Print it and hang it in the break room. No comment necessary. See if your coworkers join you next break.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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Send this shit to an attorney.
One of the best bosses I ever had was a Korean man who was very religious and yet very kind. He made a similar comment to me once. I was on my lunch break and he came to me to talk about work stuff, I was watching the clock and when my lunch break was up I went to punch in. When I sat back down he commented about how it looked like I was only there for the money.
It was a good job but I don't feel comfortable speaking other than the truth even for niceties so I leveled with him.
"This is a good job, and I am here for the money. I do respect you and I respect your time but I have bills to pay and I have already been warned about going over 40hrs on the time clock to complete rush cases on Fridays. If we are going to be a team and we're going to work together then you need to understand that I share a two bedroom apartment with three people and none of us can afford a car. You came to me on my lunch break to talk about CNC equipment and I was about to run out of time on my lunch break so I clocked back in. This is a work conversation so I don't feel out of line and doing that. Is this not a work conversation?"
He was a little shocked but respected it. It opened up a line of dialogue and a relationship that I felt was quite meaningful. In the following years he and I had a lot of awesome conversations. I miss that dude. I stayed with the company until just after they fired him and then the company went to shit.
The proper response isn't to quit, It to send a response that says that the law requires a break, and you intend to follow the law, even if my supervisor demands that I break the law. I will not follow an illegal directive.
I'm the future, I will take all legal breaks, for their full amount of time.
Further, I will be saving this email as evidence, in case of any future lawsuits by any employees. Any future discussion of this subject will be shared with the state department of labor.
And I would copy HR.
They'd just find a bullshit reason to let you go, then break more laws sharing disallowed details about your employment.
Sadly, in the US at least, the regulatory capture is complete. Any company acting like this (blatantly breaking labor laws and ignoring worker rights) knows they'll pay less than the cost of keeping the water cooler full in the off chance the labor board sends them more than a mildly worded letter.
I'm not so sure. With that letter, and your response, its going to be hard for them to claim that your firing wasn't retaliatory.
Yeah, skip the email. Go directly to telling the department of labor.
If it is a private company with a 'work family' mentality they'll ignore it entirely on the gamble those kinds of entities never hire, or pay, anyone enough to afford a wrongful termination lawsuit.
And if so, they'll be willing to lie under oath. They're already willing to break the law. They'll have the remaining employees, in the rare odds they're deposed, do the same. If they're already working through lunch, they'll sign a document for their boss that says you stole something.
Except you've got an email where the boss specifically advises you to break the law. They can lie all they want, but that email clearly outlines their illegal policy and expectations.
They can lie, but a judge might declare that to be perjury in light of that email.
Their goal would be to muddy the waters so that their decision is reframed as something other than wrongful termination.
The e-mail, when paired with evidence that smears the terminated party, (forged or not) creates a dynamic where severance appears necessary.
The company can claim they fired the person because they didn't want to pursue criminal charges for theft or smear their name and hope they find Christ or something. And that works with judges. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing and misconduct: they'll just be analyzing if the termination was wrongful.
This is one of the many reasons why unions are important, by the way.
This is one of the many reasons why unions are important, by the way.
Oh, yeah, unionize EVERYTHING. The ONLY reason we have all the employee protections and benefits we have are because of unions. Literally every single thing an employee gets beyond "work harder, or you're fired from your dangerous low-paying job" is because of unions.
"My apologies, this wasnt brought forward in the interview stage. If it continues to be a problem I will.be reachable on this email address."
Is this really real? Hard to fathom but I guess in late stage capitalism anything is possible.
The Brenda person seems like someone that'd get featured in LinkedinLunatics.
On behalf of the team, i volunteer to spend my 30 min calling dept of labor...
Two things stand out to me: "work family" and "support your co-workers."
I don't "support my co-workers," I do my job, and they do theirs. When one of us isn't there, the other one keeps working. Nobody is waiting around for me to finish my lunch. I'm not holding anything up. Tell THEM to get to work, not me. I'm on lunch.
