Albeit only a small percentage of people seem to smoke these days (maybe 5-10% in my office), however it also seems acceptable to those who smoke to nip outside for 10 minutes at a time for a smoke.

Of course if its lunchtime then fair enough, but it seems its acceptable to go for a smoke every hour or two. Surely over a week, month, year this must add up to a few working days? Which non-smokers are working through?

As for smelling of smoke when you come back into the office, well please keep away from me!

Does this happen in your work place?

Do you work every minute that you are in work – never look at your phone, daydream etc?

Yeah, happens here.
Been happening for years at every place I have worked., **** me reet awf.

I think this has been a long standing gripe of non smokers for decades.

Always… They still have the few mins off that everyone else does. Search for the hospitality workers who took up smoking for the breaks.

Do you work every minute that you are in work – never look at your phone, daydream etc?

Yes distractions happen. But can’t help that think smokers look at their phones and daydream at times when they are not out the back smoking and hence are less productive?

Just take regular not-smoking breaks.

When I moved to Spain I remember the counter staff in the bank smoking at their desks. Maybe they should bring it back 😉

Studies actually show that people who take regular breaks are more productive, but that doesn’t sit will with the prevalent “desk attendance” culture.

Surely you’re not posting on STW whilst at work, OP?

If they could smoke at there workstation then there wouldn’t be an issue.

So much mash.
RM.

Yep, but apparently it’s anti-social when i go for my “tequila breaks”!

Not sure there’s a direct link between being workshy and smoking.

Some of the people in my work would just be sat surfing the web if they weren’t out smoking.

Equally some of the guys who smoke have some very productive meetings under the smokers shed where they are free of other distractions.

When I smoked I never smoked during the working day. I don’t have a desk job. Most of the smokers kept close to break times and tried to be fair. One or two who didn’t were asked to stop taking the piss by their workmates

I used to work in a factory with a huge open shop floor where people were allowed to smoke where they worked. When the law changed, we had to stop this and put in designated ‘smoking areas’ outside the factory with signage, etc.

Shortly after, I went onto the shop floor one morning to a large, carefully made sign hanging from the rafters over an empty corner:

“NON SMOKING AREA – COME HERE FOR A CHAT WHENEVER YOU FEEL LIKE IT AND LET SOME OTHER ****ER DO YOUR WORK”

When I was a smoker I was almost certainly the most-productive member of staff on my medium-sized team.

But I was also young and keen, which more than made up for the 20 mins or so each day I was away from my desk.

After giving up I would just wander round the office talking to people instead, when I felt restless.

I used to smoke and took plenty smoke breaks, now I don’t. I don’t do anymore work though. Often as a smoker I would crack on to finish something in maybe 50-55mins then go for a smoke for 5-10mins before I started the next task and so on. Now I don’t crack on so much so a similiar task would take about 55-65mins about the same total time as before plus smoke break. I don’t drink tea or coffee though. Those people are the real timewasters.

No such thing as a thoughtful smoker:

From standing right outside entrances to flicking butt ends as if some magic fairy will pick them up for them to endless smoking breaks. Plus their clothes stink.

It’s such a grim habit, I genuinely can’t fathom why anyone does it. Plus its expensive as hell!

Glad I’ve better things to do with my life.

Underneath their shirts, they’re all wearing one of these

😀

Since packing in smoking I am now deprived of this simple method of annoying the bedwetting fraternity.
I make do nowadays with blowing huge clouds of vapour out of my e-cig while in the pub as I know this fuels similar whine-fests.

But since most of them frequent pubs no more than they used to when they used to bleat on and on about people smoking in them (twice a year – Christmas and birthday)

It’s not as rewarding as the old work fag break. But us ex-smokers have to get our pleaseures where we can

@binners, I see! However there are many cheaper and healthier ways to annoy me!

Surely the problem lies with your management. Everyone gets the same break times, if you want to go out for a tab on your break, fair enough. That’s how it’s always worked at my place (NHS hospital.) Only problem now is the whole site is non-smoking (indoors and outdoors) and you’re not allowed to smoke whilst in uniform.

One place I worked in we used to take FABs (Fresh Air Breaks) in support of the lone smoker on our team.

Since packing in smoking I am now deprived of this simple method of annoying the bedwetting fraternity.

Ditto, used to love how hysterical and righteous people could get about it. I make up for it with minor motoring offences.

to flicking butt ends as if some magic fairy will pick them up for them

Well, I wouldn’t call any of the lads in the city street-sweeping team a ‘fairy’… but actually, it does get picked up for them. Otherwise we’d be wading through three feet of fag-ends.

