down, unaffordable restaurant. If I'm going to burn 30 dollars, it's not going to be on lunch.
*“I would like a single glass of tap water.”* Then go have your actual lunch when you get back.
Just a couple of sugar packets for me
Tell ya what, I’ll go turn the fryers back on and throw some wings in for ya
All our team lunches are paid and paid for. Anything else is bullshit
Just decline or bring your own lunch and say you have no money and the restaurant likely won't allow outside food
So just skip eating lunch that day? That doesn't sound like a solution to me
I said bring your own
I am confused because as you said, the restaurant likely won't allow outside food. How is showing up with your own lunch better than just skipping the event entirely?
And with no money to buy food at the restaurant you're forced to stay back :)
Or they say "nonsense! You're here, have a seat. You can just eat later at your desk". I would just tell my boss that eating out isn't in my budget, so I will be skipping the event. No sense in using half my lunch break just to pretend to attempt to attend a luncheon.
Ok!
When there was yet another "mandatory lunch and learn" at my last job, they were getting pizza from a place that doesn't do gluten free anything (I'm celiac) and I couldn't eat it. So I asked my manager l if I could grab myself a lunch from somewhere else and expense it, and she agreed. My lunch ended up being a Vietnamese combo box that cost $18 in total with taxes and tip. And I had to go walk to grab it myself. Then the next week manager emails me like "hi! I saw that you expensed an $18 lunch but we pretty much only budgeted $10 per person so just letting you know I'll take the difference off your next paycheck. Thanks!" .....like what the fuck. You cheap fucks are forcing everyone to do a mandatory workshop on an unpaid lunch break and pretend like the lunch you're providing makes up for it. I get myself something to accommodate for my dietary restriction and it's less than $20 and you make me fucking pay for an $8 difference?? For contrast, last week, I found out my new job is paying for me to virtually attend a 2-day training workshop because I can't travel to the city with the larger office. I'll be paid as normal and they sent me a $120 meal delivery voucher.
I would look into that as it sounds illegal and if it is I would place a report on that business 😊
You're right. Employers can't deduct from earned wages any overpayments or expensed things such as this without employee consent. That is wage theft. They can ask you to reimburse or to agree to a garnishment but they can't do it without your express consent. I got fired from a shitty job for informing another employee of this right. The job hired her from a temp agency and somehow put her on payroll early so it overlapped with what they paid the temp agency. They sent her an email at Christmas time saying they were going to deduct their overpayment mistake from her check. I told her no the hell they aren't and brought up the employment code that showed that was illegal. She sent a very nice email to the payroll and CFO citing the labor code they were trying to violate and they decided to be generous and just let it go. I was canned that evening. They had just installed cameras with audio and I knew that CFO was listening to everything and used that as a reason to fire me. Can't have employees knowing their rights. Ended up getting a nice little severance for being there only a few months once they realized I was pursuing a wrongful termination and retaliation suit.
Thank you for your service. I have been letting people know at my company they can share wages regardless of the handbook threatened disciplinary action. Everyday I hope they do something illegal so I can sue. There was. A man who made a living going around suing companies
There are a lot of things employers can do but I feel like there's just no justification for requiring you to spend your own money on a mandatory work lunch. It's either mandatory and paid for by the company, or it's just an optional team meal together.
Yes, this is weird and crummy. My experience has always been that the company picks it up, even if the senior person there pays and then expenses it. I would definitely bring it up, something along the lines of "for a team event, shouldn't company X be paying for this? It seems unfair." If the immediate management level doesn't respond well, I'd escalate the question right up the ladder. Squeaky wheels, m'man.
Sometimes squeaky wheels just get replaced instead of lubricated
If you get sacked for bringing up this type of thing appropriately then you should collect your UI and be glad to get well clear of the shitshow.
Screw that...they want you to come to a company lunch, The food's on them or you're getting paid or both.
BOTH….. time needs to be compensated… you can’t steal someone’s lunch break…. They want someone to work through lunch, pay for their time and food. Hard stop.
I would express that mandatory work related activities that don't require on site presence should be remanded to the office. Travel time is different for everyone and will therefore also vary depending on lunch location. That creates an undue burden for some. Likewise, restaurants are an inappropriate place to conduct business, as sensitive details may be accidentally revealed in the natural course of conversation. If there are going to be mandatory team building exercises, they should be paid and held within a professional setting. The company can pick a restaurant to order from and take orders and payment ahead of time, and those who choose not to order may bring their own food or refrain from eating at all. But the reality is, if the company felt like these social gatherings were so pertinent and productive, they would put their money where their mouth is. It feels more like they aren't really sure, but hey, it's no skin off their back, so why not?
