Clearing the backlog, part one

First of all there's a post I wrote back at the end of August about one particularly charmless slacker currently employed by us and you can read that post here.

My perfectly clear understanding at the time was that this young minx had had her tea break privilege withdrawn for what wasn't actually desribed as 'taking the piss' but amounted to that nevertheless.

The requirement in law as that workers are not required to work longer than four hours without a break. Here we interpret that more generously than necessary to mean that anyone working a four hour shift is entitled to a break during that shift. But it is made clear when employing someone and specifying their shifts, as well as via posters at the clocking-in machine, on the staircase to the staff room, inside said staff room and at a couple of additional strategic positions that this is a privilege and as such it is something that can be withdrawn by the business.

And I understood that to have happened in the case of the minx.

But some instinct born of bitter experience warned me to re-confirm recently on a rare night when the two of us were working the same shift. And sure enough the privilige has been re-instated and according to the Handmaiden that's because "we can't actually withhold her tea break". Yes we can, and if we did a bit of that sort of thing the rest of the slackers might take us just a little bit seriously.