Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: In a perfect world winter does not exist
3,661 posts, read 2,947,010 times
Reputation: 6758
Advertisements
I'm Asian and don't understand why in America companies don't realize a well feed and rested worker equals a better worker. I am a post office carrier ( I call it a starvation job) It is so physical at times and I burn a ton of calories. I get a half hr lunch either brown bagging it with lousy cold sandwiches or junk food whenever I can get on the route. Most of the time I have no time to take a half hr cause of the route and eat with dirty hands and wolf it down someplace.
This makes me able to work less fast later in the day. But If I drive to eat a healthy meal, fresh cooked food I would get in trouble cause my scanner is followed by GPS by mgt.
Thats why I am only doing letter carrier for one year and I am quitting I can't take eating daily lunches at 7-11 or at Shell. I hate overnight food.
Meanwhile in Asia they eat very well at lunch and know the body needs food to do better at work especially hard outdoor jobs. Its not frowned upon my bosses to EAT! You should see what they do in my native China at lunch, they eat very compared to American workers. Maybe Google or Microsoft have good food but how many are smart enough to work there?
Thats about the only thing I don't get about American culture and why lunchtime is frowned upon. Some places don't even want to let you eat.
Whats it like in Mexico? Do they really have a siesta time? I am thinking of working with a Mexican crew of workers. I use to see them all the time chilling at lunch at the taco trucks and envy them.
Hey America wake up you are burning workers out. Let them eat a lunch in peace like other countries.
I'm Asian and don't understand why in America companies don't realize a well feed and rested worker equals a better worker. I am a post office carrier. It is so physical at times and I burn a ton of calories. I get a half hr lunch either brown bagging it with lousy cold sandwiches or junk food whenever I can get on the route.
I'm Asian and don't understand why in America companies don't realize a well feed and rested worker equals a better worker. I am a post office carrier ( I call it a starvation job) It is so physical at times and I burn a ton of calories. I get a half hr lunch either brown bagging it with lousy cold sandwiches or junk food whenever I can get on the route. Most of the time I have no time to take a half hr cause of the route and eat with dirty hands and wolf it down someplace.
This makes me able to work less fast later in the day. But If I drive to eat a healthy meal, fresh cooked food I would get in trouble cause my scanner is followed by GPS by mgt.
Thats why I am only doing letter carrier for one year and I am quitting I can't take eating daily lunches at 7-11 or at Shell. I hate overnight food.
Meanwhile in Asia they eat very well at lunch and know the body needs food to do better at work especially hard outdoor jobs. Its not frowned upon my bosses to EAT! You should see what they do in my native China at lunch, they eat very compared to American workers. Maybe Google or Microsoft have good food but how many are smart enough to work there?
Thats about the only thing I don't get about American culture and why lunchtime is frowned upon. Some places don't even want to let you eat.
Whats it like in Mexico? Do they really have a siesta time? I am thinking of working with a Mexican crew of workers. I use to see them all the time chilling at lunch at the taco trucks and envy them.
Hey America wake up you are burning workers out. Let them eat a lunch in peace like other countries.
Why don't you ask if you can get an hour lunch, just work 30 minutes longer each day... some companies will do it. I always thought all Federal employees got a 1 hour lunch break.
Not sure where in Asia you are from, but I know from firsthand experience a lot of places in China only do 30 minute lunches. Most people take food with them to work and eat in cafeterias, oh and they make $3/hr, while working 60 hours a week, with no overtime or benefits.
depends on what work. work in a bank in the Philippines before and we have only 30 minutes lunch break. transferred to the govt and officially had one hour lunch but you can come late, depends on the agency.
now am here in the US and have one hour lunch break also. when we bought a house, it takes at least 40 minutes to drive so I asked for just 30 minutes lunch break to compensate for the lost time driving. here in CA, companies must at least give 30 minutes lunch break.
Judging by his comment I would say City Carrier, for the rest of the board city carriers are paid by the hour, calculated in 20 second increments while rural carriers are paid by the route, no matter how long it takes them to do it so there is less time pressure from the management and union.
Why only a half hour lunch? Law demands at least a half hour and unlike other postal workers you are on the street away from direct supervision so you are on the honor system. On one hand the postal service is thinking operations, and are trying to run a just in time logistics system. By you taking an extra half hour for lunch means they either have to send the mail earlier, losing an half hour to process and send more mail to your route or you stay out an extra half hour meaning that night's mail loses time in leaving your station for the main plant to be processed and sent to the airport.
On the other hand since you are on the honor system to avoid the gas and time to comeback to the station for lunch your union is afraid that you will say I am out for lunch for an hour but run through your lunch to leave earlier and if eight carriers did that we have lost a route, meaning a job and a dues paying union member.
Location: In a perfect world winter does not exist
3,661 posts, read 2,947,010 times
Reputation: 6758
I am a city carrier. There is no one that comes back to the station and eats. Pretty much everyone packs a lunch and eats in the residential area they deliver to. Unless you are lucky to deliver to business districts which hardly anyone gets to do unless you are senior carrier who get the best routes. Once you do this job there is just 0.00000 chance of anything more than half hr lunch. At my old job I ate like royalty, could take 1 hr, 45 mins whatever as long as I made it up. I miss it and I have already counting down the 11 months left to do this mail carrier gig.
One last thing, I am a CCA non career carrier. I am age 46, if I make career next year I will get given the worst walking route in the city 8 hrs of walking it, by the time I get to a good route which is all driving I will be in my mid 50s or more. So there is no way I am thinking this is a long term job.
