Why is my demanding boss telling me not to eat lunch at my desk?

I’ve started eating lunch at my desk because my workload is heavier than ever, and I need to get stuff done while I eat if I want to leave at a half-reasonable time.

A manager has started to pester me about this, saying that it’s something the organisation discourages and that I should have some downtime during the day. This would be appreciated if the same person didn’t pile on the work and become upset when tasks aren’t completed on time.

Why would this manager be so obviously contradictory?

It could be your boss has no concept of the amount of strain you’re under at work, or they could genuinely care about your wellbeing.Credit: John Shakespeare

I think a lot of organisations these days, drawing on a modern understanding of things like cognitive load and the many benefits of taking breaks, have a policy (formal or unwritten) that recommends employees don’t eat while working.

On the face of it, as you hint at in your email, it’s a sensible way of approaching work practices. But what’s not sensible is enforcing the policy without any consideration for why a person might be breaking the rule in the first place.

Now, if this was a colleague at the same level as you, I think you could forgive them for their lack of understanding. Especially if they were someone who worked beside you but not always on the same projects as you – then their inability to grasp that your lunch habit is born of necessity rather than choice would be unremarkable.

Do they think you’re eating at your desk because you like the ambience?

But a boss? We rightly have much higher expectations of managers, particularly direct managers, when it comes to recognising the workloads of their subordinates. So I think it’s fair that you find their conflicting advice annoying and confusing.

But I also think this – that the manager has little idea how much work has been loaded onto your shoulders – is one of the most plausible answers to your question. In other words, they’re being contradictory without knowing it.

This is difficult to sympathise with. If, as you implied in your email, it’s this person’s job to dole out tasks, it’s only logical that they would also have some sense of who might be under strain.

It might also be the case that they do have a good idea of how much work you now have, but aren’t aware of how onerous you’re finding the new combination of tasks. Again, this is something I have a hard time defending; do they think you’re eating at your desk because you like the ambience?

Another possibility is that they have a good sense of both your workload and the strain you’re under, but either want to test you – see if you can adapt – or simply believe you should be able to complete more work in the same amount of time as usual.

If that’s true, my glass-half-empty supposition is that they’re just being unreasonable. I can easily imagine them being one of those interminable bores who believes that because work is the only thing in their life it should be the only thing in the lives of everyone they encounter professionally.

My glass-half-full alternative is that they have great faith in you – they admire your skill and work ethic and are convinced you can do this. You could go two ways if you think this is true.

The first is to decide that their good will and faith in your abilities is all well and good, but won’t magically make the situation easier. If you choose this path, I think you need to make it clear how difficult you find the new workload.

The second is to assume that they’re seeing something in you that perhaps you don’t see in yourself – they’re giving you this extra work because they don’t hope, but know, you can do it well within the time allotted and still go home at a reasonable hour.

I’m being optimistic, I know, but if this sounds conceivable – if this is a manager who has praised your work in the past – one way to approach this may be to embrace their trust in you. Take the lunch break as directed. And take more breaks as well, throughout the day.

It’s not an infallible tactic by any means (especially if your workload is just flat-out absurd), but sometimes by reordering your work schedule, giving yourself a bit more space to breathe, refusing to go hell for leather for hours at a time, you find yourself getting more done in less time.

Don’t get me wrong, this episode may well be a sign it’s time to join a union. Or at the very least, ask for a pay rise. But it could also be a catalyst for taking a fresh approach to your work.

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