[QUOTE=River Hippie]
hourly workers cannot leave the premises or sit in thier cars during work hours.
[/QUOTE]
I assume that “work hours” excludes their scheduled breaks? Because otherwise, I can’t imagine why anyone on earth would choose to work there. It’s a little Triangle Shirtwaist Company for my taste.
[QUOTE=DianaG]
I assume that “work hours” excludes their scheduled breaks? Because otherwise, I can’t imagine why anyone on earth would choose to work there. It’s a little Triangle Shirtwaist Company for my taste.
[/QUOTE]
And that since they aren’t allowed to leave company property (or even sit in their cars) they must be paid lunch breaks.
[QUOTE=alphaboi867]
And that since they aren’t allowed to leave company property (or even sit in their cars) they must be paid lunch breaks.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, that is correct.
[QUOTE=DianaG]
I assume that “work hours” excludes their scheduled breaks? Because otherwise, I can’t imagine why anyone on earth would choose to work there. It’s a little Triangle Shirtwaist Company for my taste.
[/QUOTE]
Nope, scheduled breaks are paid, can’t sit in vehicles or leave company property. Many smokers chose to not work there. I have seen little piles of butts in out of the way places outside so some sneakage occurs. I have no doubt anyone caught would be fired on the spot.
[QUOTE=fusoya]
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.
[/QUOTE]
You forgot the 5-10 minutes it takes to round up all of their smoking buddies to go outside.
I’m so glad I don’t have to babysit employees any longer. With smokers, it is like watching a 2 year old. You take your eye off them for a second and they’re gone.
[QUOTE=River Hippie]
Nope, scheduled breaks are paid, can’t sit in vehicles or leave company property. Many smokers chose to not work there. I have seen little piles of butts in out of the way places outside so some sneakage occurs. I have no doubt anyone caught would be fired on the spot.
[/QUOTE]
I can’t imagine why anyone would work there, smoker or not. That’s crazy. There isn’t enough money in the world to make me volunteer for eight hours of incarceration every day.
I’m so glad I don’t have one of those bosses who considers his employees errant children, and/or is so fixated on smoking=evil that they only notice when the *smokers * are away from their desks.
The attitudes in this thread only serve to prove what I’ve already observed in Smokers.
They think it’s perfectly acceptable for them to spend 15 minutes out of every hour running off to smoke, and if anyone complains about it, it’s either because they’re treating their employees like children, or that they should be looking at all the time the non-smoking employees are wasting. Endless finger pointing, whining and excuse making to justify why there is nothing wrong with their behavior and it is in fact, everyone elses fault.
Pretty much like any other Addict justifies their behavior.
I’m an ex-smoker.
Smoking doesn’t BEGIN to compare with the biggest waster of worktime ever – children.
Mommies bringing their new babies in – days off for sick kids – days off because their kid picked up a bug and got the whole family sick – hours off for kids doctor appointment – hours of looking at kid pictures, discussing kid nutrition and discipline, their schools and their teachers, their sleeping habits, their… AAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!
Give me smokers over parents any day of the week.
[QUOTE=Chimera]
The attitudes in this thread only serve to prove what I’ve already observed in Smokers.
They think it’s perfectly acceptable for them to spend 15 minutes out of every hour running off to smoke, and if anyone complains about it, it’s either because they’re treating their employees like children, or that they should be looking at all the time the non-smoking employees are wasting. Endless finger pointing, whining and excuse making to justify why there is nothing wrong with their behavior and it is in fact, everyone elses fault.
Pretty much like any other Addict justifies their behavior.
[/QUOTE]
sigh
It sure as hell doesn’t take long for some asshole to come jingoize and polarize issues here on the Dope. Thanks for drawing up the battle-lines . . .
<Insert the usual stuff about how all people are different and have varying degrees of respect for their workplace, are not necessarily stuck at their posts to carry out their work and so forth>
I work at a Hotel now. I got a new job there a month ago. My boss (who’s a non-smoker) mentioned that if I wanted to get a cig, I’d have to go to the 6th floor break room and bring the phone hooked up to the door-opener, the hotel phone, the key to the register and the master keys in the reception. I should also get someone I trust to watch over it for me, if I could. Fine. (There’s a guy who’s lived there for the last 10 years, preferring to live at our hotel instead of going into a retiring home) I don’t up and leave in the busy hours, I wait until things are nice and quiet.