The reason I am doing this is to prove something to someone really. And than I am free!!!
There really isn't a cultural issue here. You happen to work in what is now a very time sensitive logistic system with people tracking their packages coming online as well as postal management looking at gasoline usage and hard mileage being put on 25 year old LLVs.
In the old days a piece could stay in a plant or station for the next day to make a the daily mail flow smother and nobody knew except the local manager who didn't have to pay overtime to make sure it got out. Today everybody looks at their phone and sees their package staying at a plant when they saw it arrived the night before instead of moving to them and then the Postal Service's, and their unions, fear is the next package will go with a competitor and the postal service fails in its unstated primary mission, which is to generate enough revenue so that the tax payers don't have to fund either the large civil service pensions of those postal workers hired before 1984 or the smaller FERS system pensions for later postal workers
I am a city carrier. There is no one that comes back to the station and eats. Pretty much everyone packs a lunch and eats in the residential area they deliver to. Unless you are lucky to deliver to business districts which hardly anyone gets to do unless you are senior carrier who get the best routes. Once you do this job there is just 0.00000 chance of anything more than half hr lunch. At my old job I ate like royalty, could take 1 hr, 45 mins whatever as long as I made it up. I miss it and I have already counting down the 11 months left to do this mail carrier gig.
One last thing, I am a CCA non career carrier. I am age 46, if I make career next year I will get given the worst walking route in the city 8 hrs of walking it, by the time I get to a good route which is all driving I will be in my mid 50s or more. So there is no way I am thinking this is a long term job.
That is the way it works. The carriers with the most seniority get to choose from the routes that become open. If it is a good route the person first in line takes it. If not they pass it on.
Be glad you are a city carrier. You get paid for every hour. Rural carriers as of recently only get paid for the number of hours the route is rated for. How would you like to work 10 hours each days to complete a route and only get paid for 8.5 hours?
There is a 6pm dispatch in our area. If you are not back from your route the postmaster rides out to get the outgoing mail you have accumulated to get it to the station on time for dispatch.
Carriers do not want to miss dispatch. It's a demanding job and they want to finish, so a light lunch helps them and some do not even take a lunch. They want to finish their route.
It is some of both. Asians do not understand American lunch and Americans do not understand Asian.
The most important meal of the day is breakfast. No postal carrier has time to go to a sit down restaurant. Our carrier can be seen with a cooler of drinks and some food items. They stop and eat for 15 minutes and then try to rest the other 15 minutes. A thermos of hot soup one day with beverage. Maybe a nice salad the next day. Many American workers eat a light lunch. Maybe into fast food for a large salad and "water." The term fast food means eat and go. Obesity is a problem in this country and most Americans need a light lunch or even just a snack like a yogurt or granola bar.
If you want a hour and 45 minutes for lunch become self employed. There is no "making it up later."
That is not reality in this country. I meet an old friend quite often for lunch. We eat a Jersey Mike sub and drink. He drinks water. I asked where he eats lunch every day and he say he bags a lunch like "many kids at school" or a sub shop. It's hustle and bustle and you may quit the postal service only to find out the next place is similar as far as lunch. When you change jobs make sure you look around and see what everyone else is eating for lunch. You may be surprised it's a light lunch.
I'm Asian and don't understand why in America companies don't realize a well feed and rested worker equals a better worker. I am a post office carrier ( I call it a starvation job) It is so physical at times and I burn a ton of calories. I get a half hr lunch either brown bagging it with lousy cold sandwiches or junk food whenever I can get on the route. Most of the time I have no time to take a half hr cause of the route and eat with dirty hands and wolf it down someplace.
This makes me able to work less fast later in the day. But If I drive to eat a healthy meal, fresh cooked food I would get in trouble cause my scanner is followed by GPS by mgt.
Thats why I am only doing letter carrier for one year and I am quitting I can't take eating daily lunches at 7-11 or at Shell. I hate overnight food.
Meanwhile in Asia they eat very well at lunch and know the body needs food to do better at work especially hard outdoor jobs. Its not frowned upon my bosses to EAT! You should see what they do in my native China at lunch, they eat very compared to American workers. Maybe Google or Microsoft have good food but how many are smart enough to work there?
Thats about the only thing I don't get about American culture and why lunchtime is frowned upon. Some places don't even want to let you eat.
Whats it like in Mexico? Do they really have a siesta time? I am thinking of working with a Mexican crew of workers. I use to see them all the time chilling at lunch at the taco trucks and envy them.
Hey America wake up you are burning workers out. Let them eat a lunch in peace like other countries.
Agree and identify with your dilemma but I think the situation you describe is limited to certain type of blue collar jobs - when I worked construction everyone ate on the lunch wagon or as a special treat went to Popeyes - however every other job I have had gave me the freedom to go where I wanted and that right was exercised by going and eating a proper lunch.
At the beginning of the week I make a dozen Gimbap (Kimbob for English). Futomaki, same kind of thing. Seaweed wrap, rice, veggies, steamed lean mean for healthy options use brown rice.
I can eat one in 5 min. I bring sauce to dip it in sometimes. If we have left overs I just steam some fresh rice and shove the left overs in the middle and roll it up. Healthy, quick and delish.
Some jobs let you do hour and some do not. Most of my life is working, even when it's for myself.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Futomaki, same kind of thing. Seaweed wrap, rice, veggies, steamed lean mean for healthy options use brown rice. 
Most of my life is working, even when it's for myself.
