I had an internship at CreateSpace after it was purchased by Amazon, paid hourly with time cards!
My normal lunch procedure was to clock out, order a pizza from a nearby pizza place, drive out to pick it up, bring it back to my cubicle, clock in, and eat it at my desk. This also works well with sandwiches.†
I later learned that I was legally required to take at least 30 minutes of lunch break, and I was horrified. Thankfully there was no enforcement. My mind boggles at the idea that workers need legal "protections" requiring them to spend less time at their home.
Do your work from 9h to 16h, and enjoy a bigger part of your life.
† It was also pretty common for everyone to go out together to a big group lunch. In such cases, the time taken for lunch is whatever it ends up being. But I was free to spend as little time as I wanted on my own individual lunch, if there wasn't a group lunch.
But then you're eating during your worktime. I'm pretty sure your "check out, order, take it, bring it back, eat it" routine takes more than 30 minutes total time. Your employer might be OK with that, and I don't know if that's common in the US, but in France, that's illegal (many people still do it, though). You're not supposed to take your lunch break while working (or else it wouldn't be a "break" in the first place).
Capital has vastly more leverage than any individual laborer. If lunchbreaks weren't mandated, I can assure you most companies would develop cultures where stopping to eat was considered "slacking".
Why the downvotes? This is a real point of view. I eventually got so fed up hearing about Game of Thrones and trite opinions about Trump's stupidity that I developed a habit of completely skipping lunch, telling my colleagues I was into keto. They respected it, God bless them.
I think it might be a culture thing but at where I work no one actually uses the break room to eat lunch, everyone eats at their desk. With that said a lot of people do so by skipping the lunch break time
My normal lunch procedure was to clock out, order a pizza from a nearby pizza place, drive out to pick it up, bring it back to my cubicle, clock in, and eat it at my desk. This also works well with sandwiches.†
I later learned that I was legally required to take at least 30 minutes of lunch break, and I was horrified. Thankfully there was no enforcement. My mind boggles at the idea that workers need legal "protections" requiring them to spend less time at their home.
Do your work from 9h to 16h, and enjoy a bigger part of your life.
† It was also pretty common for everyone to go out together to a big group lunch. In such cases, the time taken for lunch is whatever it ends up being. But I was free to spend as little time as I wanted on my own individual lunch, if there wasn't a group lunch.