30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Ok. So I work in retail.
I also worked in retail when I was younger in the UK.
Here, I get a 30 minute lunch break unpaid, and they usually make me feel bad about taking that, even though i'm on my feet all day.
In the UK, in a similar setting, we were allowed a one hour lunch break and two twenty minute "tea" breaks.
Now i'm a manager, and so when it's quiet, i've been sending some of the staff on extra 15 minute breaks if they are tired, or just to get some fresh air, as I believe it increases the general morale of the store, and I believe that people NEED breaks, otherwise it's unhealthy. Does anyone else find it strange how much Canadians oppose giving breaks to their staff? They seem to have this holier than thou attitude, ie: "I don't need to take any break at all, because i'm a harder worker, blah blah blah...".
Now they're telling me not to give out 15 minute breaks at all, because a 30 minute break in an almost 9 hour day on your feet is adequate. Is Canada not a developed country? It's disgusting.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

I'll quite often take a couple of hours for lunch if there's a football match on TV. And usually 30 mins for coffee each morning, although I might read something work-related at the same time.

In the summer it's not unusual for us to go running at lunchtime and end up at the student pub where we'll spend an hour or two sitting in the sun, drinking beer and eating bad nachos.

Sounds like you need to get a new job.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Yes, but you only get 2 weeks holiday a year.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

I've generally only taken 30 mins for lunch and no other organised breaks in my last two jobs...in the UK.....so I think it's more to do with where you work than the country.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

As Baaz indicated, get a real job! this is about right for the industry you are working in-no style sweat shop, type of work. Slamming the "under developed" Country is not the answer. There are labour laws regarding hours of work, rest periods etc. If your company and your co-workers tend to flout these laws, then you all deserve each other.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Actually, it shouldn't matter where you work, the break laws should be egalitarian throughout. And I think you misunderstood my comment- what I was saying is, Canada IS a developed country, and is usually so fair and a much better place to live than the UK, except when it comes to working.
Yes, I am working in retail, but that doesn't make me any less of a person, I still have two degrees, but I also needed a work permit, and I work bloody hard there- so I think I deserve more breaks than a half an hour.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

I suppose I'm in retail too. You get two 15 minute breaks and an unpaid 30 minute lunch. However, everybody takes what they can, when they can, all the time. The break time is their religion ;) I only work 6 1/2 hours so I just take the 15 min breaks .... I think this is retail all over, unfortunately.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

I've been told I can take as much as I like. Sadly Mrs Bazzz is limited to 3 weeks and I'm not allowed to go to Bangkok on my own.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Since when? Since when?
Has ANYTHING been organised in this friggin life.
Just check out what's going on around you and do the same, if you don't like it make a fuss. Generally you'll end up doing something else. but ...Hey!...Better than say, um... ending up in Canada!!

Just Kiddin.

Bangkok? At 12?

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Bazzzzz, as a former Plymouth person. Would she agree to both of us going? As we are both 'normal' and not able to enjoy ourselves on our own, without our spouses, like.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Alot of the "work work work" kinda stuff I've been exposed to is more to do with macho nonsense. I dunno how much of that filters into other things.

I think that being such a young country, still only relatively few generations on, we're still living on the farm when it comes to work attitudes. And seeing as we're also built on immigration, there's always 'SOMEONE' who will take your job if you don't want it. Hence the slave-driver hierarchy.

that's the vibe I get anyway.

There's working hard, and there's working smart. I prefer the latter.

(and don't get me started on how people cling to their precious little jobs...)

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

[QUOTE=Naryamente;6111543]QUOTE]

How do people cling to their precious little jobs?

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Yes a little inflammatory I know, but it's very hard to explain. In my experience, a UK transplant to Canada, I get the vibe that people in my industry (music) are so insular and unwilling to work with people from overseas. I've been called a Euro-snob because I basically don't "jump" and prefer to ask "hang on - there's better way to do that, let me show you..." But people don't want to know.

Now, I'm 35 and a friend of mine is 65, also self employed, works in finance - He's from the U.S and he and I clicked immediately when I mention the "job-clinging" thing. If you're not from Canada, it's hard to get a foot in the door.

