Boss bans tech employee from taking lunch after allotted time, forcing employee to go on break while the company's entire network is down: ‘So I clocked out’

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Jun 29, 2026 11:15 AM EDT

To take a lunch break or not to take, that is the question!

With all due respect to the work we all get paid to do every single day, lunch break is probably the most important part of an employee's day. It is the time to recharge, to socialize, and most importantly, to eat. It provides employees with a much-needed pause to the workday, which allows them to come back afterwards with newfound strength and energy.

Working a 9-5, you tend to find your favorite period of time to take your lunch break, unless your workplace has a set time in place. We assume most people like to take their break between 12 and 1 PM, allowing themselves to cut their workday exactly in half and eat their lunch at the right time. 

However, work is usually a dynamic thing, and sometimes your schedule has to adapt to the changes your job demands. If there is a certain work crisis, for example, you might decide that lunch has to be postponed for a few hours, so you can deal with the problems at hand and not leave your coworkers or clients with an issue you can fix. How can you drop everything and go enjoy your lunch when you know your help is needed?

If you're working for someone like the boss in the story below, you might not have a choice. An IT employee shared on Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance how they were late to take lunch one day because they were busy fixing an issue with a computer. After they were done and managed to grab lunch, their boss chastised them for going on a break outside the normal lunch hours and insisted it can't happen again. 

An odd request for an IT employee who's in charge of the company's entire tech support, but how are they to argue? The next day, even as the company's entire network was having problems, the employee complied with the lunch company policy and clocked out at the right time, leaving the issues to wait until their return. What was the boss's reaction this time? Scroll down to find out.

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