Employees at a Missouri company were unimpressed by the note their manager posted in response to staff complaints about a lack of breaks.
A photo of the note was posted to the subreddit “r/antiwork,” and commenters were shocked both by the manager’s poor grammar and her strange approach to solving a staffing shortage.
The Missouri manager posted an unreadable letter to staff who were upset with the lack of shift breaks.
“In the state of Missouri breaks are not mandatory,” the manager, Kimberly, wrote to her staff in a neon-green letter taped up in the workplace. “We give them to help control labor!”
Reddit
She explained that she’s also allowed to let the employees work for any amount of time before cutting them from the floor because, like the shift break regulation, there are no clear laws about it in Missouri.
She added that she is required to give 15-year-olds a break, meaning that at least some of her employees are teenagers.
Kimberly insisted that the reason the employees aren’t allowed breaks is because of how short-staffed they are.
“I need everyone to understand we are short staff so lay off about the brakes if we can give you a break we will. But if we can’t, stop the attitude [sic],” she bluntly concluded the letter.
The manager is not wrong — Missouri employers are shockingly not required to give employees breaks.
According to Missouri law, employers are “not required to provide employees a break of any kind, including a lunch hour.” The decision to allow for breaks is “left up to the discretion of the employer,” agreed upon during hiring negotiations, or addressed in company policies or contracts.
Although Kimberly said that she must provide 15-year-old employees with a break, Missouri law doesn’t even guarantee that. Youth workers — those under 16 — are also not required to be given a break unless they work in the entertainment industry.
There are no federal laws requiring breaks.
Even though Kimberly legally doesn’t have to give her employees breaks, she should want to treat her employees well.
No one wants to work straight through an 8-hour shift without a moment away to eat or even breathe. If this manager viewed her employees as people first, and workers second, she would have empathy and understanding and provide a lunch break, at the very least.
Aside from the ethics of the matter, commenters on Reddit pointed out that the way to solve a staffing shortage is certainly not by upsetting your remaining staff.
Breaks are incredibly beneficial at work.
A lack of breaks entirely is shown to lead to burnout, higher stress levels, and fatigue among employees.
Conversely, breaks lead to better mental and physical health, lessen employee stress, improve memory and focus, and even boost productivity — something employers are likely attempting to do by refusing said breaks.
When it comes to employers like Kimberly, there’s no positive outcome in running a “dictatorship of the illiterate,” as one Redditor put it, where employees don’t have a voice, and their complaints fall on deaf ears. Part of being a successful leader is looking out for the well-being of your employees and creating a safe and positive work environment.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.