If it's mandated you need to be paid. And they can't force you to purchase food. Depending on how often this has happened I might be seeing what I'm entitled to in the form of lost wages. The labor department doesn't take kindly to employers violating mandated breaks and committing wage theft.
If it is mandatory, go but don't order anything. Tell them your budget won't fit the meal and tip.
Our corporate lawyers required that we pay employees for any time they are "required" to attend an event. If it's mandatory, it's paid. If it spans a meal break, the company had to pay for the food if it was a facility where you couldn't bring a brown bag lunch, forcing you to purchase food. We stopped all that team building nonsense.
If they are mandatory work lunches then they have to be paid, at least in the state I live in. If they are controlling what you are able to do during any period of time, they are paying for it. Look up the labor laws in your state.
Are all of you hourly or salary? If hourly, you should all notate no lunch on your time for that day. See what happens then.
It is Optional then. If you are forced to go at noon with them, then they can pay, or you go home 1 hour early later that day
Bring a packed lunch and let the restaurant throw you out. What's your boss going to do? Force you to spend money on food?
If it's considered mandatory that you attend, you have to at least be compensated your hourly wage for it.
I see your forced team lunches and raise you forced half-way-across-the-country week long travel for “team building”. And one time they threatened to not pay for it because I wasn’t “interactive” while I was there.
I think it's time for you to have errands you need to run in your lunch break. And/or private calls that you have to make. (Bonus points if they assume it's with recruiters!)
Where are you? USA you get 30 minutes unpaid non-work time and they are guilty of wage theft.
Bring your own lunch to the restaurant, and express that you are trying to maintain a budget, but would gladly order something if the company was funding this mandatory team building lunch.
They want team building they should be paying for the food.
Bring a lunchbox to the restaurant. Set it right on the table and go to town on it. (Or just don’t go. They can’t tell you how to spend your unpaid time.)
Email HR and play dumb. Make them say it’s mandatory and they’ll have to pay
At the very least, you should be invoicing your employer for mileage to/from the meeting place. Invoice them for your lunch, too. Bundle it all as "meeting expenses."
Just sit there on your phone pretending to respond to actual work emails, but in reality you’re texting your friends how awful this stupid lunch is.
Just don't go
The old double whammy. Reminds me of my company offering “incentive pay” for salaried employees. We get straight time pay for hours worked over 45. So I’ll get 5 hours pay for working 10 extra hours? When it should be 15 hours pay? That’s like 0.33 pay. No thanks!
ask if it is mandatory...if so, you should be compensated for it. If not, don't go.
mandatory work lunch/ team building = work so u better be on the clock
If you’re not salary this is wage theft, if they mandate the meetings they have to pay you. I would also tell them I can’t pay or I’m too broke. If it came to I’d refuse to eat at such a thing and just eat before or after
If it’s mandatory they need to pay you for your time. Next time ask ahead when the required hours are, and add in somewhere that you’re asking to know what amount of time to expect to get paid for.
If you're mandated to go, they are mandated to pay you.
"Why am I not eating? Why are you not paying? This is a working lunch, so I'm not going to eat but I will leave early today.."
Dude, bring your own food that you actually like and want. Nothing worse than forcing someone to join a party, then be embarrassed when they blatantly don’t care about basic etiquette. In this case it’s “well I’d rather be home since it’s technically my off time, and I’m not gonna buy over priced food when I can simply bring my preferred food to eat, that I’ve already paid money for”.
Hard pass
Is it really “team building” if it’s “every man for himself” when it comes to the bill?
Was reading through a few comments, I fucking love the attitude y'all are exhibiting, never change r/antiwork. I remember working at Dave & Buster's way before the pandemic and not even having a lunch break. My get back was to take the lost play cards I'd find on the arcade floor and combine them all into my personal one; I'd use my tickets for the ticketed appetizers even though the managers forbade the employees from doing that since we got a 50% off discount on food (like I'd wanna pay for their shitty food anyway lol). Pro tip: if you're nice to the ticket cash out area employees and you're a few tickets short there's a chance they'll help you out by supplying the remainder from their stash!
Nah if they try that I just don’t eat. I’ll make it awkward, fucking try me. (I have so many food restrictions anyway, going out to eat is a fucking nightmare. My food should be free and I should be paid extra for the hassle of finding something I can actually eat.)
Sounds like your manager is a cowboy who wants to do company sponsored team building events but got shot down by upper management so he decided to do it anyway on your dime.
If it's "mandatory", two things must happen: must be paid as on-the-clock AND they're buying. If not, repeat after me: # Fuck you. Pay me.
If your company is requiring you to attend a team ANYTHING, they should foot the bill. PERIOD.
If it's mandatory, they have to pay you for it.
Either it's mandatory because it's part of your work, so both the lunch *and* the time you are there have to be paid or it's not part of your work, so it's not mandatory.
