Paid smoke breaks vs Unpaid lunch breaks

In My Humble Opinion
1

This isn’t angry or ranty enough for the pit, but over the years I have noticed that in the various work places I’ve been in, some people sneak out every hour or so to take a smoke break. While it only takes them 5 minutes to smoke, you can add another 5-10 minutes in for some of these places just to get up and down the elevators and through security again, resulting in a 15 minute break, which is the same as what some of my lunch breaks are when I don’t want to stick around as long. However, in almost every job I’ve had, we’re required to write down on our timesheets either when we left and returned from our lunch break, or how long it was, and more often than not, this time is deducted from our total pay. However, there is never such a case for smoke breaks.

This raises a couple of questions, one factual, the others opinionated.

Why do smokers have to work less time per day than non-smokers, and get paid the same amount? Is there some compromise with HR where they’re actually NOT getting favorable treatment which I am being left in the dark about?

Why SHOULD smokers be allowed to take breaks, sometimes on an hourly basis? Unlike bathroom breaks, which BENEFIT an employee’s health, smoke breaks actually deter from both the workflow and the smoker’s health, and last time I checked, cigarette addiction wasn’t part of the ADA, so why would companies hire/not-fire someone who can’t go 4 hours without a cigarette?

Lastly, would it be unethical if the next time I started a job, I told my boss that I was a smoker, and maybe even bought a pack to keep on my desk and carry outside, and instead just took a fresh air break every 2 hours? Infact, shouldn’t non-smokers have just as much a right to take a couple paid fresh-air 15 minute breaks a day, seeing as smokers have an excuse to do so?

What is your office’s policy on this?

2

Everywhere I’ve worked has allowed 2 15-min, paid breaks for eight-hour-a-day employees. This is separate from a lunch break, which is not paid. Mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks seem to be pretty much standard around here, regardless of what you’re doing. In fact, at a few places I worked, you could get your boss in some pretty serious trouble if they wouldn’t allow you your two breaks.

I often go for 15-minute walks as a break, as do many of my co-workers. I’m actually a little surprised by your OP. I’ve never worked anywhere where the non-smokers couldn’t take just as long a break as the non-smokers. I don’t see anything unethical about a “fresh air break” if the smokers get to leave.

3

It really depends on the corporate culture: if you are working with customers, say, where a missing person creates more work for everyone else and smokers are allowed to leave and non-smokers are not, that’s a problem. But in many enviroments, work is not that intense–the dope itself is pretty good evidence that lots of people work at jobs that have significant downtime, and the person who finds time to smoke every couple of hours is no more a slacker than the person who wanders by everyone’s cube to chat for a few minutes on the way back from the restroom.

4

So get up and leave your desk every couple of hours. What’s to stop you?

Take a walk, get some fresh air, feel better, and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, and whining about how unfair life is.

5

I’m a smoker.

In a workplace where we’re paid by the hour, it would be totally unacceptable to take smoke breaks other than those scheduled. That was the situation when I worked in a bar.

In my merchant bank job, I had a set of tasks to complete. As long as they were done, no-one cared whether I was at my desk or not during any 10 minute period. Perhaps my smoke breaks meant I stayed later, I dunno.

And if a non-smoker left the office to get some fresh air, that wouldn’t have been a problem with the bosses either. We didn’t watch each other’s clocks.

6

Unfortunately, I’ve worked far too many places, but salaried and hourly, where management turned a blind eye to smokers taking HOURLY smoking breaks of up to 15-20 minutes at a crack. Just pissed me off no end, especially when about once a week, I’d wander into the kitchen and pause to read the comics, and some management jackass would question what I’m doing.

I’M SMOKING, OK? HAPPY NOW??? :mad:

7

I think that could be a problem with your management. It would be nice to leave us smokers out of it.

8

Back when I was a smoker, I didn’t eat, so rather than take two 15-minute paid breaks and an unpaid half-hour lunch (total of 60 minutes), I’d usually take a 5- to 7-minute break every hour (40-56 minutes) to smoke a cigarette. I never had an employer complain about it, but a few co-workers whimpered about it now and then. Basically, the quality of my work made my employers happy, the smoke breaks made me happy, and the whimpering made my co-workers happy, so it worked out all the way around.

9

its called theft of company time and could result in termination.
But as you may have noticed corparate culture varies by company to company and how much management wants to get involved.

Declan

10

Clearly this is all the smokers’ fault. They should be burned with their own lighters until they repent.

Sorry for the bitterness. I’m a smoker too and the vigorous anti-smoker bias on this board irks me sometimes.

11

Stop stressing and light up in a non smoking area, if people were not whining about smoking , their lives would be so much more mundane and boring.

If your gonna be demomized , then be a demon.

Declan

12

meh. when i worked cs for wells fargo i had one of those emergency cigarettes in a glass tube. When I wanted to go out for fresh air, i took it with me and was on a smoke break. I pointed out that everybod who held a ciigarette got 5-10 minutes an hour break and i was holding a cigarette, I just didnt light mine.

13

First let me say I am a smoker.

I am salary though. I get an hour paid lunch and 99.9% of the time I eat at my desk and semi work. If I am there and issue comes up I handle it while on my lunch break. So in my case my smoke break I take every hour or two does not really take anything away from my job.