The Guv is even talking about it now - 'hire an immigrant' and all that. I KNOW I'm not alone on this, but I admit, it's a tough situation to explain.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

I agree, My son is going though a similar thing and getting very dis-heartened.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

It really sucks - if no one knows you, no one wants to know you.

I was working Canadian Idol a few years ago and one of Nelly Furtado's people was impressed with some little gadget I had made for myself and he asks me "so how come I've never seen you around before?"

Hell, I dunno - were all music technicians born in the same hospital?

Maybe I read too much into that, but it spoke volumes to me and somehow summed up what I was working against - it's a big club.

Kinda like "so who let YOU into the club?"

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

This ain't Britain, we are in Canada, doing it the Canadian way. Don't see what the big deal is. There is more to morale in the workplace than breaks. There is nothing unhealthy about working hard, winging about it is way more unhealthy & destructive, especially coming from a manager.

We have to insist our staff take their breaks. We look after them, they look after us. We have a great crew, they work very hard in a physical job, if they have a problem they will tell us.

Employees who don't like where they work always have a choice!

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

And there you have it.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

But most of the time the choice is money, or NO money.

Oh simplicity, where ar''''''t though.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

I've worked jobs in England at either end of the break-philosophy spectrum, didn't seem to be a correlation between crap breaks and particularly low-skilled work (like pushing a pump truck round a warehouse.) Kudos to the OP for trying to introduce slightly more humane working practices. You could always take up smoking, from what I hear fag breaks are something a lot of people take liberties with over there, bearing in mind every 5 minutes you get away for now you're taking off the wrinkly stage of your life.

Longer unpaid breaks don't suit me anyway, I had an hour for lunch every day in Old Trafford but unless there was some cricket on next door there was bugger all to do with it except either sit in the park and get rained on, or find something un-work related to do at my desk. I'd rather have gotten home half an hour earlier.

To Naryamente and Steve, I guess we have to take a little leverage where we can - find another expat! In my experience they're often keen to help out someone in the same situation they were in 12/24/36 months ago.

edit - Sadly people on WPs don't actually have that much of a choice...

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

[QUOTE=windward;6111716] find another expat! QUOTE]
Hi!

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Still hasn't happened for me - it was my personal holy grail.

Well at any rate, we're moving to the U.K. this year, providing the house gets sold. We're hoping for Summer. We're sick of a lot of stuff. (sorry to hijack the thread!)

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Aren't we all, aren't we all?

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Lot of stuff. Not just a likkle bit?

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

We HATE everything.

I especially hate the shade of blue in the Canadian sky. Not like the good ol' British blue. But even that is being diluted by Euro-Navy.

Scum, subhuman scum...

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Hola!

Sorry gringo, give me about 5 weeks, til then I'm just a wannabe. I'll bring you a proper beer over though for being so personable.

I'm truly sorry to hear that... as Rich_007 has pointed out, bar a select crowd the Canadian music scene is about as interesting as the stuff that clogs my plughole. An outside influence should have been welcome.

Wish I had muso contacts to share, but from April if you need your mobile fixed send us a PM :o


Edit - how many people in this thread are currently drinking?

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

True about the music. Stuck in...well... something. Outside influence? Canadians don't do influence.

Not drinking. Yet.

You?

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Hell yes.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Your avatar speaks volumes. I won't apologize about the obvious.
Nor will I apologize about the Merikan spelling. Computer's fault.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

JUST a wannabe? :mad:

That sure didn't make me want to hire you for anything. Hrmph. ;)


To the original question - I also work in retail, and for every 8 hour shift, I get 2 15min paid breaks and an unpaid half hour for lunch. In the beginning, I most often chose not to take my 15s, as I felt it interrupted what I was doing too much, but now I do, as long as the store isn't crazy busy.

I thought these rules were the same everywhere, but maybe they differ between provinces, as mostly everything else?

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Ha! "Computer says naw".

