The unfairness of smoking breaks!!!

crazyguy

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Fag breaks should not be sanctioned, end of.

Isn't it a matter of time before a genius smoker ends up suing his company for their contribution to a smoking-related disease?

You are quite late with this comment as it happened quite some time ago.

peterpan567

davidlizard wrote: »

The more they smoke, the more tax they are paying. Which means that is less tax you will need to pay. And many of them kindly turn up their toes earlier in life keeping pension contributions down.

I never thought of it that way. Thanks smokers... you guys carry on!

Jeff_Bridges_hair

Doesnt bother me really.. As long as my staff get the job done then thats all that matters. Even the ones who dont smoke can have a cuppa when ever they want even if the others dont. They get a time to do their work and how they manage that is up to all of them.

timeportal

BottomRung wrote: »

Where I work we must register as a smoker, are allowed 2 15 minutes breaks which must be made up on the same day and not in the lunch hour. If we cannot take one of the breaks or both, we must still make up 30 minutes a day as we are registered as smokers, even if we can't take the break due to being in a meeting or on a call or talking to a customer. I have stopped smoking at work now as it is really quite pathetic that they are discriminating against smokers in this way. Especially when my colleagues spend half the day chatting about football etc. I had my salary deducted last month by 15 quid as I had made up my time but on a different day. When they made the deduction they didn;t tell me what it would be or why and just reduced my basic salary rather than show it as a deduction, which i'm pretty sure is illegal but they don't give a cr*p as everyone is replaceable to them. So now I get in dead on 9 and leave dead on 5 whereas before I would have freely given them extra time if needed. I now have lost all respect for this greedy company, who funnily enough are having the busiest couple of years they ever had.

You dont work for overlord (the troll on the garden centre thread) by any chance do you?

mazza111

My last job I could nip for a smoke in between customers. A couple of non smokers complained to manager about this. Keeping in mind that manager was normally out there at the same time. So gave him the option that I could either continue as I was doing (and he could explain to the non smokers) or I could take the 20 minute break that I was entitled to. I used to go in about 30 mins early, so I could enjoy my coffee and smoke before I started, then the petty minded ones also complained about me sitting having a coffee and a smoke, they all started before me and therefore thought if I was in I should be working, even though I wasn't getting paid for it. So in the end, they actually got more time out of me, probably about 15 minutes in the morning and about 10 mins of my break, cos usually when I went out for a smoke then a customer would roll up and the cig would burn away in the outside ashtray.

Guess it's swings and roundabouts, if they are not making up the time in other ways, then yes you have a right to complain, but, are you sure they aren't making the time up as I was in my last place?

snowleopard61

When I see them in their little huddle outside in all weathers, all I think is that they're welcome to it - they must be really desperate.

Queenriderbrekke

Where I used to work in a warehouse environment supervisor used to call 5 minute fag break and we all used to stop for it, regardless of whether we were smokers or not!

fluffnutter

Jeez, I'd rather work with a load of smokers who took breaks than a moaning minny who spent their time calculating how much work other people were or weren't doing.

vyle

Azari wrote: »

You've just demonstrated the veracity of soothyerboots' comment.

I should pursue the option of having a 10 minute DS break in between customers and see how well that goes down.

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

How many people who complain about people taking smoking breaks, complain about Muslims going for prayers? They're all too happy discriminating against smokers but they won't discriminate against Muslims..

Oddly enough, the Muslims I work with get their break allowance combined so they go to prayer, then have 10 mins for a meal and no other breaks.

If they got an extra paid hour or so because they choose to believe in something, then that, too, would be unfair.

fluffnutter

vyle wrote: »

Oddly enough, the Muslims I work with get their break allowance combined so they go to prayer, then have 10 mins for a meal and no other breaks.

If they got an extra paid hour or so because they choose to believe in something, then that, too, would be unfair.

I tend to think this is the best approach. With a few exceptions, I think the UK workplace should be a secular environment with no 'special extras' afforded to anyone for religious reasons.