We do have two hourly employees who smoke and they get the two 15 minute breaks paid and then the non-paid half hour lunch. They also take smoke breaks they same as I do and they also pretty much eat at their desks.

I see a lot more non-smoking employees talking about personal business in the hallways, offices and the lunch room that add up to a lot more time then it does for me to take my smoking breaks through out the day.

Heck my own boss spends no less than 15 minutes every single morning discussing personal issues with another employee. I have seen these chat sessions go as far as 45 minutes. At times I have needed to ask or discuss business issues but they are in her office chattting so I have to wait.

I have seen two new mothers discussing baby issues in the hallway and still see them standing there a half hour later.

On the other side of my cube wall is the water cooler, the fax machine and the copy machine so I get to hear a lot of chatting and I can personally say that more time is wasted talking about non-business issues then all the smoke breaks combined.

ETA: I do see quite a few non-smokers come out for a fresh air break or to walk the parking lot to stretch their legs and no one even mentions it.

14

Management are only the Enablers. Any person who thinks they have the right to take an hourly break for any reason is not an Innocent Party. You want some consideration, then look around you at all of your fellow smokers who use their habit as an excuse to slack off or weasel out of their jobs.
I got some of this on a job a few years ago where I was the supervisor. At an outdoor post, you could smoke all you wanted. But one guy who had never worked the indoor post had to be trained in it and I got the duty. It was quiet, so I let him take a couple of smoke breaks. But at the three hour mark, he was taking his fourth smoke break and I had to put my foot down. I was “nice” and said that I’d give him two more over the next five hours. Oh the whining! You’d have thought I was denying him life-saving medicine!

Dumb fucker also had the really intelligent habit of asking me if he could step out for a smoke first, every time I got called away.

“I’m going to the can”
“Can I go for a smoke first?”

“They want me to go check on X”
“Can I go for a smoke first?”

“Matt has an issue and I need to go resolve it.”
“Can I go for a smoke first?”

NO YOU STUPID FUCKER, YOU CANNOT GO FOR A SMOKE FIRST.

When I came back from lunch, he was standing outside smoking and the post was unmanned at a critical time.

Unfortunately, you are correct in that management above me was a problem. The Client was pissed and wanted the man disciplined, but my hayseed boss quietly buried it and made all manner of excuses, because he was a smoker too.

But that guy was also never assigned to work inside again unless there was no one else on the premises who could do it.

15

I am not a smoker, but there are any number of jobs where wandering away from your desk to have a smoke in no way impacts the quantity or quality of your work: some jobs you keep working because it’s mostly about figuring out something in your head. Other jobs, your job is mostly to be there if you are needed or wait for others to respond and there are large chunks of downtime. Still other jobs, you are salaried and your schedule is flexible enough that if you want to work an hour longer than everyone else and take more breaks during the day (for whatever reasons: people have different work styles), no one else is impacted. In any of these cases, it’s management’s job to make sure people are performing at the level expected of them, and to give them a heads up if they are not.

16

I had no idea that the physiological effects of tobacco were so profound.

17

Are we also looking at the non-smokers who use any number of other things as excuses to slack off or weasel out of their jobs? Because seriously… I’m pretty sure that smoking and work ethic are not closely related characteristics.

I smoke. I step away from my desk to smoke every couple of hours or so. Usually once before lunch time, once at lunch time (I typically eat at my desk), and often twice during the afternoon. This is, I assure you, NOT more often than my coworkers are away from their desks. So please explain to me why “getting coffee” or “making a phone call” or “taking a walk” are more valid reasons to be away than “having a cigarette” is.

18

Anywhere I’ve worked, there would be mutiny if one group was granted (or simply took) more break time than another group.

Usually, it’s been “One half-hour meal break, and two scheduled fifteen-minute rest breaks.” This is probably because that’s what’s mandated under provincial labour law.

If it’s not that, it’s “Ya got an hour of your own time during the workday. Use it whenever.” This is how it is in the office I work in now. I was a light-but-everyday smoker when I started there, and used to use part of that hour to go outside with some of the others once or twice a day for a smoke and a chat.

Now I just take a more leisurely lunch.

Isn’t this usually the deal? I can hardly imagine that it’s common for employers to allow discretionary break time for smokers, exclusively.

I would be curious to know if the OP feels similarly resentful about co-workers that pause at the water cooler.

19

I get really annoyed at my work. We have a woman there who goes for about 6 fag breaks a day each lasting around 15 mins yet if I speak to somoene for 5 mns from another dept (we all work in the same office area) I receive dagger looks. I suggested to my boss that we have a ‘spoon break’ scheme. Basically where people who dont smoke get to go hold a spoon outside (well you dont have to hold the spoon its more of a comparison thing to a smoker holding a fag). Us non smokers want equal rights!

20

My workplace has been 100% smoke free for over a year now. No smoking (or chewing) anywhere on company property at any time. Salaried workers can leave on thier 1 hour lunch (no smokers in that group), hourly workers cannot leave the premises or sit in thier cars during work hours. Smokers must pay 5 bucks a week more for thier insurance as well. When smoking was allowed they had a smoking break room where you could go on your regular breaks but not whenever you got the urge.

In the office I used to work in, everyone screwed around so much nobody cared whether the smokers were taking an extra couple minutes.