'We need to comply to avoid being excluded': Team leader implies required lunch break location to promote synergy and "cohesion"

It's surprising how often behavior like this takes place in manipulative workplaces where the employers, and their obedient middle managers, skirt around direct breaches in employees' rights by implying that something bad will happen to them if they don't follow the suggested behavior.

That's what Reddit user u/Thisnickname reported experiencing when their manager told them that the director had decided that “every employee should eat lunch and spend lunchtime in the break room with everyone else.” This, instead of employees spending their lunch breaks to, take a moment to themselves in the varied ways that they usually would.

via Sander Dalhuisen

The reported idea behind this “suggestion” was that it would “improve team cohesion,” but ironically, it seems to have had the opposite effect by causing dissatisfaction amongst the team.

It seems simple to most of us that — if the leadership desires stronger communication amongst the team, they should find other ways of instituting it during working hours — without commandeering the employee's personal time on their lunch breaks. It's pretty easy to put structures of regular communication in place without demanding the employee's own time.

When u/Thisnickname posted their story in a thread on Reddit's r/antiwork subreddit, it drew a predictable response from readers, who criticized the employer for setting requirements for how the employees spend their time.

Keep reading for the screenshots of the original thread and reactions below; for more, check out this bad boss who sent a worker home for declining to participate in his made-up mandatory overtime.

Have you ever experienced anything like this in the workplace? What's your take?

via u/Thisnickname