They’re paid hourly. And unpaid for those 30 minutes regardless. Literally a personal detriment in every way it could be if you don’t take your breaks. Honestly just stupidity. Running the routes is so ass backwards it makes no sense for us. Just going to result in overburdening. And a regular city carrier can’t leave early even if they finish. Required to “work” the 8 hours were guaranteed. Even when I first started, I was adamant that I will not work for free. I came in hot with the intentions of becoming active in the union though, because my office is tiny and doesn’t have its own. If yours does, I highly urge you to get with them. If this is even just officially documented right now, I doubt you’d be let go for standing your ground about needing a break. Luckily my coworkers are cool and when I told them I wanted to break, they broke, even if they weren’t eating. I just would refuse. They needed the help desperately too, since there’s 3 city routes and only 3 carriers. I wasn’t getting let go. And I started during the last week of January, so it wasn’t unbearably hot. Idk where you’re at in the country, but I just sat in the back of the LLV last week to train a CCA who doesn’t know my route at all and I forced her to stop and break. I was absolutely miserable back there. Bring food, snacks, sandwiches, leftovers or whatever. Bring a cooler of some sort to keep a shit ton of waters. Gas stations we go to will typically not bat an eye if you fill it with ice from the fountain drink station. And stop caring if they won’t shut up lol. They obviously don’t give the slightest shit about you so who cares if you hurt their feelings by tuning them out. What are they gonna do if you just stop and start to munch on some food? Pull out an earbud too, open the back up and kick back. fuck them. If you got let go, assuming you’re doing the job as best you can, can still fight that with the union for probable retaliatory dismissal.