March 23, 2010
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At my place of work, per my Union contract, I am entitled one 15 minutes break, one 30 minutes break, and one more 15 minutes break, for an eight hours shift. Those breaks are divided roughly two hours apart, with a max of 2hrs59mins of work time between breaks, before the company gets a penalty for not giving me my “task-free period” on time. By the way, I should point out that restroom breaks are allowed to be taken whenever is necessary. In comparison, at my wife’s work place, she gets one 1 hour break in the middle of her shift (restroom breaks are whenever as well). In theory, she *could* take a break whenever she feels like it, but usually only if her work load allows it (which is not usually the case).
Between the comparisons, I suppose it depends on the person on which one is more preferable. Of course the ideal situation is that we get to take a break whenever we feel like it.
This subject was brought up recently while I was eating lunch with my family. My Mom and sister-in-law chimed in that when they worked in the Philippines, they practically took a break every hour (or less)! For some employees, they took a smoke break at one point, then took a regular break in the next half hour. In some cases, some of them even took one or two hours breaks to go out shopping at the nearby mall. The caveat is that as long as they got their worked done, they were able to do so, but apparently their work was never busy enough for them NOT to take as many breaks as they want.
Is my mom’s and sister-in-law’s situation the same case for other Asian countries, or other work places in general? I’ve always worked in places that had a strict set policy to when I could take my breaks, so I’ve never had that much freedom in break times before. Must be nice, but weird at the same time to be able to do.
