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Council to ban cigarette breaks

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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Blagsta wrote:
    No Kermit, its divide and rule. What's wrong with everyone getting more breaks? Is work and the bosses bank balance so important to you?

    Nothing wrong with getting longer breaks.

    But, as you well know, smokers would take smoking breaks in addition to the breaks they already get, regardless of how long the breaks are.

    No, it isn't to do with council tax, but its an importantr consideration. The people of that city are paying the council staff to work not smoke.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Considering the amount of money that councils waste, I think cigarette breaks aren't really worth getting het up about. As I said, its about divide and rule.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Blagsta wrote:
    Not if everyone got extra breaks.

    :confused:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What's confusing about that? If everyone got the same extra breaks, no one would be doing more work than others would they?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    But everyone would (more than likely anyway) have to put in overtime to get the work done. (which is what I said on the previous page)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You think so? Personally I think that if people had more authorised breaks they'd be generally happier and more productive.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Blagsta wrote:
    What's wrong with everyone getting more breaks? Is work and the bosses bank balance so important to you?

    a. We're talking about Civil Servants here

    b. There has to be a limit otherwise there wouldn't be any fucking work done at all. What is wrong with a caoffee break or a fag break?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    a. We're talking about Civil Servants here

    I thought we were talking more generally. Anyway, as I already said, councils are hardly efficient anyway, so a few cig breaks ain't gonna make fuck all difference to anyone.
    b. There has to be a limit otherwise there wouldn't be any fucking work done at all. What is wrong with a caoffee break or a fag break?

    What's wrong with letting people organise their own time? That's how it is where I work. Take a break whenever you like, as long as you get your work done.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Blagsta wrote:
    I thought we were talking more generally. Anyway, as I already said, councils are hardly efficient anyway, so a few cig breaks ain't gonna make fuck all difference to anyone.

    There is another approach, clamp down on any inefficiency.
    What's wrong with letting people organise their own time? That's how it is where I work. Take a break whenever you like, as long as you get your work done.

    Determine how much work should be done. As I said previously, if you can find time fo four fags then you can find another 30 mins to work - I could give you more.

    The point is that you are paid for eight hours work and there should be eight hours worth given to you to do. if you can do it in seven then clearly it isn't eight hours worth. Non?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Blimey, you take work far too seriously!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Nah, look back a bit and you'll find that I'm very relaxed because I like to see my staff happy - but there is always (and should alway be) a limit.

    All civil servants have a responsibility to tax payers not to waste money, and this sort of thing does just that. Civil Service generally has higher sickness levels, better pensions and is often grossly inefficient and this costs you, the working man, your hard earned cash. So the question is, when you object to low wages etc, why don't we object to the tax taken from us being excessive because the system wastes so much?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The wasteage of council tax has very very little to do with people taking cigarrette breaks.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Indeed, but that's part of it and shouldn't be ignored.

    Just a taxation levels have much to do with the loopholes only really available to those who can hire someone to understand the relevant laws.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Seeing as the great majority of office workers (can't remember the precise percentage) don't take anywhere near their full hour lunch entitlement, perhaps some people are simply using some of that time for the odd ciggie break.

    Like Blagsta said, if employers said 'from now on everyone is entitled to two ro three 5-minute breaks during day in which they can smoke, stretch their legs or have a wank in the toilet for all we care', everyone would be happy.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Newcastle City Council employ 15,000 people.

    20% of the population smoke- that's 3,000 Council employees.

    Say they all earn £6 an hour (most will earn more), and they take 30 mins worth of cig breaks in a day.

    That's 3000 x £6 = £18,000 /2 = £9000.

    That's £9,000 a day wasted, or to put it another way, each day of the week 10 council tax payers have paid £100 a month out of their wages for the wastage of skiving smokers. That's 3,500 people over the course of the year who have seen their hard-earned money literally go up in smoke.

    That's quite a lot of money, and its money that I'd rather have in my bank account than some skiving council worker's.

    Secondly, why should bosses pay for breaks? They pay for work. I have no problem with people smoking during office hours, but they should have to stay for an extra 30-minutes to do the work that they should have done when they were smoking. Leaving the workplace at 5.30 instead of 5pm on a Friday will concentrate the minds beautifully.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Although the health and safety advice on office work with computers makes it clear that regular short breaks should be encouraged to avoid problems. And last time I checked just because your having a fag doesn't mean you can't also be working on something, even if it's just catching up a document you need to read, etc.

    http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg36.pdf
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I've yet to see anyone at my office take a spot of conveyancing out with them to peruse when they're having a chuff.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Times can change though, without a complete removal of something workers were previously allowed to do.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Why don't just go back to the good old times when workers were allowed 2 minutes' toilet break at a predetermined time? I certainly wouldn't want anyone to wander off, engage in a conversation by the water cooler or waste time in any other way- what a waste of employers and tax payers money that would be!