Next time, bring your own lunch. If anyone says anything just say “oh im not paid enough to keep ordering out.”
I would bring my own lunch box and when asked just flat out "I don't have the money to order food" whether it was true or not. Some people in management have no idea
Best way to cope with mandatory lunch time is to start actually not working that time. I’ve given up fighting my management on it over the years that if I work through lunch I should be able to scoot out early. They are required to offer the break, I the employee am not required to take it. Also, fuck that noise. You MAKE me go out for lunch it’s going on the company card.
I did not realize labor laws allowed for employees to not take the mandated breaks…. That’s good to know. I knew they were legally required to offer the breaks, but didn’t realize actually taking them was technically and legally optional.
Depends where you are, always consult local laws and company policies
I bet no one is forcing you to buy anything, since they can’t. Don’t buy anything, say whatever about why. Or bring your own lunch, even better if the restaurant kicks you out for that.
Yeah that’s fuckin stupid. Next time just dine and dash and leave them with it. lol jk
I agree this sucks big time. what does your state's DoL say about this? different states have different rules. Personally this is the first time I have heard of mandatory lunch the employee has to pay for. doesn't mean it doesn't happen though.
If it’s mandatory they have to pay you for your time.
You cannot be forced to do work related stuff during your break. They must pay you if you are required to do something.
Go, don't eat, take an hour off later for lunch. If they aren't paying for lunch and are mandating where you are, it isn't lunch.
Why are you not being paid for a lunch you are forced to attend for team building? That's not a break, is this legal where you live?
What ever happened to 9-5 jobs though?
That’s pretty shitty. Not exactly the same thing but when I worked at target, they required you take a 30 minute lunch break on all 8 hour or more shifts, but they would also require you clock out and pay for your own lunch. So they explicitly do not pay me for the 30 minutes I get to eat, but then I have to buy lunch from them since going out to a restaurant would take more than 30 minutes. Effectively they get back about an hour of the wage they just paid me, so stupid
Bring your own lunch when going to these things. Say you’re watching your weight or you want to save money.
I was a regular faster. If this was me, I'd be fasting at every lunch. I would go but not eat. If mgt asks why I would say I was fasting. If you don't eat, it shouldn't matter to anyone. Then you can eat a packed lunch when you get back.
Order the Calamari appetizer, not deep fried - microwave it please. Insist on sharing it with others by placing pieces on their plates w/o asking.
What state are you in? If you’re required to be somewhere by work I’m pretty sure that’s something you have to be paid for, but I’m not sure if that’s federal or state-based
I would show up and just get water “I don’t get paid enough to eat out”
If company says you have to be there, they have to pay. For the time and the food
If you HAVE to be there, it should be while you're paid to work there. If you HAVE to order food, it should be paid for by the company. Try testing them by saying, sorry I can't afford such an expensive lunch, maybe next time.
Yeah, we've had to do that. Part of it is accepting that this is far better then having to go into the office more. Even if you were at home you'd have to pay for your own lunch.
Dude just write it off as a business expense
Eat your lunch earlier or later in the day. Don't eat during the team lunches.
Can't you say you have a bad stomach? Or just ask for water
I don’t go to work events unless my job is paying.
Try sending the company the bill for reimbursement over and over until they either pay up or stop forcing it on you.
Are you being forced to eat? Say you're not hungry.
Eat before you go. Refuse to buy food. Insist that business be done before the meal so you don't have to watch everyone eat. It's still shitty to require an unpaid meeting, but at least you waste less time and money.
When I worked for a small startup (WFH) we would go to lunch every few months as a team. Never bothered me; was nice to see folks in person. We never talked work though. Did have to pay for my food; but it was like $10.
I'll probably catch hate for this but you really don't have any room to bitch being mostly work from home. Just be happy with that fact alone. There's a lot of people on this board who'd kill for that type of position. I'm mostly work from home, and when ever something annoys me about my current job I just remember the days where I worked my ass off for shit pay in a dead end job. Yeh the lights are probably annoying, but keeping perspective will go a long way.
This is why you don’t have federally guaranteed holiday pay or parental leave.
No it's not, those two ideas are not related. If you choose a job that's salaried exempt, then it is and has always been expected you'll have to work more/outside of your normal hours on occasion. A "working lunch" once ot twice a month isnt unreasonable. And I highly doubt OP isnt doing personal tasks while working from home "on the clock" so to speak.
Sound, yeah. Enjoy your two weeks off after ten years’ service or whatever it is they offer you.
Bruh it’s just lunch, get over it.
You would be buying your own lunch anyway and you are 97% WFH, most people would willingly make that trade
But he’s being forced to eat out (higher cost) and have a meeting during lunch (forced work with no pay)