New Employee Working During Lunch Break: "I Worked 1 Hour Each Day for 8 Days, So I'm Taking Annual Leave"

"Equivalent to 8 hours of work," requesting annual leave
"What annual leave? This is not Dragon Ball..."

A story has been shared about a new employee who joined two months ago and worked during lunch breaks, then demanded that this time be recognized as one day of annual leave.

Recently, an anonymous office worker community called Blind posted a message titled "Our Company's New Employee Legend." The author, Mr. A, began by saying, "Our company has a one-hour lunch break, but suddenly, a college graduate who joined two months ago started working without lunch breaks and just eating bread roughly from two weeks ago, so I just let it go."

The photo is not related to the specific content of the article. [Photo source=Pixabay]

From the context, it did not seem that anyone asked the new employee to work extra. The problem was that this employee suddenly went to the team leader and said, "I didn't take lunch breaks and accumulated 8 hours, so please recognize it as one day of annual leave." According to Mr. A, the new employee claimed that working 8 hours by skipping eight one-hour lunch breaks meant taking a day off.

Recently, an anonymous workplace community called Blind posted an article titled "Our Company's New Employee Legend." [Photo source=Blind]

Mr. A was baffled, saying, "Of course, it was not recognized, and when I asked what he was talking about, he went out to eat separately during lunch today, didn't answer calls, and still hasn't come back."

Netizens reacted with disbelief to this post.

They commented, "Do they even understand the legally designated concept of break time?" "Why aren't people like that filtered out during interviews?" "Is the lunch break some kind of Dragon Ball? Collecting 8 to make a wish?" "Amazing. He created a benefit that doesn't exist himself," and so on.

Meanwhile, according to Article 54 of the Labor Standards Act, workers are entitled to at least a 30-minute break for working more than 4 hours and at least a 1-hour break for working 8 hours. Article 57 stipulates the 'compensatory leave system,' which allows workers who work overtime, night shifts, or holidays to substitute their wages with leave.

It appears that the new employee in Mr. A's story was requesting such 'compensatory leave.' However, compensatory leave is difficult to recognize solely because the new employee worked during lunch breaks unilaterally, and such a request requires mutual agreement between the company and the worker. Furthermore, if the workload was genuinely too heavy, forcing the employee to forgo breaks, this must be proven.