Not smoking is not an option - hotel busywork can be stressing enough when you’re alone without being jittery from abstinences. If my boss told me I’d had to quit smoking or find another job, I’d find another job, without hesitation. I have no lunch breaks and no other breaks at all. Which is fine; I’m allowed to eat in the reception and there are occasionally hours when nothing’s happening and I’m free to browse the web or whatever.
I get perhaps 3 to 4 smoking breaks in an average 8-hour day. And I light up as soon as I’m inside the break room and leave the second my cigarette has burnt out. I don’t think I’ve ever taken more than 6 minutes. And as long as I have the phones with me, I know if anyone’s in the reception or trying to get in.
[QUOTE=Chimera]
The attitudes in this thread only serve to prove what I’ve already observed in Smokers.
[/QUOTE]
Wow. I’ve been Capitalized. I feel so important.
All I’ve done is point out that employees slack off in myriad ways. Smoking is one of them. Browsing the Straight Dope is one of them. Looking around for someone who’s working *even less hard * than you are and pointing fingers at them is one of them.
Smokers are not, on the whole, less reliable or diligent employees than non-smokers, in my experience. And as an added bonus, we provide a valuable service by giving the office busybody something to incessantly bitch about.
[QUOTE=DianaG]
Wow. I’ve been Capitalized. I feel so important.
All I’ve done is point out that employees slack off in myriad ways. Smoking is one of them. Browsing the Straight Dope is one of them. Looking around for someone who’s working *even less hard * than you are and pointing fingers at them is one of them.
Smokers are not, on the whole, less reliable or diligent employees than non-smokers, in my experience. And as an added bonus, we provide a valuable service by giving the office busybody something to incessantly bitch about.
[/QUOTE]
If it were up to me, you’d win the thread.
[QUOTE=fusoya]
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?
[/quote]
Sadly, this is just one of those things that happens. It is changing, slowly, but surely. In many of the places where I have worked where this is the way of things, it was that way because management/owners of the business were also smokers.
[QUOTE=fusoya]
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?
[/quote]
They shouldn’t – no more so than a crackhead should be allowed to go hit a rock or a junkie allowed a needle break. Again, in many situations, you will find that upper management are usually smokers in the types of environment in which this occurs.
[QUOTE=fusoya]
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?
[/quote]
Yes, it would be unethical to pretend to be a smoker for additional breaks. It would not, however, be unethical to occasionally take that 5-10 minute break and if someone asks about it mention that you have noticed smokers taking smoke breaks, but since you are a non-smoker, you needed a fresh air break. If your boss has a problem with that, then you might consider seeking other employment.
As for the secondary part of that – yes, non-smokers should be allowed the same breaks as their stinky co-workers. When I was in management, I allowed smoke and non-smoke breaks. My smokers got smoke breaks, my non-smokers got non-smoke breaks – during which they could go outside, go wander around the building, whatever, just to get a break. I only had one person (a smoker, go figure) tell me that it was not acceptable to do that – so I made it non-smoking period. The only breaks anyone got were scheduled breaks. No smoke breaks, and no non-smoke breaks. It took a week for that asshole to quit. After that, we went back to my policy of everyone being treated equally.
[QUOTE=fusoya]
What is your office’s policy on this?
[/QUOTE]
One of the reasons I love where I work is the smoking policy there. The entire facility – including the parking lot – is a smoke-free environment. This means that if you are caught lighting up on company property – even in your own car in the parking lot – it is a disciplinary situation. When this first went into effect, people tried to circumvent the smoking ban by getting in their cars and driving to the neighboring parking lot during their breaks. A memo went out very quickly letting everyone know that during your unpaid lunch, you can go wherever you want and feel free to smoke a whole pack if you need to, but during your paid 15 minute breaks leaving the facility was not allowed. This policy has been a godsend. No more stinky nasty cigarette butts by the entry, no more walking through nasty stale smoke to get inside, etc.
In my sales group of about 30 there are 3 of us that smoke. One of them takes very regular smoke breaks, probably every hour. He is also one of the top producers and makes a shitload of money for the company and actually works longer hours than most.
One is more of an occasional smoker and is the top producer. (He’s been #1 for at least the 3 years) He works longer hours than anyone else to my knowledge. They’d let him take any breaks he chose.
I take my 2 allowed breaks and my lunch. I also come in earlier than most of the associates and work slightly later than many.
Since we are salaried, anything we work over 40 hours isn’t paid overtime so even including any extra breaks we might take the company is getting more than they’re paying for.
When I worked at a corporate restaurant, the non-smoking bartenders would take a “non-smoking smoke break” and just go chill on the back dock for a few minutes.
