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[–] 213 points 6 months ago (21 children)

See, the people that do this shit are well trained though. Brenda didn’t demand that he work during lunch and was in fact clear that he was within his rights to not. Instead, Brenda has simply suggested that it would look better and he would conform better if he worked some unpaid time.

They know how to skirt the law. They can still go fuck themselves though, the gaslighting assholes.

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  • [–] 172 points 6 months ago (14 children)

    She did also say "correct this behaviour" which is the corpo way of saying "do it or else"

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  • [–] 76 points 6 months ago (12 children)

    Corpo language is corpo language for a reason though: it is legally safe to deploy. Intent is so very very hard to litigate.

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  • [–] 72 points 6 months ago (6 children)

    If you were in a jury box and were shown just this message and a note about how he was fired two months later for "not being a team player" you'd infer the intent and vote to hold the company liable for wrongful termination.

    Corpospeak keeps a "work through lunch" message from being a self-evident labor law violation even if no adverse action occurrrd. They don't disguise intent if those later bad actions occur

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  • [–] 38 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    Workplace litigation effectively never gets a jury.

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  • [–] 47 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Doesn't "correct this behavior" very directly imply that the current behavior (in this case, taking your full lunch break) is incorrect and therefore in need of correction, though?

    It's one thing to suggest something, but calling it a "correction" changes things, I'd think.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    You’d think. Really, you would, I’m not being sarcastic.

    I’ve also been around long enough to know that rational doesn’t really apply to corpos. As dumb and as frustrating as this is, I really don’t think this message would be actionable.

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  • [–] 51 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    And that's why you retain the email. Establishing a pattern makes the specific language less important, although in this case there's a pretty clear implication that the employee will be punished for using their full meal break.

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  • [–] 44 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Ianal but "voluntarily" taking a shorter lunch break is still illegal in some states. In my state, my boss would get in trouble if it could be proven that they knew I wasn't taking the full, mandatory 30 minutes.

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