No Lunches

SmilingBluEyes · Feb 4, 2017

So why do nurses constantly sacrifice their lunch break? This is a topic that bugs me quite a bit. A lot of facilities will automatically take out a lunch if you work over X amount of hours. If you don't take your lunch every shift, you are giving up over a 1000 dollars a year if you miss two lunches a week and you make 25 bucks an hour.
Work has a new policy where they will edit punches in the electronic system if you do not have the "no lunch" punch approved.

I honestly don't know. I don't sacrifice my breaks. In nearly 20 years of nursing, I never have not taken a break and not gotten paid for the displeasure. In the hospital, there were plenty of crazy shifts where no break shifts happened. I clocked out "no lunch" every single time. I was paid for that break I did not get.

In my current position, If I don't get a lunch break, I clock out "no lunch", but thankfully, that is not very often. But then, I found a job where breaks are the norm, not a rarity, and I don't have to play martyr to get the job done. I find the older I get, self-care is far more important than self-sacrifice for any company or position. If more people took a stand and stood together, this injustice of unpaid work would not happen.

Rexie · Feb 7, 2017

I was just thinking about this yesterday. I make a point of taking my lunch break every day and if I don't get my lunch break, I will write "no lunch" when I sign out at the end of my shift. Even so, I often feel bad about taking lunch and return early. Even though I won't attempt to go to lunch until my patients are settled, I know that anything could happen and I worry about the nurse who is coving my patients in addition to her own. I wonder if other nurses feel this way too?