Father finds the perfect work/life balance as a remote worker, taking a 2-hour lunch break every day in response to his company's lackluster benefits: 'The happiest moments of my life have been watching [my son] grow up during my lunch hour'

Author image for Jesse Kessenheimer
Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Apr 27, 2025 4:00 PM EDT

As a parent, there's nothing more valuable than time with your kids. Especially when they're little, time flies by so quickly, and their childhood goes by in a flash. Suddenly, your sweet baby is turning into a teenager before your eyes, and it's as if only a few short moments have passed. This dutiful dad in our next story found a way to capitalize on every moment with his growing son by taking advantage of his own work ethic. 

With the advantageous 'project manager' title at his back, he carved out 2-hour lunches every single day, blocking out his calendar and marking himself as 'busy' so that he could hang out with his growing young son at home. Some may call this remote worker's tactics 'cheating the system,' but as a worker familiar with how the system cheats us, I'd say he's just found the perfect loophole to be the best dad possible. 

I say, if you can get the job done, exceed expectations, and remain a valuable asset to the team, so what if you only work a 30-hour work week for 40 hours of pay?

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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "I take a very long lunch break in the middle of my workday."

    This has been going on for 3 1/2 years now. I work remotely at a very large fortune 50 company, Monday through Friday, for 40 hours a week. At least those are the hours that I'm "on." Starting
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  • around noon every workday, I take a one and a half to two hour lunch break. I purposely block off my calendar with "busy work" so no one questions what I've been doing. I honestly cannot find
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  • enough hours in the week to be able to do half of the stuff that I need to be able to get done, because that's just part of my job. There is a ton of project
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  • management and follow up with various clients. But that's just about everyone on my team. For some reason, my boss has never questioned me or been suspicious of anything. My
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  • intuition tells me that he might do the same thing himself on his remote days, although he has a hybrid schedule. And that's not all. I have taken vacations before during lighter project weeks,
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  • Cheezburger Image 10497920000
    via DragonImages

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • where a lot of communication isnt required between me and my team. I took my laptop and logged on during mandatory meetings and then logged off right afterwards. I know there is a
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  • lot of talk out there by corporate CEOs saying return to the office is mandatory because of stuff like this, but I always hit my goals, I do everything that's
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  • asked of me, and I exceed expectations every year during my performance review. Honestly, this is the first time in my career where I feel like I have a "normal" work/life balance. I
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  • feel like this is what work really should be. 30-32 hours of core work, while enjoying life the way it should be enjoyed. Some of the happiest moments of my life have been playing with my toddler son and watching him grow up during my lunch hour. Sorry, not sorry.
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  • Radicalsimplicity As long as you do the job very well not sure what the concern is. We work to live, do not live to work. Enjoy life & worry less.
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  • Credit-Limit Brother I do maybe 4 hours of work per day and have been for over 2 years. I've won rewards and bonuses for high performance too. I make like $130k fully remote
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  • Altruistic-Piano1360 The most occurring fraud in the US is employer fraud, companies not paying employees fair wages that rise with cost of living/inflation or not paying for work done outside of the normal shift.
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  • Don't feel bad for one moment. Anyone who is mad about that needs to look at life from a higher perspective. This is it- this is the one life we have. A 90 minute lunch to help with your mental health/morale is not cheating.
    via Altruistic-Piano1360
  • Fun-Palpitation-2117 Look, I'm a manager in an industry where everyone is overworked and half-burnt out at any given moment, despite us all working remotely. If you're hitting your goals, doing everything that's
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  • asked of you, and exceeding expectations during yearly performance reviews, you are a rock star and I don't care how long your lunch breaks are or if you're "working" from your yacht
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  • in the Caribbean. In fact, I think it's awesome that you've been able to strike the perfect work-life balance that so many people seek. We all deserve what you have right now and I wouldn't feel guilty at all. You are not a slave and you deserve the comforts that you've earned.
    via Fun-Palpitation-2117
  • Antiassman Do you king/queen. In Spain they have half days to enjoy nice weather. If we normalized chilling we would all be happier and more productive
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  • chrisinator9393 I'm positive this is the norm across corp America and no one cares. Do it. I'm a custodian and I take up to 4 hour lunches depending on the day.
    via chrisinator9393

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