Is this normal?

Post Reply New Topic

The holidays are coming up, so we're going to be working a lot of twelve hour shifts over the next couple months. My managers just held a meeting to let everyone know something else, too: they'll be timing our bathroom breaks. Even when we're working twelve hour days, we still only have two fifteen minute breaks and one hour long lunch break. Every time we get up to go to the restroom, they'll time us and then deduct that time from one of our fifteen minute breaks. So if you take five minutes to go to the restroom, you only have a ten minute break. If you have to go again before break time, you only get a five minute break. Is that something that other companies do, or is it just us?

I think that really sucks!

Unfortunately, I do believe it's legal what they're doing.

The only positive out of all of this----you'll be making lots of overtime bucks.

The worst part is that they smile at us the whole time and acting like they're giving us good news. "We're going to deduct any time you spend in the restroom from the two fifteen minute breaks you get a day. Now go kick this holiday season's butt! Who's ready to get out there and SUPPORT WALMAAAAAART????! !! !!"

Yep. That's Walmart for you!

Seriously, with any new policy, there seems to be a social aspect in which the policy is taken seriously at first, and then things slide back to the way they were. Just don't push the envelope too much, but some reasonable chance that after a week or two, you could stretch the break to 20 minutes without anyone saying anything, and just forget about the time deducted for something as normal and human as going to the restroom, for crying out loud!

With Walmart cashiers in a store, the computer will saying "approaching lockout" at 5 and a half hours. And at 5:45 will not let the cashier start any new transactions. And supposedly, cashier will get in trouble if they don't clock out for meal break by 6 hours. Meaning, a 12 shift may be bumping against this, but Walmart warehouses may be different.

I work at the home office.

A Ha, the famous Bentonville!

That isn't fair. People need to go to the bathroom, and it shouldn't have to count as part of your break. Sounds like your company is one of those stingy ones who can't bear to pay you for not working for 5 (or less) minutes while you go to the toilet.

Where I used to work they had an unfair policy. The smokers were allowed to have 5-minute smoke breaks, so long as they tell a supervisor, but this did not affect their break time, they still were allowed the full half-hour break. But non-smokers were only allowed their half-hour break and were reported if they were seen getting a drink of water or having a two-minute rest (the work there was very physical). One non-smoker had to leave just 5 minutes early every day to catch a bus, but she was forced to knock 5 minutes off her break. But the smokers went out for a smoke break 3 or more times, so basically they got 45 minutes of break altogether. I never saw the fairness in that.

That's gotta suck. I do 8 hour work days and we're meant to get 20 mins for morning tea and 30 mins for lunch, but because the big boss lives and works in another state, when he's not around we tend to end up taking about 40 min morning tea and 40 min lunch. My manager's pretty laid-back.