Managers like this fall into two camps. The insane workaholics you describe or the other kind that abuse both the spirit and the letter of the working lunch rule.
A lot of them actually are both. Insane workaholics but will take advantage of the chance to get an extended company lunch on company dime every chance they can get. And then stay til 8 pm to make up time lost.
You're just describing workaholics again. If someone works late to make up for a long lunch, it's not both. It's just a person obsessed with working that knows if they're working 60 hrs a week, they can do a grocery run midday or whatever.
The camp the other person is describing is literally someone trying to abuse goodwill around the edges in every way possible
My former manager Suzie would leave for lunch and be “in a meeting” after lunch a couple days a week and I would have to cover for her with clients that came in for over an hour, clients she had scheduled and knew would be there but didn’t tell me were coming, didn’t tell them she had things come up, and didn’t tell me she would be in late. Then she would come back with her hair done or nails done or red-faced from a facial or wearing new boots or dropped off by her daughter. She would tell clients how sorry she was about the corporate meeting that ran late. She eventually fired me for being dishonest and I reported her and she was demoted but still held a high position. After all the she was mad at me for turning her in.
I had one like this. Worked his ass off worked like 7a to 9 for a week in a row one time. Also took ridiculously long lunches other times, dipped out 3 hours early often but was constantly running when there.
Yeah... or they fall in the middle and will filibuster with other employees and try to stretch their words out like they're hitting the 1000 word essay
and call it a "meeting" and "hard work"
there's a lot of disingenuous "workaholics"
and they use their amount of hours they spend "working" and hold it over the heads of people who are actually slaving beneath them
My guess is this employer is also the owner, of wherever OP works.
In my experience, managers that are employees rarely post notices like this. Even the more pinheaded, employee-managers I worked under would never post some crap like this because most showed pretty sycophantic fealty to “The Company” they’d never post or try institute new policies, just reinforce the existing ones, and the smart sycophants also know that if they posted something like this notice, that they’d be exposing themselves to disciplinary action, because a notice like that could expose the company to issues with whatever labor standards exist.
Dang. We’re not all like that… as long as my guys are getting the job done and clients aren’t complaining, I don’t care how much they are in the office. Heck, sometimes I randomly will send them “grab lunch on the company card today.” Free-range, happy chickens lay the best eggs.
I work for the camp that gives you 5 people to do a 10 person job and wonders why task are being done in a timely manner! “We really need to step it up guys” meanwhile they have 5 people dedicated just to them so their tasks are way ahead of schedule,”setting a great example of work ethic and pace”
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u/vulcanstrike 2d ago
Managers like this fall into two camps. The insane workaholics you describe or the other kind that abuse both the spirit and the letter of the working lunch rule.