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Should smokers be paid less?
An English banker has taken his company to court after being refused a raise. He had made his case on the premise that he does an eight-hour job for the same salary as his colleagues. The difference is that he does not smoke and they do. His argument is based on cold facts.
Smokers take cigarette breaks every now and again, disrupting the workflow. At the end of a given day a smoker has taken eight to ten breaks of over 12 minutes each not including the time spent getting up to speed when he returns from his smoke.
If he has to take an elevator down several floors to an outdoor smoking area, factor that in and you get over 2 hours loss per 8 hour work day which is 25 per cent.
No other activity consuming so much of the work time is tolerated by bosses, as is smoking. Everyone understands and lets it be.
The plaintiff argues that if he was to engage in any other ‘out of office’ trip 12 times a day for any reason he would be sacked. Imagine having 12 guests a day, 12 naps, twelve biscuit breaks, 12 anything.
He wants to know why a company officer who is so cavalier about his health should receive more courtesy than a non-smoker who does not take these breaks.
Add to these breaks the normal coffee and ‘excuse me, I have to go’ treks and you are looking at three hours in absentia.
Women who smoke and also go to the powder room to repair themselves after lunch and on arrival and departure can hit nearly 4 hours of ‘disappearance’ without being questioned.
Where’s Linda?
Gone for a smoke.
Oh, we’ll wait then.
Where’s Hari?
Gone for coffee.
What, can’t he get it up here, we are waiting.
Paradoxically, not allowing smoking has given smokers a right to vanish and even co-workers don’t complain.
But can you take a 2-hour break to send your personal e-mails, chat, make personal calls or surf the Net or watch a ball game? Same thing.
In some places in the US and UK bosses are considering the placement of insulated rooms where smokers can work and puff away without disappearing to stairway landings, parking lots, smoking zones and other ‘safe’ places. As these ‘safe’ places reduce in number they make each cigarette odyssey that much longer. Take a normal airport. A smoker will walk two hundred yards with hand luggage to get to the smoking zone at gate 12 or whatever, the despair being visible. The discomfort is beaten by the need and studies have proved that.
Therefore, perhaps, the new thinking is that if people persist on smoking and there are enough of them in an office they should function from an isolation ward. Do you think it makes corporate sense?
After all, no one gets fined for daydreaming or being a snitch or buttering up the bosses and all those activities take time, too.
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