October 28, 2026 at 7:55 am

Man’s Inconsiderate Coworker Throws His Entire Meal Break Schedule Into Chaos

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How annoying is it when your meal breaks get messed up at work?

I’ll tell ya…

VERY ANNOYING.

And this guy knows all about it!

Check out what he had to say about why he’s pretty peeved at a co-worker who doesn’t seem to realize that other people exist…

Get started now!

I think my coworker doesn’t grasp the concept of “other people need breaks.” Or he’s just inconsiderate.

“This happened twice this week.

I work in a department that, from a security standpoint, requires coverage at all times.

Functionally that doesn’t mean I can’t check returns during lulls or help a customer find something elsewhere when I’m by myself, but it does mean I can’t make myself more obviously unavailable by hopping on a register up front or taking my break if nobody is available to cover me.

(Finding out the register would lock me out if I was on the clock too long was interesting…. And amazing how quickly they found someone to cover me when that happened).

He has it all figured out…

The thing is, as a full time employee I try to take my meal break four hours into my shift. Partly for ease of remembering, and partly to avoid the drop in blood sugar/migraine that comes from going too long without eating.

Being on the floor is it’s own kind of stress that contributes so I need snacks at work way sooner than I would on a day off. To make this post easier, this means I’m usually trying to go at about 6 pm.

I can be flexible, especially if I reasonably expect my coverage to want their break around the same time I do. You’re going on your fifteen? Go ahead and take it first if you want. You have the same shift as me?

Let’s stagger our breaks so one of goes at 5:30 and the other at 6:30. Things like that… but we need to talk about it first so I know how long to expect to delay my break.

There’s a problem…

What I struggle with is the guy covering me coming in at noon, so he’d have to take his break by 6 or face a meal violation/locked out of the register (but he could be gone as early as 3 without that issue because it’s all about “six hours on the clock”)… waiting until 5:20 to tell me he’s not going to take it yet because he doesn’t want to take it “early.”

When it’s now too late for me to get mine early because I won’t be done by 6 to cover his. And when I tell him I need to not be late to mine, he walks away to presumably take his….

Hmmm…

Only to show up at 5:45 with the department keys, those ridiculously expensive calculators we sell, and customer in tow, and hands them all off to me so he can finally go to his meal break.

Part of me was wondering if he was working off the clock (he wasn’t wearing his vest), but no, he didn’t reappear to cover me until about 6:45.

Meanwhile my work phone had like a 30% battery because we have way too many job tasks that require using the phone.

Charging when I’m using it isn’t that easy, so another reason to prefer taking my meal break halfway through my shift… less chance the battery will drop so low that it won’t last until I’m guaranteed a chance to plug it in.”

Here’s what readers had to say.

This person had a lot to say.

Another individual spoke up.

This Reddit user shared their thoughts.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who alerted their manager after seeing a customer sign the wrong name on a credit card slip.

And another reader weighed in.