See, right here. The implication is that somehow bosses are unfairly in charge because they have money, that this is some sort of outrageous exercise in tyranny, a usurpation of the natural order of things by the rich. What is actually going on, is the employees' time is being bought and paid for by the bosses. Their money & position are the essential thing in the relationship, because without those, there IS NO relationship. The boss IS elected, by the only vote that counts - the employee, when he agrees to work for that employer. THAT is your vote. And it's not even like in a democracy, where if you vote for the losing candidate, you are stuck with the results of the election for a period of time. You are the only one who gets a vote in who your employer is, and you can revoke that vote at any time, with a personal recall ballot known colloquially as a "letter of resignation" or "two weeks notice".

The discrepancy here is that generations of errors and fallacies have produced a population of whiny man-children who think they are entitled to the best of all worlds. That a job and salary and ancillary benefits are a natural right, like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that to secure these rights, bosses are established among workers, deriving their authority from the just consent of the employed, and that the employees have the right or duty to replace their bosses whenever their employment becomes destructive to such ends. But a job is not a country. It does not attempt to govern your whole life, and tacitly accepts, in principle, limitations on its authority over aspects of your life by denying responsibility for those, such as with the concept of "your own time". With a job, if not with a country, "love it or leave it" IS a legitimate choice to impose. Because you CAN leave a job without changing any other aspect of your life.

The bosses are appointed by the people who pay everyone. That's their prerogative, as the customer who is always right, as employers are customers, purchasing labor and time. They do, and should, answer to their own employers, not their subordinates.

Now this is not to say that concerns about such time-wasting nonsense are not unfounded. The failure of the company has ramifications for the employees, yes. It is possible, depending on the structure of the employment agreement, that the employees might suffer penalties for failure to achieve a degree of work because their time or attention is diverted with this stuff, or because it cuts into their uncompensated time away from work. But if the boss decides that today, instead of doing your normal stuff, you are going to play with tape and food, that's their right, as the people who are paying for your time. If they are going to create unfair demands on your labor to compensate for the time spent on this activity, that would be wrong, but otherwise, like everyone else, they have to make choices and live with the consequences. If they are willing to do that, you can't really ask for anything else.

That's what it all comes down to. Everyone wants the magical solution that gives you everything you want at minimal cost, but there is no such thing. Really, there are no answers to problems, only trade-offs. What you might think of as an ideal solution, is merely a trade-off on terms that are acceptable to you. The employers have to decide how they want to spend the time for which they are paying employees. If they are willing to accept the temporary loss of productivity for perceived enhancement of performance and the possibility of superior productivity down the road, that's their choice to make. The problem here, is if if they try to have their cake and eat it too, if they are unwilling to accept the trade-off, and demand the employees maintain immediate production, with increased duties, no matter if those duties are to "help" them or not. It's not up to the company to decide what's good for the employees. If an employee wants to better himself, he has his own ways of going about that. But you cannot alter the contract with the employee to give him compensation that has not been previously agreed to (in this case, the teaching of certain skills best learned by erecting pasta towers) in exchange for greater demands on his time or effort.

By the same token, the employee has to decide what is the trade-off of time, money and emotional satisfaction he is willing to accept. He does not have the right to unilaterally determine the terms of his contract with his employer, any more than the employer does. An employer changing the demands on the employee, and setting the rate at which the increased demands will be compensated (attend a workshop, in addition to your other duties, to be compensated by the imparting of valuable teamwork skills, as an example of such an unjust alteration), is akin to a shoplifter or customer in a store who thinks that because he spends money there, he is entitled to something over and above what he paid for, like helping himself to additional merchandise, because overall, the store is still making out on the deal. The employees deciding under what terms their employers will supervise and organize the time and labor for which they are getting paid, is akin to a store deciding how their customers will use the merchandise they have purchased, and imposing additional fees, and obtaining court orders to punish them when they decide to take their business elsewhere.