How do you deal with unfairness at work?

Ok, this has been making me nuts for the last couple weeks. My boss says that I have to take a 1/2 hour unpaid lunch, so I'm here 8.5 hours & get paid for 8. Other people are allowed to choose if they want to take a lunch break. Then there are other people that get away with murder. One woman works 3 12 hour shifts (this is how we run our production so that's normal), but then each of those three days she goes home for 2 hours & claims to "take work home with her" even though I never see her leave with anything. Then another woman comes in an hour after I do & leaves at the same time I do & still puts 8 hours. I'm not positive if she takes a break or not, but even if she doesn't she is cheating the company out of a half hour. In both these cases I was preety much told to mind my own business & that "It all works out". So basicly I feel like I'm being singled out for crappy treatment, or being told that I don't do as much when I can tell you that I do way more than either of these women.
I've just had it, I want to change jobs, but since I went back to get my Masters degree I won't have time to look until spring. So I need help to be less frustrated because right now I've got a bad attitude & frankly hate having to come here in the morning.

Become like them and try to get away with whatever you can without getting caught.

Unfortunately some times it pays to be sneaky.

I'm sorry you have to go through this stuff at work - Its tough, especially when you can't change your situation.

Thats crazy! has anyone else commented on it? Can you not go to your bosses boss? Or even their boss? I know if this was my work it would be very difficult to get anything done so Id go to the Union.
Do you have one of those? If not Id go to citizens advice, I dont know what it is in USA but Im sure someone on here will but I would not put up with that. I know its only half an hour but you add that half hour up over the month and you are losing out big time!!
Good luck!

I hear you loud and clear-that's why I'm glad I'm not in the corporate world. I had to put up with several people "trained" to do the same job as I but one always had to have help cause she just didn't understand some aspects of the position and stressed herself out.
That's my fault how????? I got accused of taking to long to drive back from seeing a client-the company isn't going to pay for my speeding ticket and just because you exceed the speed limit I'm not going too. What did they think I was doing -shopping???-where I had to travel-not likely!!
Are these people the bosses "pets"?? Just count down the days before you can look for a new position. I left the job at work and since I had to drive about 11 miles home I always thought to myself that I was "driving away" from my job!!
In the spring I fought my urges to smack some of these co-workers by weeding!!! I was pulling weeds imagining I was doing something to them (hehe)

To be honest, I'm going through much the same as you are, at my job. I work the Graveyard shift, the shift that no one else wants to work, I have less flexability with my job as far as calling out sick and I ALWAYS have to work almost ALL of the holidays, because they don't fall on my off days. Yet, I make less money that some people who have been there 4 years less than I do. Not to mention that those same people, call out sick on a weekly basis, and are late at least twice a week, and they make lots of mistakes. I don't know how to handle it correctly. I am hurt and upset, most of the time, and it's giving me a very bitter attitude.

Originally Posted by HopeHacker

I am hurt and upset, most of the time, and it's giving me a very bitter attitude.

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Yep this is exactly how I feel. I did go to my boss who said she would talk to this other woman's boss, but never did. A co-worker who knew how upset I was tried to talk to her boss got the line about "It all works out" & some other line about his employees being hard workers. I'm afraid to go to my bosses boss because he doesn't want to have to deal with any of this, he believes his employees should deal with it & I can't go to the HR manager because it's his employee. It's a rock & a hard place & I just have to learn to live with it.

I once worked for a prosthetic's company and it was the same way there! That's where my mom and husband (then fiance worked, yes I met him there ) I was supervisor over the "clerical" department. But the place was so micromanaged that everyone was "supervisor" over something... anyways, shortly after my husband and I got engaged I was treated differently by OUR plant manager. I remember I was helping in another department with a very late backorder and counted and packaged over 100,000 tiny little heart valves and did I get the credit? No. the lazy chick who was getting "benefits from the boss" got it. And they wonder why my husband and myself quit? They even started making him and I take different lunches and then went to the extreme of telling him he was going on 3rd shift . And what really made us mad, was there were other married couples who worked there and they allowed THEM to work and take lunch together.
Anyways, I would tell them that you dont mind taking the 1/2 lunch as long as the same applies to everyone else
Sorry, didnt mean to hijack your thread, just vented a little lol..

I know how you feel about this. And you are in a lose-lose situation because if you tell higher management about what's going on then your are the "whistle blower", but if you try to do the same thing that they are you might get caught and get into trouble.
I would not do the same thing that they are, because they are in the wrong and they are stealing from the company. You probably just need to find a new job. I was in the same situation you were...at the place where I use to work we had a phone system to clock our selves in and out of work, lunch, breaks etc. .....well certain people in my unit would "cheat" the system, if they were running late, they would call their friends to clock them in, or they would leave early and ask their friends to clock themselves out...that is stealing from the company, so I had mentioned it to my manager, and lets just say they blew it off, and it made my work enviroment very uneasy with the coworkers that were in the wrong...i finally had to look for another job, and I am glad that I did, because I love where I work now.

I worked at a job where persons that spoke French were allowed to get away with murder (god love bilingual ontario). I understand french, and read french but my vocabulary isn't the greatest to carry on a conversation in french. The lady I shared my job with was alowed to take 40 minute smoke breaks, 1.5 hour lunches, leave early to play golf or go to hockey games while I picked up the slack. Shw was also the slowest person I have ever seen at doing the most menial tasks. I was told that I was not her superior and could not ask her to speed up or anything... I left the job 1 year from the day I started because of the bull I had to put up with.
I'm so glad I now work in a place where there isn't such a double standard

As much as it sucks, not much can be done about stupid, annoying people, there are just tooooo many of them. The making you work when you are not being paid is something else. Most states have an anonymous way you can report it, and not be branded a whistle blower. Check the your Labor Board in the state where you live. We had that problem with the job I worked on as a holiday temp last year, and it was taken care of pretty quickly.

Sorry but it's nice to know that others are having the same problems I am. At least my suffering isn't alone per say. I hate my job with every fiber of my being. My boss is the most two faced evil rendition of Demon spawn I've ever seen! Not only is she taking the day off I asked for, but the two persons whose b-day it is, she isn't giving them the day off, she's giving it to other people! How's that for a kick in the pants? But now did SHE get a WHOLE weekend off for her b-day? Heck YES! Did she shaft our other shift leader and not give her her b-day off? heck YES! Is she selfish demon spawn!? I SAY HECK YES!!!!!
(oops sorry..... ) my bad!
I hear and feel so sorry for your situation! Hopefully you'll find a better job soon!

As I understand it (which is only partially), there are different types of employees to whom different regulations apply. I believe that employees who are paid an hourly wage MUST take a certain amount of time for lunch and/or breaks under applicable labor laws... while salaried employees are not "protected" in that way. (I know, it's a protection many of us would rather not have... I'll gladly skip lunch to have a shorter day.)

Anyway, that may be the distinction involved here... but you do have every right to question it, and you deserve an explanation. If you'd rather not challenge your employer, you might (as someone else suggested) contact your state's labor department and see what they can tell you.

Good luck!

Or you could send an anymonous letter to your bosses boss. I bet that'll get him where it hurts. If he knew what his employees were doing. Just type it up on the puter and send it to him. Noone knows who sent it snail mail with a typed address so they can't identify the handwriting(or have a friend write it if you don't have the label maker in your puter.), noone gets blamed.

WOW and I thought my work was childish for having a "diary" where the day and evening and overnight managers b***h at each other all the time. hmm my job is looking pretty good now... I'm sorry there are so many that are so bad though