Imaging technician told to take their breaks "No matter what," leaves customers waiting and stuns management: 'I'm only doing what you asked'

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Apr 9, 2024 10:00 AM EDT

There's this thing that happens in some organizations where upper management knowingly sets policies that they know infringe (or come close to infringing) on their legal minimum obligations to their workforce. Then they act all surprised when said minimum obligation isn't being upheld because it's simply not possible to do under the constraints they've created.

A perfect example of this is employee breaks, of which there are usually laws where you're working around when, how long, and how often you're entitled to leave your duties and get some mental headspace. Of course, within certain industries (cough retail and service cough), employers have this silly tendency to staff their stores at critically low levels, ensuring that there is never enough staff on hand for workers to take their obligated breaks. Of course, upper management will always be upset and listen to no excuses when they get complaints from customers about wait times and lack of staffing, blaming their overworked and exhausted workers for not working hard enough. And if workers ever dare to raise this issue themselves, the onus of the blame will be placed upon them while upper management puts on an Oscar-winning performance, acting outraged that their employees would dare place them in the "precarious" legal position of not taking their breaks.

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This happens in other quite serious areas, too, such as management placing deadlines or demanding efficiencies that can only be accomplished by cutting corners with quality control or safety standards—leading to sometimes disastrous results.
Yeah, this is an experience that will be familiar to a lot of workers out there, and the story below is a classic example. This imaging technician at the outpatient clinic had watched their team slowly dwindle from a team of five members to just them. The nature of their work demanded that someone always be ready to undertake a scan if a patient required one, and since they were operating alone, they never had the chance to take their breaks. Cue management was “shocked" and “horrified” to find that the technician wasn't taking their breaks, resulting in an order that they must take their breaks “No matter what.” So, the technician complied, ending up with a predictable result. Sure, now they're going to get the ire of their managers because of upset waiting customers. But what else can you do in this situation?
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Imaging technician told to take their breaks "No matter what," leaves customers waiting and stuns management: 'I'm only doing what you asked'

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