And "work family?" Get fucked with that nonsense. It's my job, not my family. I love my family, I will die for my family. I will NEVER die for my job. You have me for 40 hours a week. The rest is MINE. You don't even have the right to request any of MY time, without compensation.
The value of my excess labor belongs to ME.
..... Not even a two weeks notice
Time to talk to HR about IBS and a possible medical discrimination lawsuit.
In the UK, workers are legally entitled to at least a 20 minute break for every six hours they work, and generally contracts and an employee handbook can offer more. If this was a British firm, Brenda would be feeling the wrath of HR if they caught wind of this.
Brenda
This also runs afoul of US labor laws. Every 8 hour shift must be given at least a 30 minute unpaid lunch break. The difference is white collar hours have no tracking mechanism, so therefore no great enforcement mechanism. In an hourly role your supervisor will ensure that whatever you do, you don't punch in until after your 30 minutes are up.
It wasn't uncommon for people to be salaried so they could pay less than they would hourly making people work up to 70 hours a week. A lot of these slaves are called analysts in the us white collar world.
If that had happened in Germany, Brenda would have provably committed an administrative offence and should stop unless they want to go to jail:
§ 4 Rest breaks
Work shall be interrupted by predetermined rest breaks of at least 30 minutes for working hours of more than six to nine hours and 45 minutes for working hours of more than nine hours in total. The rest breaks referred to in sentence 1 may be divided into periods of at least 15 minutes each. Employees may not be employed for more than six consecutive hours without a rest break.
§ 22 Penalty provisions
(1) An employer commits an administrative offence if they intentionally or negligently
- contrary to § 4, do not grant rest breaks, do not grant them for the prescribed minimum duration or do not grant them in a timely manner
(2) In the cases referred to in paragraph 1, nos. 1 to 7, 9 and 10, the administrative offence may be punished with a fine of up to thirty thousand euros [...].
§ 23 Penal provisions
(1) Any person who commits one of the acts specified in Section 22(1) Nos. 1 to 3, 5 to 7
- intentionally and thereby endangers the health or working capacity of an employee, or
- persistently repeats, shall be punished with imprisonment for up to one year or a fine.
Can you please adopt me and my small family? We need a path out of this hell hole.
Also she didn't laminate her email so it's not valid anyway
If people didn't redact the names, and instead shame those idiots and companies, maybe they would think twice next time
We need to make Brenda famous...like Astronomer Cold Play Famous
Lmao eat a bag o’ dicks Brenda
corporate speak is revolting.
Let's correct this behaviour :-)
it sounds like an evil nursery worker
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I suppose this shit is from u$ or another such savage country. In Europe the company would pay a huge penalty for putting pressure to limit the break time.
That's illegal in the US too.
The OP has a pretty solid case, the manager laid it out in writing. This should immediately get forwarded to HR, upper management. Depending on their response, everything goes to the Department of Labour.
The hard part is proving retaliation, (also illegal). Calling out these types of "team player" people leads to indirect stuff like poor performance reviews, smaller raises, denied PTO, and getting passed up for promotion because you didn't play on their team.
Illegal in California
Illegal even in Florida. If you have to clock out for breaks you get 1/2 hour minimum lunch on an 8 hour shift. Plus I think 2 paid 15 minute breaks, on the clock. I can't imagine this is real because no manager would document the illegal request in an email.
Even in Latin American countries where protections are weaker, this would be considered wildly unacceptable. Only Americans would do this
Living the American dream I guess.
Everybody want to come here! Yeah for sure /s
This email reminds me of the literal month that I lasted at the Costco world headquarters..... Never again
Spill the tea!
Costco has a huge reputation of being really worker friendly. There are fb groups of people providing tips and tricks on how to improve their chances at working at Costco, like they were trying to get into Harvard.
So this is fascinating
Brenda must have a real hardon for the recruitment process...
Brenda is going to need new tires soon
Sure thing, Brenda! I'll be sure to invite my work family to lunch with me for the full allotted time so no one feels unsupported! Thank you for the idea!
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