Nobody cared, as long as they followed the same rules the smokers did–making sure the bar wasn’t busy and nobody was being neglected while they took their break.
And since, in restaurants and bars, there is no such thing as a “lunch break” or a “fifteen minute break,” nobody thought you were “stealing company time” if you went for a cig, as long as your section was covered. Certain smokers were chastised for ignoring their tables, the same way certain non-smokers were.
You don’t have to be smoking to be neglecting your job.
And I guess that’s the point the OP is missing. Everybody “steals time” at work, whether it’s by talking on the phone to a friend, shooting the breeze with co-workers, taking too long at the soda machine, surfing the internet, texting, etc…
A smoker may be outside the building for five minutes, but he or she isn’t stealing any more time from the company than the girl at the front desk who’s been on the phone with her boyfriend four times today.
Find something else to worry about.
I work in mental health: given the large correlation between smoking and mental illness, it’s the truly the last bastion of workplace smoking. I can smoke whenever I feel like stepping outside onto the large sunny deck or the tree-shaded lawn by the fishpond, and bludge fags off my supervisor, the company director, the office manager and two-thirds of my colleagues. Envy me, you buggers: if you really want to smoke at work, go crazy.
[QUOTE=Litoris]
A memo went out very quickly letting everyone know that during your unpaid lunch, you can go wherever you want and feel free to smoke a whole pack if you need to, but during your paid 15 minute breaks leaving the facility was not allowed.
[/QUOTE]
Not to hijack, but can someone please tell me whether this “not allowed to leave the property on your own time” thing is widespread, and why on earth people are okay with this?
I’d also like to mention that while it’s understandable to not want to walk through a cloud of smoke to get to work, and it’s understandable (in a petty way) to spend your time keeping your own mental timesheet on your smoking coworkers (the better to get your resentment on), it’s just plain assholish to be delighted that now those bastards can’t smoke, even on their own time, far away from you.
People, smoker and non smokers, violate lunch and break time rules all the time.
I suppose we could issue all our bosses some whips and smoke-breath-detectors, and we would all be much happier.
(1. Invents smoke-breath-detectors
2. Runs for office and passes new law
3. Profit!)
One of my coworkers was complaining to me about smoke breaks, while ignoring that I work up to 10 hours a day, never take a lunch break, and when she leaves at 4.30 every day, I will still be there for at least another hour and a half, if not longer.
I told her “there is nothing stopping you from standing by a trash can for five minutes every couple of hours”.
(Clearly, Chimera, my smoke breaks are impacting my delivery - I have only managed increased the revenue channel I run by a factor of five and added several hundred thousand $$s to the bottom line. I only just received my second $5K pay rise since I arrived, and I’ve been in the job for ten whole months now! Just imagine how well I’d be doing if I didn’t “steal” all that time from my employer. They must be so disappointed in me.)
ETA: it might help non-smokers to hate us less if you think about smoke breaks as the invevitable result of a serious medical condition. If I was a non-smoker and had IBS or incontinence, would you deny me a bathroom break whenever I needed one? Yeah, it’s my fault for starting smoking when I was a dumb teen, but would you feel the same disdain about someone who was permanently injured or disabled by doing something equally stupid at the same age?
[QUOTE=DianaG]
Not to hijack, but can someone please tell me whether this “not allowed to leave the property on your own time” thing is widespread, and why on earth people are okay with this?
I’d also like to mention that while it’s understandable to not want to walk through a cloud of smoke to get to work, and it’s understandable (in a petty way) to spend your time keeping your own mental timesheet on your smoking coworkers (the better to get your resentment on), it’s just plain **assholish **to be delighted that now those bastards can’t smoke, even on their own time, far away from you.
[/QUOTE]
During a paid break, you are not “on your own time” you are on company time. Paid means that you are still covered by workmans’ comp and the company insurance. Leaving the property without the knowledge and/or consent of the company is a violation of company policy.
People can (and do) leave during their unpaid lunches – you know, their own time. I can’t speak for “people” but I am ok with it because I have enough knowledge about how businesses work that I understand the reasoning behind it. Oh, and I am ok with it because I love love love that I don’t have to deal with the stinky stale cigarette smell everytime I walk in or out the door. YMMV.
Just out of curiousity, when did calling someone an asshole become ok outside of the Pit?
I’m a non-smoker, but I really don’t care what other people do. Nor should they care what I do. What matters to my manager is if I accomplish the tasks I’m paid to accomplish. I assume that’s what matters to their managers.
I don’t take any breaks. I eat lunch at my desk. I surf the dope during work hours though. It all balances out.