Does your shop force you to take breaks?

Ding! Ding! Ding!

My biggest problem with this approach isn't the breaks themselves, it's the bullshit pretending that breaks in journalism occur at the sixth hour of any given shift.

You take short breaks (if any) when you can and you get your work done. This isn't Stop & Shop. I don't need to go outside for 20 minutes to refresh my mind, thank you very much.

 

Continue to do things exactly as you have always done and mark the legally mandated breaks on your timecard. Is this hard?

 

Rhody would say rules are rules. It doesn't matter what you think.

 

Mark, the problem in this situation is our boss wants us to take teams, but she also wants an accurate timecard handed in. Schieza told her she can't have both when events force us to work that long at an event. I said I'll take a 20 minute break next time I cover a tourney, but I'm taking double mileage.

 

You think your boss is going to say she wants inaccurate timecards? Take the break or don't take the break. Whatever floats your kayak.

Just turn in the right number of hours with the requisite number of breaks and everyone is happy.

 

I am sure during a six-hour event, you spend 20 aggregate minutes fucking with your phone, posting on here, beating off in the men's room, etc.

Note this on your timecard and move on with life.

 

I'm definitely coming around on the theory calling your paper a "shop" makes you sound like a pretentious douchebag.

You work at a fucking newspaper. Not a "shop."

 

Uh, I work at a chain of newspapers. Therefore, I will call it a shop because that's what I feel like calling it.

Now get off my lawn!

 

If you're covering all-day events on a regular basis, you have bigger issues than breaks. It's poor time management more than anything else and the feeling you have to be present for every second of some useless event when a brief or standalone would do.

 

Yeah, this is really not difficult at all.

 

If I'm covering a state amateur golf tournament and I get there for 10 a.m. and I'm there until it ends that day - sometimes around 7 p.m., I'm not taking a break because I'm not in the office.
If I'm at the office for 8 hours plus, I'll gladly factor in for my screwing around time.

 

You logic escapes me.