Smoking breaks at work.

I work in retail (sort of) and company policy states that no one can be out smoking while a customer is on the property. I understand why and that it looks sloppy but it's tough for some of these guys to make it through a busy shift without a smoke. In this weather I can't see why you would go out though...

When we get a break pretty well the whole team goes out back and chats while the smokers smoke. It's pretty normal.

FWIW, some of our customers in the oil and gas business (pipelines, gas plants, refineries, etc.) treat vaping like smoking, to the point of treating the ecigs as lighters. They worry a lot about things going boom, and they've identified three or four possible points of ignition in the devices.

Federal law requires that you get a two 15 minute breaks and your choice of a 1/2 or full hour lunch break. If they are restricting you from that, they are committing a federal felony.

Take your breaks just like the smokers do.

I am a smoker, and I take a more logical approach. Instead of my mandated 15 minute breaks, I take four 7-minute breaks throughout the day for my habit. Those times are highly variable based on workload and how busy the store is, but everyone has that freedom at our store. If a cashier doesn't have any customers, they can check their FB or play trivia crack. We have about 80 employees and we all have downtime and busy time. What we do with that time is up to us.

... BUT, the law requires that you are granted a break during your shift. Period. If you aren't getting it and you're upset that smokers do, that is something that needs to be addressed with your boss or HR.

JThw8 wrote:

pinchvalve wrote:

JThw8 wrote:

mtn wrote:

pinchvalve wrote: We have smokers at the office. I complained about them smoking outside the front door, and they got moved to the back loading dock. Then I complained about that and now they have to go to the other side of the parking lot. I love seeing them have to walk through the slush and snow to stand in the bitter cold and the rain just to get a smoke! Hopefully, I can get it moved off campus entirely and that will be the end of smoke breaks here.

Doubt it. It will decrease them, and it may even make a few people quit. But there will be the stalwarts who will walk a 1/2 mile to get off campus. Or more likely drive.

^This All you've done is ensure the smoke break takes longer. We have a manufacturing site which for safety reasons we cannot smoke on campus. When I smoked and visited the site I would take the walk, and because it was such a long walk I'd have 2 while I was out there.

So far, one person has successfully quit, and another two are on Chantix right now, and a third is planning to quit. If I cause one person to quit for good, it's worth the effort. I love my co-workers and want them around a long time, even if it takes some tough love.

It's the "I know what's better for you than you do" attitude that kept me a smoker for so long. I told my wife when we met 15 years ago that I would quit when I went a full year without someone telling me I should. It took 14 years to get to that point. The people that quit didn't do it because you inconvenienced them, I've never met a smoker who quit because it was inconvenient.

I quit because it was inconvenient.... I didn't want to go to the store to get more smokes. But I wholeheartedly echo your comments, nagging asstards only made me want to smoke more. I'm an adult. I know what I'm doing. FFS I worked in healthcare. I needed a smoke break because it's either that or i'm burning the building down because I have no other recourse and I can't drink on the clock. Really, I sort of get the concept of "moving" a smoking area to a degree, but attempting to force people to quit is just sorta rude IMO. I HIGHLY doubt anyone that smokes thinks it's good for them. Get off their case and be supportive instead of combative, ya know?

JKleiner wrote: If you're looking for productivity never hire a pipe smoker; 45 minutes of every hour will be spent trying to keep it lit as well as scraping, packing and otherwise fussing with the damn thing.

All the pipe smokers I know are either retired or hipsters. One wouldn't apply and I wouldn't hire the other. I like efficiency.

Both my parents smoked. All of my sisters and their husbands/boyfriends and my brother and his women all smoke. As a matter of fact I think myself and one niece are the only people in my family that never have smoked. For years I was the only person at work that didn't smoke. It would be me driving and five other mother berkeleyers chain smoking on the way to and from the jobs.

I used to be all about peoples right to smoke whenever and wherever they wanted to. I would get angry when someone complained to whomever I was with that was smoking. But now that I have been away from it, I've completely changed, I can't stand it anymore. I have anger issues about it now. I seriously want to bitch slap anyone that is smoking anywhere near me. It's completely berkeleying repulsive. I know many people who are slowly killing themselves with worse things than cigs but at least I don't have to smell their stinky asses all the time. berkeley smokers, hurry up and die already.

Datsun1500 wrote:

curtis73 wrote: Federal law requires that you get a two 15 minute breaks and your choice of a 1/2 or full hour lunch break. If they are restricting you from that, they are committing a federal felony. Take your breaks just like the smokers do.

There are no Federal laws requiring any break, much less 15 minute ones. If you take a break longer than 20 minutes, it can be deducted from your check. I'm an employer, I need to know this stuff. Don't believe me? Check here

I believe you now. Must be a PA thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0tvhOVuh_o

JKleiner wrote: If you're looking for productivity never hire a pipe smoker; 45 minutes of every hour will be spent trying to keep it lit as well as scraping, packing and otherwise fussing with the damn thing.

We had an older sales guy that smoked a pipe all day long. I would hassle him about all the tools and equipment he had in his office.

Our GM would flag me down and hush me and had me listen to what he was doing at random times.......zippo, tamping, lighting - we cracked up at how much smoking time he killed.

Datsun310Guy wrote:

JKleiner wrote: If you're looking for productivity never hire a pipe smoker; 45 minutes of every hour will be spent trying to keep it lit as well as scraping, packing and otherwise fussing with the damn thing.

We had an older sales guy that smoked a pipe all day long. I would hassle him about all the tools and equipment he had in his office. Our GM would flag me down and hush me and had me listen to what he was doing at random times.......zippo, tamping, lighting - we cracked up at how much smoking time he killed.

My Late Grandfather told me stories of when the CCC camps came through upper Michigan during the depression. He was in one of them and remembers them building some highways through the woods.

All the men would assemble at the edge of the road looking to work.. cigarette smokers were allowed, but if somebody lit up a pipe, they tossed him right out

Datsun1500 wrote: In reply to curtis73: Only if you're a farm worker in PA. They are the only ones that have required breaks according to PA law. Required breaks are a very common assumption, but only 19 States actually have laws on them, and most of them are only talking about lunch breaks. Who knew? That being said, most employers don't know the laws either, so smoke away!

I have about twenty people working directly for me and I always have one or two that try to tell me about how the law mandates breaks, yup, nope....