The unfairness of smoking breaks!!!

zenmaster

I used to have an ashtray on my desk.

Glory days!

ska_lover

Smoking is an addiction. Most smokers will honestly tell you that they wish they had never started. There are some rather unpleasent comments on here where the petty gleefully say 'well the smokers will be dead before us - so it evens itself out''. I am pretty sure that karma doesn't work like that.

As you can probably tell, I am a smoker. I get an hours break - unpaid - which I rarely take in full, so do not feel the need to justify popping out for in total, 15 minutes each day - the 'office' are still 45 minutes up on me

I work fulltime in an office with two part-timers, one of whom smokes, and the other doesn't. The non smoker turns up late, by at least ten minutes (more often than not more than this) every day for work. she spends the first half an hour preparing and eating her breakfast. This woman brings an entire carrier bag full of food to work each day. Then almost an hour after she started getting paid, she will deem fit to log in to her pc and do some work, until 'elevenses', when tools are downed to prepare another meal, maybe meat and crackers. She will then work for perhaps another two hours, before having at least a half hour break to prepare and eat her 'dinner', usually more of a meal- jacket potatoe, or a plated full roast dinner she brings from home and microwaves, then sits in at her desk eating that. She wil then work until around 3pm, when its another half an hour break for chocolate, buiscuits, crisps etc. In between meals she is constantly grazing and always has opened packets of buiscuits etc around her. Needless to say with her constantly stufffing her face, she is obese.This person has more breaks to eat in a day, than I do to smoke in a week.

If I go outside to have a fag, she doesn't have to follow me. Having to sit in the same office as a greedy person constantly eating, makes me retch.

I just wish she was made to stand outside to do it.

Abbafan1972

I used to work for a large office years ago, where smokers were allowed 2 x 7.5min breaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Non smokers could have a 15 minute break in the morning or afternoon.

Although my job there was quite demanding and I never actually had time to take my break! (I don't smoke).

whitegoods_engineer

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.

Smokers contribute £10bn in tax to the economy, but require just £2bn in NHS treatment. Divide this £8bn around the UKs 26 million income tax payers and that means £300 less tax we pay.

Enough for a weekend break away in Europe.

Well then you can deduct from this revenue the costs for cleaning up discarded cigarettes (have you EVER) seen a smoker take his cigarette butts away, no, they throw them out of their car windows or on the ground) In fact, go to any company outdoor cigarette break area and you'll find that despite there being huge ashtrays/disposal bins, you'll ALWAYS see discarded cigarettes all over the ground surrounding the bins. Smokers are just selfish.

Then add on the NHS treatment of those non-smokers diagnosed with diseases linked to passive smoking, the vast sums spent in policing illegal importation of cigarettes, the disposal of cigarette packaging waste, lighters, matches etc.

Then add up all these 20 minute breaks many times a day while those of us who don't smoke carry on working while smokers go off for a cough and a drag!

Then there's the stink of smokers, it is really nasty when a smoker walks into the room reeking of tar and smoke. Yuk!

For all you smokers who claim that there is a net benefit to your disgusting habit, there isn't. I'd ban the stuff tomorrow!

eezer

Where I used to work, the non smokers had to work harder to cover the incessant breaks of smokers. These people then spent just as much time in the loo, chatting etc as everyone else. It caused no end of friction but the management, despite a shoot on sight policy if anyone was caught smoking, never really cared who did the work as long as it was done.

Now I have my own specific workload as do the smokers. If it takes them longer because they're outside then tough.

