The smokers advantage?

**KING6** · 4-1-06, 0:40

Recently my employer has hired 2 new people. Both of these people are very heavy smokers. They just started 2 weeks ago, they work in the office area. Although I see them in the shop area almost every hour or half hour. SMOKING.

There are 6 other people employed besides me, all of them but one are smokers.
I cant stand it at all. Being a non smoker really has its disadvantages.
1. You get to breath in everyones second hand smoke
2. You dont get smoke breaks
3. Your exiled from the "smokers group"

Me and the other employee have been talking and there also very irratated with it. Because of them, we work twice as hard, twice as long and get riduculed alot more. We went through the trouble of calculating it all out, If a person smokes a pack a work day (8hrs) Thats 20 ciggarettes, and given a minumum of 5 min to smoke each one (and thats rarely the time it takes) Thats a little over an hour and half.
1hr, 30min they get payed to smoke. add in there two 15min beaks and its about 2hrs.
Whats worse is the boss is also a smoker, and enjoys the smoke breaks.
Whats worse then that is the other employees are payed a signifigant amount more then us.
If that doesnt seem like the most unfair thing, me and the other employee are constantly hassled every time we take our scheduled break, leave for lunch, need to leave work early. The other employee just got yelled at yesterday for having to leave work early to pick up her sick kid because the smoker employee wanted to take a smoke break before she left!

Every single time i stop to talk to some one, look out the window for a minute or just caught not doing something at the minute the boss comes up to me.. i get hell. " are you on my clock? yea.. then get to work!!

My next reply is going to be im on my non smokers break!!!

Now that rant is over, anyone have any suggestions to making my workplace more fair.. ? I cant quit.. and i have no time to find a job with equal pay. (even though i hate this job)
Cant i suggest a non smoking work place? or a scheduled smoke break?

**metros** · 4-1-06, 0:58

I would advise against the suggesting that everyone keep to the assigned smoke breaks. I figure they'll just ridicule you even more for being the police man of the work place. Personally I would just slow my pace down. I see it like this if they're not worried that everything gets down on time then why should I be worried? You shouldn't have to work doubletime allday to pick up their extra slack. Guess that's all the suggestions I have for ya. Become a smoker?

**KING6** · 4-1-06, 1:04

oh i guess i should add to that.. now that you mention it. The owners are worried.. things arent getting billed out, customers are walking out with nearly free work and parts.. nothing is getting done. And you know who they blame? Us. Because weve been here the longest.

jsgull · 4-1-06, 1:11

Tell them that you converted to Islam and you need like 5 twenty minute breaks to pray everyday.

**metros** · 4-1-06, 1:21

If that's the case then the next time they bitched in my direction because of stuff going undone or needing to be free to make the customer happy I'd directly reference the hourly smoking breaks. I wouldn't have any problem blowing someone in if they were making me and my work ethic look bad because I'm a hard worker and someoneelse isn't going to ruin my reputation.

**easyBob** · 4-1-06, 3:12

That's easy...Start smoking.

-Chris

**zlyricist** · 4-1-06, 9:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by KING6

3. Your exiled from the "smokers group"

haha i thought i was the only one that noticed. people that smoke hate to relocate to smoke by themselves, they have to have someone else go with them. here in colorado (or maybe just in the suburbs of denver) there's no smoking inside ANY public place. i can be hanging out with a bunch of people having a good time, and instantly find myself alone.............exiled

anyway back on topic..........just take note of how many times your buddy pals are smoking and about how long it actually takes them to smoke (because you know theyre takin as long as possible to sit around and bs) let your boss know..........hey johnny tough guy spent a hour 1/2 smoking cigarettes on the clock today while i was working my ass off........hopefully they will get the point

if that doesnt work, do what ^^^^ he said!

**Jon** · 4-1-06, 9:39

I started smoking 7 years ago because of this.

Now I've been trying to quite for 2.

AlsMX6 · 4-1-06, 9:46

That's rough, i work with some people who smoke but they are always respectful about how they go about smoking... it's probably the policy...

anyway, why don't you start looking for another job by taking half an hour out of your day to make calls/look through the paper/ or go around getting applications, maybe you can find a similar job in the area that you live in, and if you do inquire about smoking policies!

primrose · 4-1-06, 9:54

Well this is quite the situation.

I agree, it's completely unfair, but there is nothing you can do about it at the moment. Having your boss be in the "smoker's circle" doesn't help either, it pretty much rules out talking to him about the situation.

You could always get a job here in Manitoba, we've banned smoking pretty much everywhere. It is now illegal here to smoke in public places, and if you need to go outside to smoke you cannot stand within 5-8 feet of the doorway. You can't smoke in restaurants, casinos, bars... anywhere. Makes for a very clean indoor environment.

The only thing I can think of is that if you're gotten after for things being slow, mention that the constant smoking breaks are part of the cause, and you could always suggest that maybe the smokers should wait until their 15 or 30 to smoke because it is completely unnecessary to be taking breaks throughout the course of the day to smoke.

It's just childish.

**Honda Etr** · 4-1-06, 10:07

I noticed a similar trend when I worked in an office that technically only gave an hour lunch and 2 15 minute breaks over a 9 hour shift. The smokers were alowed to take a "smoke break" if they got angry or just felt a nic fit coming on. I've never smoked a drag of a ciggerette in my life, but I started taking 2 minute "sunshine breaks" Where I would step outside for a 2 minutes every hour to enjoy the fresh airt and just being outside.

My employer lost his MIND!!!!! Asking me what I was doing, and where I was going. They eventually banned my sunshine breaks and smoke breaks all together. The smokers were SUPER PISSED at me, but why should they get more breaks then a none smoker?

**Dyoel182** · 4-1-06, 10:15

At where I used to work this became a huge problem also. When I first got there smokers were required to clock out when they went outside to smoke but slowly that became less and less enforced and we would find ourselves swamped with 2 or 3 guys outside smoking and goofing around. Eventually the smokers only got half an hour for lunch instead of a full hour, which probably didnt bother any of them too much. However they still got paid for that half hour they didnt get anymore. So we all started taking half our lunches and getting extra time, even pushing some of us into overtime for the week which of course brought down the axe. Now its back to clocking out before you step outside.

**skiingman** · 4-1-06, 12:38

Ah, how much I miss living somewhere where smoking is illegal pretty much everywhere.

Get that [shizzle] out of my face.

**cheerios165** · 4-1-06, 13:02

buy fake or candy ciggarettes.

**Darmstro** · 4-1-06, 13:10

As long as I have nothing to do at work I can sit on my ass, lay on the floor, go outside, take a dump, etc... I felt stupid just walking outside and standing there so I took up smoking.

Plus, if it is busy and I have a window of opportunity, I can just pretend I'm angry and say, "I need a [fizzle]ing cigarette" and go outside. Everyone else at work smokes too though, so it's not a big deal.