Do you have a lunch break

[JonathonWally]

We usually keep a cooler in the ambulance with drinks, take naps on the cot or the bench seat, or since we're just basically driving around most of the time, stop at various places whenever.

We're dispatched over our radios, obviously not a typical 9-5 desk job.

In the case of any kind of MCIs (mass casualty incidents) Local fire departments send in their snack truck or the state sends in a food truck.

You can hear scene commanders over the radio "This is gonna be a long one, send some food"

 

[nevermore]

I work in academia, so no one actually cares when I'm in my office or not as long as everything is getting done and done well. I kind of just wander in and out as I please as long as I'm there around 7 or 8 hours a day. Technically I get an hour, but I rarely bother to take it as I don't usually eat lunch. Sometimes I go out for a proper lunch at a restaurant for kicks, go to the market or take a walk around campus though.

 

[thestrangequark]

Are you kidding? I'm a teacher, of course I don't have a lunch break!

Hmm. So I guess you survive on a constant feeding of apples that the little ones hand you?

I think she teaches High-School, so it's more like she survives on the wads of ABC gum they toss at her

Me? Teach high school? High school kids are twice my size! I teach K, 1, and 2! In fact, I just posted a thread about my kids, and how the TV show "Ugly Betty" screwed them over.

^So am I (though in secondary school) and we take our lunch breaks! Well, unless we have a 'duty' for half of it, like supervising the cafeteria and the like.

Lucky bastards! In K-5 lunch breaks are unheard of. To begin, lunch is a 55 minute period. It takes 10 minutes to get a class packed up with their hats and coats and lunches, and to bring them to the cafeteria. It also takes ten minutes to pick them up from the yard, and get them back to the room. That cuts lunch to 35 minutes. On top of that, if you're not stuck with your own bunch of little monsters, either staying in because they need extra help (which they can't get during class time because the ridiculous pathetic No Child Left Behind Act inspired curriculum wastes all their time doing test-prep) or they need some time-out, then you're stuck with some one else's kids. Sometimes they schedule PD at lunch time, or they take away your prep so you need to use your lunch period as your prep. I've never met a K-5 teacher who didn't bust her ass every lunchtime.

 

[kimc]

I don't have a set break. I usually eat lunch at my desk though unless I'm "doing lunch".

 

[Sephiroth]

sorry TSQ, thought you taught older kids *facepalm*

 

[TheLonelySquire]

I work for myself so I usually take 30-40 minutes. In the summer I'll have lunch outside on the back deck. Those usually run a bit longer.

We here in the USA need to learn something from our neighbors from the south, btw. We need siestas!

 

[BigFoot]

I get a 30-minute lunch break every day and I try to use it every day. I'm just much more productive if I actually got out for 30 minutes and clear my head.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Since I work with a research grant, I get to manage my own hours. The head of faculty don't really care when I come and go as long as my work get done.

I was pure research so no teaching load. I only had two "directives" 1) bring in cash 2) publish papers - as long as I did both of those, no problem.

I don't have teaching duties too, but I usually hold a lecture every month or so to the university as part of my grant. Even after all these years, speaking in public still scares the shit out of me. Funny things, I've been told that I'm actually good at it, but every time I take the podium I feel like I want to curl in a ball and vomit.
Luckily I don't have to worry about cash since scientific research in Italy is usually publicly funded (especially pure science like I do). On the other hand, we are abysmally underfunded, so maybe it's not so lucky after all.

I work in academia, so no one actually cares when I'm in my office or not as long as everything is getting done and done well.

Is our job fucking cool or what?

 

[Crusher Disciple]

We usually keep a cooler in the ambulance with drinks, take naps on the cot or the bench seat, or since we're just basically driving around most of the time, stop at various places whenever.

I think the most disconcerting thing in the world is to pull into a restaurant’s parking lot and see an ambulance.

Then you realize that they're just there for lunch.

We work 8 hours with an hour unpaid lunch tacked in. And we get two 15 minute breaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

 

[FordSVT]

On paper I have a scheduled lunch hour, but in practise I take my breaks and lunches when I feel like it which is usually when there is nothing urgent to do. Some within an hour or two of the middle of my shift there will be a lull in activity and I'll go grab a bite to eat, my "breaks" are usually when I'm standing around waiting for someone else to get something done while I'm supervising or before my crew takes over.

 

[judge alba]

we dont get paid for lunch breaks though if we do work it then we can either go early if quite (not very often) or else we get paid for it.

 

[SmoothieX]

I love lunch.

We had pizza today.

 

[RevDMV]

Another business owner and contractor. Lately, it's all on-site contracting and I don't take a lunch break. I work the billable hours, and split to go do other things.

 

[Holdfast]

I do what I want for lunch as long I do all the work I need to that day (which in itself in a pretty flexible entity in many respects).

Generally though, unless I'm actually meeting someone for lunch or otherwise going out, I prefer to race through whatever I need to do through the day, skip a lunch break and then leave work a bit early and "be on the phone if needed" instead. For instance I deliberately compress my clinic appointment times through the day, working through lunch and then leave a block of admin time at the end of the day.

As for the hours monitoring, I just make stuff up that's compliant with the theoretical rules - the work gets done, I get paid, people are happy, no harm, no foul. Most people I work with are pretty cool with this way of working. Occasionally I come across a jobsworth who tries to pry their nose a little too closely into what I'm doing. I usually just practice ignoring them a lot.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

Give them the scowl of disapproval.

 

[Holdfast]

I don't respect them enough to justify expending the effort of using it.

 

[WillsBabe]

Do the folks who skip lunch experience a slump during the afternoon? If I miss lunch - the break, not necessarily the food, I seem to run into a brick wall around 3.30. It's just no good.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

Hahaha. Well there you go. A scoff of dismissal?

 

[Holdfast]

Do the folks who skip lunch experience a slump during the afternoon? If I miss lunch - the break, not necessarily the food, I seem to run into a brick wall around 3.30. It's just no good.

Back in my house officer days, on our "take" day (seeing all the medical new referrals in a 24 hour period) I used to start at 9am and finish at about 1am and on more than one occasion didn't eat anything through the day, just grabbing a coke, chocolate bar and crisps from a machine to refuel on the way back to bed to crash before post-take ward round the following morning. That would be it for the day. Fucking Brutal.

The brick wall for me was about 4pm too. I used to call it "running on fumes". Then the second wind kicked in from about 5 or 6pm (I'm guessing correlating gwith a switchover from glycogen reserves to fatty acids) until about 11pm when even the reserve tanks were completely drained and I became increasingly irritable until I got my chocolate fix. We also had to carry the crash team bleep from 9 to midnight, which ensured you were completely screwed over by then.

I remember on several occasions we ran through about 130+ new patients across a 24 hour take as a team (4 doctors). I think the average was around 90-110, keeping about a third or so of those by the next day. We kept a running tally on a board in the office, crossing out names as they were discharged, transferred to another team, died or otherwise were taken off our hands, and we "broke the board" a few times through sheer volume. It was actually kind of fun. In retrospect. "On the jazz" from the constant adrenaline rush as Hannibal from the A-Team would say.

I'd die if I had to do it now. Of course, the EWTD has stopped those kind of rite-of-passage kind of days now. Boo Hiss.

Hahaha. Well there you go. A scoff of dismissal?

Better.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

So out of school and no job? Join the club man. We meet every ... uh ... day ...