I always wondered how tolerant the smokers would be if they had to work harder as other people's addictions impacted on them? Just cover me for a minute whilst I pop out out to shoot up, nip to the bookies, go home for a quickie, off to Bargain Booze, go shopping for shoes etc etc.

davenport151

Where I work the smoke breaks seem to be about 10-15 mins. At least 2 or 3 times a day. Then sometimes are added on after a lunch break (just have a ciggie before going back). I combat this by more tea breaks and a natter. But still not sure this equals the smoke breaks.

welshbookworm

I smoke but I turn up 15 minutes early (and start work) and leave 15 minutes late. On busy days I am lucky if I get my lunch break and one five minute fag break. On quiet days I might have 30 minutes or more in fag breaks. But when I'm having a fag break, I regularly get people popping out and asking work related questions, so is it really a 'break'? My non smoking workmates are happy enough, to the point they will ask me if I want a ciggy break.

paddyrg

Look at this from a fresh angle -

Smokers are actually beneficial to a large organisation. Yes, beneficial. Forcing people outside into the 'shed of shame' together puts them on an informal footing, and so the cleaner and MD get a chance to chat as peers - and that means information flow within the company is increased across departments (what projects are going on, etc), reducing duplication and increasing synergies. If you think that's just theoretical, I have seen it at work. And smokers often discuss projects and jobs and get inspiration for new approaches too. Again, seen it happen more often than you'd imagine. But then many work conversations that need to be had can be had in the car park as at a desk, but with the added benefit of increased cameraderie.

Clearly this is the worst possible argument for people to take up smoking, but seeing as it happens anyway, it is a hidden benefit to the company in some cases. Think how long it takes the non-smokers to get acquainted in a new office, and how quickly the smokers do. It is something the non-smokers could learn from the smokers in fact - that cross-discipline 'downtime' which gives the brain a beat to recover or change tack, and to see what creative answers there may be to problems.

vyle

paddyrg wrote: »

Look at this from a fresh angle -

Smokers are actually beneficial to a large organisation. Yes, beneficial. Forcing people outside into the 'shed of shame' together puts them on an informal footing, and so the cleaner and MD get a chance to chat as peers - and that means information flow within the company is increased across departments (what projects are going on, etc), reducing duplication and increasing synergies. If you think that's just theoretical, I have seen it at work. And smokers often discuss projects and jobs and get inspiration for new approaches too. Again, seen it happen more often than you'd imagine. But then many work conversations that need to be had can be had in the car park as at a desk, but with the added benefit of increased cameraderie.

Clearly this is the worst possible argument for people to take up smoking, but seeing as it happens anyway, it is a hidden benefit to the company in some cases. Think how long it takes the non-smokers to get acquainted in a new office, and how quickly the smokers do. It is something the non-smokers could learn from the smokers in fact - that cross-discipline 'downtime' which gives the brain a beat to recover or change tack, and to see what creative answers there may be to problems.

Friends actually did an episode about this, where Rachel tried to take up smoking to climb the corporate ladder.

On the flipside, to use smoker logic, it means that non-smokers are discriminated against for not smoking, because they don't have an opportunity for similar interaction :P.

Yes that is me being facetious.

More seriously, all the smokers who say, "my smoking breaks are justified because I turn up early, do loads of work, don't get my full breaks and do loads of unpaid overtime...." do you honestly think that there aren't non-smokers who do the same, but don't get these additional breaks?

Azari

vyle wrote: »

Friends actually did an episode about this, where Rachel tried to take up smoking to climb the corporate ladder.

On the flipside, to use smoker logic, it means that non-smokers are discriminated against for not smoking, because they don't have an opportunity for similar interaction :P.

Yes that is me being facetious.

More seriously, all the smokers who say, "my smoking breaks are justified because I turn up early, do loads of work, don't get my full breaks and do loads of unpaid overtime...." do you honestly think that there aren't non-smokers who do the same, but don't get these additional breaks?

The crux of this matter is whether or not the smokers are pulling their weight within the organisation.

In situations such as the one you described earlier, where your workload increases dramatically to accommodate the smokers then you clearly have a legitimate grievance. Similarly in the case of the person who never got a break whilst the smokers did. (Although, to be honest, if that person cannot tell their supervisor that they would appreciate a similar break to the smokers and have that arranged there is something amiss with their working environment).

Where people are assigned a set amount of work and are allowed to arrange the timing as they see fit and succeed in doing so, whining about breaks they take is petty, small minded and, to be blunt, none of the business of the whiner.
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