    In fact we should attach an electronic tag to their legs so the cheeky bastards don't take too much time when going to the loo or picking up a document from the fifth floor.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote:
    Why don't just go back to the good old times when workers were allowed 2 minutes' toilet break at a predetermined time?

    Can you see the difference between going to the toilet and having a smoke?
    I certainly wouldn't want anyone to wander off, engage in a conversation by the water cooler or waste time in any other way- what a waste of employers and tax payers money that would be!

    Again, every one does that including smokers, who also take time out of their habit. Should we let drinkers have an extra half an hour down the pub, or junkies and few minutes so that they can shoot up?

    Like I've said before, there needs to be a limit, working isn't all for the benefit of the employee and nor should it be.
    Jim V wrote:
    Although the health and safety advice on office work with computers makes it clear that regular short breaks should be encouraged to avoid problems.

    Short breaks from the screen, and you need to be looking at it for amount of time per day without a break to qualify.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Can you see the difference between going to the toilet and having a smoke?
    There is clearly a difference. But there is no difference between walking outside to have a smoke and gathering around the watercooler, flirting with the fit blonde from HR or discussing the weekend games with the lads across the room.

    So long as nobody takes the piss people should be allowed short breaks. I get the feeling a lot of non smokers make a case out of smokers going out for a cigarette because their actions are more visible and obvious, while the non smokers themselves actually have the same amount time spent on breaks doing other things.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I've heard that if people didn't spend so much time on TheSite at work then thousands of man hours could be saved every year.

    Let's be fair, we all procrastinate at work from time-to-time. Non-smokers are just doing what they do best, whining about smokers. If you're that pissed off that smokers have a good excuse to take a break and stretch their legs everynow and again, then why don't you go with them. I find smokers are generally more interesting than non-smokers anyway.
  • Teh_GerbilTeh_Gerbil Posts: 13,332 Born on Earth, Raised by The Mix
    I've heard that if people didn't spend so much time on TheSite at work then thousands of man hours could be saved every year.

    Let's be fair, we all procrastinate at work from time-to-time. Non-smokers are just doing what they do best, whining about smokers. If you're that pissed off that smokers have a good excuse to take a break and stretch their legs everynow and again, then why don't you go with them. I find smokers are generally more interesting than non-smokers anyway.
    :thumb:

    If they took off the wages of any form of procrastination, we'd all be fucked more than likley.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So smokers don't drink coffee or talk with their mates?

    Right :thumb:

    Smokers are skiving with their breaks, as they are well above what non-smokers take.
    Why would any sane person want to go and stand outside in the cold in a cloud of cancer-causing pollutants and carcinogens?
    Smoking makes you interesting as well as harder-working. My goodness. Most smokers I know just spend the time between drags whingeing about how they aren't allowed to give their colleagues cancer anymore. Which, oddly enough, is all the smokers on here are doing, and all the smokers on here ever do. Smoking's banned in the pub, boo-hoo-hoo.

    Jim, the short breaks only apply for those permanently doing VDU work- going to the printer classifies as a short break.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote:
    Which, oddly enough, is all the smokers on here are doing, and all the smokers on here ever do.

    Nope. I smoke and i don't agree with fag breaks. I think the standard coffee breaks in the morning and afternoon and lunch break are adequate for having a fag in. And i'm also quite glad about there being a smoking ban too.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I can smell another quality P&D debate brewing. Can i save posters the trouble of the next 6 pages?

    Post 1: OP
    Post 2: On topic
    Post 3: A bit on and off topic

    While people can still be arsed
    - Post x: insult / axe being ground / one-liner / hyperbole / moderator attempting to moderate
    Loop

    What this boils down to a smokers vs. non-smokers. Smoking, like a lot of things of late, appears to manifest large lumps of sand in people's vaginas. They then strap on their debating blinkers and proceeding to launch into a hyperbole laced diatriabe about the evil of [insert topic here].
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Make the smokers punch in and out on a time sheet when they have a break, infact make every worker do it, then they have to have their wages docked for the time they are not working when they are paid to work.

    Taking smoking breaks doesn't bother me, its the part where they get paid for standing around outside for 10 mins puffing away and yapping when they are being paid to work. Letting them have a set amount of time off for breaks, tea, coffee, or a smoke is fine by me, so long as it is not a break taken when they are being paid to work!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The solution is clear- allow smoking in the office. That way nobody will be taking extra breaks.
















    :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    :(

    I was expecting a picture of some one smoking at their desk in that gap Aladdin and there was no picture :(
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sociedad.jpg

    It was difficult to find anything. Unsurprisingly this photo is from a Spanish site. In Spain smoking in offices was only officially banned this year :D
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