We’ve all heard that there was no such thing as a free lunch but it is starting to look like there will soon be no such thing as lunch. A recent study has shown that the Irish lunch hour has been whittled away to a mere 38 minutes on average. The British are even guiltier suffering a mere 28 minutes of dining freedom. We have to stop and ask ourselves a few questions here.

In Ireland, satisfaction with life is dropping rapidly due to increasing stress levels, property prices, trying to get a job outside of Dublin and many other factors. In response we recognise that we are one of the most efficient workforces in Europe and now we are disposing of our lunch hour for reasons that one can only attribute to increased workload. However, in conflict to this, our country is hemorrhaging jobs in many sectors, supposedly pricing ourselves out of the market. Could this price problem be linked to the unrealistic hours that people are expected to work and the demands made of them outside of 9 to 5? Will Irish employers see that enforcing shorter lunch breaks, longer working hours and shorter weekends, is actually detremental to the compos mentis of their workers? I fear not. As usual too many employers have their heads firmly rooted in the base of their digestive systems, always thinking that the workforce is dispensible. Well, here’s an interesting thought: They took the same attitude in lots of American companies many years ago and soon thereafter the expression “went postal” was born. Nobody wants to see an Irish version of that phrase. Wake up Ireland! Don’t get back to work, get back to life! source: Irish Times

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