Well, I wouldn’t call any of the lads in the city street-sweeping team a ‘fairy’… but actually, it does get picked up for them. Otherwise we’d be wading through three feet of fag-ends.

Not so in rural areas and the worst is on beaches.

jambourgie – I know what you mean. life just isn’t as fulfilling anymore, now I can’t feel the stinging, righteous disdain of the haughty and sanctimonious.

Myself, I try to fill the void with throwing crisp packets and empty coke cans onto grass verges, but it’s just not the same

Halcyon days my friend

*sighs*

People smoke in my workplace.

Very conscientiously I feel, small breaks every 3 hours (ish)
Grown ups taking responsibility for their own decisions and responsibility for the running of the team.

The people that get less work done are the sort of people that are always trying to find fault with others.
Moaning backstabbers with bitter hearts.. It must be hard to give one’s heart and soul to a job when one is consumed with resentment. Seems like a monumental waste of energy.

It’s much more uplifting to be supportive and cheerful.
I see it every day 🙂

When I stopped smoking I gained a lot of time that I previously spent standing in a corner puffing on fags, 2 hours a day at a guess.

If I now use that time productively is another question.

Smokers are the best-informed people in any business. FACT!

Surely over a week, month, year this must add up to a few working days?

To be fair they’ll have less retirement time too, so it all balances out

Used to have a gaffer that gave some of the older lads on the squad a hard time if they were caught doing nothing but he never mentioned his fag breaks. If you worked in the actual workshop rather than out on site in a 12 hour shift he’d have 4, 5 or maybe even 6 fag breaks during the day which also meant a cup of tea. At a guess he had an extra 2 hours off each day.

Smokers are the best-informed people in any business. FACT!

Actually, I believe that.

To take it one step further, when I was in northern Canada, I worked closely with Native people, among whom tobacco is an important aspect of life. Prior to me and a couple of other ‘European’ guys, there had never been much interaction between the Native workers and ‘whites’.

Tobacco, however, bridged the chasm, as it meant we all hung outside together having a laugh and getting to know each other in a way the two groups never had before.

EDIT: Apologies for the unfortunate terminology; it’s just how we all spoke of each other at the time.

Well, I wouldn’t call any of the lads in the city street-sweeping team a ‘fairy’… but actually, it does get picked up for them. Otherwise we’d be wading through three feet of fag-ends.

You should come to Burnley. They’re issuing £75 on-the-spot fines for littering to people who chuck cigarette ends on the floor. I know of four people at work who have been caught out so far.

No idea if they do less work, but they more often than not get more break time for their cancer sticks.

“I’m just popping out with (smoker) Jim for some fresh air for a few minutes.” 😉

So we grumble about time lost on smoke breaks.

The smokers grumble about time lost on fancy coffee breaks (because obviously they never make tea or coffee).

Then they grumble about cyclists getting showered and changed because they assume we consider that to be working time.

Then we all realise that nobody actually cares. Except about the guy who has a fag, then has a bacon roll while he reads the paper, then has another fag, then goes for a coffee, etc etc. But wasters gonna waste…

The persecuted minority/social pariah status sanctimoniously bestowed on smokers by the attitudes displayed on threads like this, leads to a sort of blitz spirit, huddled in the horizontal rain by the bins, which crosses all social boundaries, grades, and payscales, and leads to a weird sort of camaraderie

Perhaps you should concern yourselves less with the odd ten minutes snatched through the day, and worry more about what they’re all plotting and scheming while they’re out there?

Have you noticed how they’re all invariably laughing as they walk back in?

Just sayin’….

😉

Can’t say I’ve noticed smokers doing less work – too busy on here! 🙄

Smokers are the best-informed people in any business. FACT!

This. Smoking offers an excellent networking opportunity.

Plus – when I worked in France the cutest girls always went to the smokers coffee bar and never to the self-righteous nerdy foreigners coffee bar.

If anything it’s Tea and Coffee drinkers who are the biggest shirkers – they take longer to produce their magic potion of burnt arseholes (or at least that’s how it tastes to me) and they seem to do so every hour. Of course this demands a designated space to make it which is usually like a used petri dish and stinks out the whole office – like smokers, they never smell it themselves, just make the rest of us suffer.

I make do nowadays with blowing huge clouds of vapour out of my e-cig douche-flute while in the pub as I know this fuels similar whine-fests.

FTFY

We used to smoke in the office several years ago after the law started prohibiting smoking in pub, compound etc … It was a happy time then as my S.Korean and Zimbabwe colleagues would have a fag or two while we work and chat away in the office. Until the next door colleague started to complain … 😆