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Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

independent.co.uk

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Re: Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

#41

Post by _jal »

stronglikedan wrote: post #21
mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #3

This assumes people are working just because they aren't on a smoke break. If you work on a production line in a factory, it's fairly easy to see the output level of your work. If you work in an office, there is not a simple measure. The non-smoking worker could just as easily spend the same time chatting it up around the water cooler. Physical presence does not equal working time. I wish more managers understood tha…

Not to mention the amount of problems that are solved over a cigarette. I don't know if it was placebo, or a mental jolt from the nicotine, but I've come up with many a solution on a cigarette break. I don't smoke any more (thankfully), but when I did it at work, I was usually thinking of a work problem, and thus working.

This. It happens that a couple close co-workers also smoke, and we are working while outside.

This part has nothing to do with cigarettes, but I do think talking over work in different contexts is useful. I can't prove anything, but am convinced that more creativity in problem solving comes out when meetings aren't always in a conference room.

Re: Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

#42

Post by athenot »

As a non-smoker I used to go on the smoke breaks with coworkers. Not as an excuse for time away from work but rather to get up and brainstorm things. That turned out to be more productive than stay seated and let my wheels spin in my brain.

Nowadays we use the coffee/watercooler break but it's not quite the same as getting out of the building, feeling the outside air against the skin (hot or cold) and getting a change of scenery. We've tries the walk around the parking lot thing, but most office buildings are really not set up for walking spaces...

Re: Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

#43

Post by ehnto »

mattmanser wrote: post #26
bryanlarsen wrote: post #5

Does the company have a culture of encouraging people to actually take those holidays? Based on my experience in Japan, nobody actually uses their holiday time, to avoid losing face at work. The only holidays people actually take are the public holidays. Luckily, they have a good number of them, including a whole week at the beginning of May.

UK's nothing like Japan, most people use all of their holiday.

My current employer dislikes when you don't use it, because it's a liability they have to carry on the books which affects other financial concerns (or so I'm told). If there is a culture of not using your holidays then that does add up to some pretty significant liability for a small company.

They also understand that downtime is important and would rather a long ongoing employment compared to a short, no-holiday speed-run of legacy code production before bailing.

Re: Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

#44

Post by ehnto »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #37

When I worked for a larger company people would routinely take gym breaks (the gym was right down the hallway) which took the place of smoking breaks. Sure you can't get a huge workout in in a 15 minute break but you can get the heart rate up. In the US I'm not even sure it is legal to provide different benefits to individual employees than the rest of the company. But one thing I can say for sure is that if this was…

I feel like you would spend 10-15 minutes just getting changed, showering and all that. Or potentially smell the rest of the day. I guess it worked though.

Re: Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

#45

Post by microcolonel »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #5

Does the company have a culture of encouraging people to actually take those holidays? Based on my experience in Japan, nobody actually uses their holiday time, to avoid losing face at work. The only holidays people actually take are the public holidays. Luckily, they have a good number of them, including a whole week at the beginning of May.

Don't know about the UK, but here in Canada I've seen holidays thought of two completely different ways: sometimes the company will encourage, or even force (by turning them away at the door, if you have days that won't accumulate for the next year), employees to take their holidays; sometimes they'll be judgemental about you taking holidays, as I suspect most Japanese employers are.

Re: Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

#46

Post by ehnto »

I don't know if it's like this in all companies in Australia, but we take coffee breaks and those happily make up for cigarette breaks. Some smokers come on the walk to the coffee place and smoke outside while we get coffee, two birds with one stone I guess.

Some context though, Australia has a fairly great coffee culture, we have even been described as coffee elitists. So while the frugal and indifferent will use the office coffee machine to get a fix, it seems to be pretty well understood that it's not great coffee and you have to venture out to get the good stuff.

Re: Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

#47

Post by Raphmedia »

I've never understood this. Don't everyone get the same breaks? Are smokers considered as having a health condition and thus granted extra breaks?

It's not as if the boss came in one day and told people "Everyone gets 2 x 15 minutes of breaks a day. Except for smokers, you guys can take all the breaks you want."

If my employer gives me 2 x 15 minutes of breaks a day, I'll take those even if I don't smoke.

Re: Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

#48

Post by amai »

ehnto wrote: post #46

I don't know if it's like this in all companies in Australia, but we take coffee breaks and those happily make up for cigarette breaks. Some smokers come on the walk to the coffee place and smoke outside while we get coffee, two birds with one stone I guess. Some context though, Australia has a fairly great coffee culture, we have even been described as coffee elitists. So while the frugal and indifferent will use th…

What about the people who neither smoke nor drink coffee?

Re: Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

#49

Post by draw_down »

wlesieutre wrote: post #38
draw_down wrote: post #27

This stuff just strikes me as very petty. Something about smoking or smokers just drives people a bit crazy. Before she retired, my mom would regularly bitch to me about the smoke breaks her coworkers took. She’d say “maybe I’d like to just go outside for a little walk”. So do it then! The smoking is bad of course, but the specific focus on it, to me, feels pretty hinky. How about taking breaks every once in a while…

The reason your mom was complaining is that if she just went outside for a little walk, she'd probably get written up and eventually fired because only smokers are allowed to take those breaks at most workplaces. If you have a boss who's more fair about it, that's great, but I don't think it's typical. This is especially true for places on timeclocks, probably less if you're salaried.

Sorry, I don’t buy it. I think people tell themselves that to justify why those evil smokers have hearted the system! Obviously it is ok to take a break if people are taking breaks to smoke.

Re: Company gives non-smokers six days holiday to compensate for cigarette breaks

#50

Post by majewsky »

stronglikedan wrote: post #21
mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #3

This assumes people are working just because they aren't on a smoke break. If you work on a production line in a factory, it's fairly easy to see the output level of your work. If you work in an office, there is not a simple measure. The non-smoking worker could just as easily spend the same time chatting it up around the water cooler. Physical presence does not equal working time. I wish more managers understood tha…

Not to mention the amount of problems that are solved over a cigarette. I don't know if it was placebo, or a mental jolt from the nicotine, but I've come up with many a solution on a cigarette break. I don't smoke any more (thankfully), but when I did it at work, I was usually thinking of a work problem, and thus working.

Yeah, this has nothing to do with the smoking. Just the fact that you allow your mind to wander. The same effect can be had from taking a shower.
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