Insanity, The Office-style

Actual email message from my boss:

Questions have arisen regarding the new time sheets and required work time. All staff are to work 8.5 hour days or 42.5 hours per week. If you’ve been approved to work 4, 10 hour days the equivalent is 10.65 hours or 10 hours and 39 minutes per day).

There are also two choices which are to a) take a 1 hour lunch with no breaks, or b) take a ½ hour lunch and 2 - 15 minute breaks.
No one may leave ½ hour or 1 hour early or come in late by not taking breaks or lunch. If you have a medical apt. early in the morning or late in the afternoon, you may not use your lunch times in lieu of your leave time. If apt.’s are during your normal lunch period then that is acceptable, assuming you don’t also take an hour for lunch.

Also, it was explained some time ago that if you have lunch as part of a required meeting, such as our staff meetings, you may then take a ½ hour break if needed, but not have lunch and then take another hour off for lunch.

Flex time may be used as needed and with approval, but you may not use flexing on a daily basis to shorten your work day. Salaried staff do not receive hour for hour flex time.

I hope this clarifies things for everyone and should ensure consistency and equity. If you have any questions or concerns, please see me. The most important concern is that we’re here for our stakeholders when they need us, which for now is Monday-Friday from 8:30-5:00.

Then the next day we had a Department Luau party for two hours.

NOTE: I work 4 10 hour days, and this was my response, which was not yet replied to:

I’m not sure who you discussed it with but I’m pretty sure the County has always figured the 4/10 week like this:
Five day, 8 hour/day employee works, given ½ paid, ½ unpaid hour long lunch break, for a workday length of 8.5 hours. Time actually worked is 7.5 hours (7.5 x 5 = 37.5 hours).
Four day, 10 hour/day employee works, given ½ paid, ½ unpaid, hour long lunch break, for a workday length of 10.5 hours. Time actually worked is 9.5 hours (9.5 x 4 = 38 hours).
So actually the 4/10 employee works a half hour longer than the 5/8 the way the County sets up its breaks.
The breaks and lunch time are given per workday (based on hours/day, regardless of the hours worked per week – that is the legal requirement), not per total hours worked, which is why it is still fair for the 4/10 employee to work the extra half hour. The 5 day employee gets 5 hour-long breaks, whereas the 4 day employee gets (rightly) 4 hour-long breaks. If a 4 day employee is required to have 10 hour 39 minute work days to have the equivalent workday hour length, they should then have the equivalent of 5 hour-long breaks, to make the time actually worked equitable, which doesn’t make sense if they are only working 4 days.

Don't even get me started on the factory based "two fifteen minute breaks" instead of just using them at the end of the day to leave a 1/2 hour earlier.

Crazy.