In any job, but especially the thankless, minimum wage kind, break time is a sacred space. It’s an all-too-short period where you get to ignore the hustle and bustle of work, put your feet up, grab a bite, and have some of that precious screentime (we all know that breaktime phone is a close second to scrolling in bed before sleeping phone). It is a moment for the humble employee to collect themselves and prepare for whatever the rest of their shift may throw at them, a necessary pause.

Unfortunately, in some workplaces, employee breaks can be seen as something more flexible than they should be. It has to be the priority of management to try and get it right when it comes to break time. This is not just for the sake of their workers, but also because it is easy for other things to go very wrong if this isn’t right.