My avatar is an emigré russkie songstress and if all goes to plan, my future wife. But either way, I make no excuses. Just trying to live up to the cultural stereotype. I'll take my modded vauxhall Nova out in a bit, happy-slap some pensioners and maybe get a 16 year old pregnant on the way home.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Only after completing 5 hours of work must employees take a 30 minute unpaid break. Any other break is discretionary, at at the goodwill of the employer.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Hey, you've made it now right? You need a handle-change ;)
From what I know I'm not sure I'd be any good to you anyway, except maybe as a chauffeur for a few weeks. I think I'd make a good Jeeves.

But yeah, OT... I think it's a company thing rather than a national or provincial thing. Bazz shows they can be relaxed about it.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Just like the rest of us, EH!

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

I'm drinking, but anyway...

I've never taken a lunch break in Canada. In our business any sort of break is a sign of weakness. Presentism is everything. For example, I used to live near the office and would arrive at around 7:30 in the morning, now I commute from far away and avoid the traffic by getting in just before 7. It use to be that most people arrived around 7:15 but, because I moved earlier, they all now arrive a bit before 7, no one goes home in time for their kids' sports or school plays or whatnot as to admit to a life outside work would be letting the firm down. I think people here are as driven as people in London or NYC but, for what I dunno, they're not living in London or NYC; they're just people working a lot and living nowhere in particular. I hope people in other cities like Toronto, Omaha or Tulsa for example, have a bit more balance about their lives.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

I hope it is a beer of good provenance DBD.

Your post doesn't exactly fill me with hope about a future working life in Toronto.. I was going to ask if that attitude hadn't provoked some kind of backlash - surely the french influence from the north makes people realise there is such a thing as work-life balance, or is it the same in Quebec? - but I found some links. I encourage you to try the 1st one, set an example DBD.

http://www.utoronto.ca/hrhome/hwb/ev...kthelunch.html

http://www.asiapacificresearch.ca/ca...bury_final.PDF

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

You may think you deserve more breaks and who knows maybe you do, but one thirty minute break is all you are entitled to by law.

Here is a link to the Alberta Employment Standards Code.

Pay particular attention to Part 2, Division 3, 18 "Rest Periods".

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

My last office job in the UK only gave a half hour lunch. Mind you, I was sat on my arse for the other 7 hours, so it was a chance to stretch my legs and get away from the pc for a bit.

I completely sympathise with the OP. I work in retail now and Saturdays do an 8 hour shift (8.5 including lunch break) and we are not allowed to sit down at all, even when it's quiet. You sit down and get caught, you get "written up".
Don't forget that many retail employees are on minimum wage, working that job because there's nothing else, so is an hour too much to let them take the weight off their feet? Sadly, the Dickensian views of many employers deem it not to be. I think a change in the law would be helpful, but this is Canada and who complains? (Apart from us lot).

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Nope. People here are work driven too.
And so many people are so miserable - I wonder if maybe they can make the connection?

Either my wife or I take our son to school in the mornings - you wanna see some of the downright miserable people, their contempt for others thinly masked.

When we lived in Montreal, people liked to compare themselves in contrast to Torontonians. The attitude was: in Quebec, people worked to live and in Ontario, people lived to work.

If you ask me, it's bollocks to work yourself stupid. There is more to life than commuting, working long hours, commuting and basement renos. In the end, you're not impressing anyone by working 60 hours a week and finding solace with other overworked people paying off their two SUVs and solid gold BBQs.

It's nice if you can find balance, but sadly, people keep chasing the "dream" job or house, never happy with what they have.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

I guess I was unclear there, I know what the workplace in Toronto is like, "humourless" and "puritan" are a couple of words I think apt, I was expressing the hope that in other cities of similar size and amenities people look after themselves better.

Incidentally, I see that you live near Main and Danforth, have you ever been in Bill's Fish and Chips (at Gerrard and Main)? That's the scuzziest restaurant I've eaten in anywhere.

Re: 30 minute lunch breaks.
 

Pride, then Wells' IPA.

There's no French influence in Toronto. There are French people but they have no authority.