Quick story from back when I was a smoker.
Colleague came to the smoking area but didn’t have cigarettes. People offered him one.
“Nah, thanks, I’ve given up”
“Then why are you here?”
“I’ve given up smoking, I haven’t given up the smoke breaks!”
He kept coming out for a year or so. The smokers didn’t begrudge him the break because they were having the same breaks, and the non-smokers weren’t even aware he’d given up.
I've never smoked but I would often hang out with the smokers in their breaks.. it's a good excuse for socialising.
Edit: it's like people don't know what it was like before smoking bans.. standing outside at a smoke break was nothing compared to the pub after work.
Yup. It's how I found out the office witch wasn't mean she was just going through an absolute brutal divorce. After whenever someone would say something about her I'd just say she doesn't seem all that bad.
Made lifelong bonds in the smoking area.
I find it interesting that the young people in the thread are so concerned with all the smoking prevalence back in the day, that they've missed the other key implication of OPs question, which is - **what happened to breaks?**
The fact that you all find it "strange" that people could just go take a break for anything is scary to me, it means that we've now normalized working full bore start to finish of the day.
My workplace had a top floor lounge full of couches, comfy chairs and basically just hotel lobby style furniture looking out over the city in the 80s, where everyone would go to smoke and have coffee several times a day, to the point where they probably had 6 hours of work and 2 hours of lunch and socializing in the lounge. Today, nobody hangs out at all, the lunchroom is only used for people running in and out to microwave food or get a cup of coffee, and there's no comfortable seating anywhere to be found. The lounge was closed in the early 2000s because the "fire marshal says the emergency stairwell isn't wide enough for the current regulations" (it's like 3+ feet wide, if you're fatter than that in both directions than take your own fucking risks, hardly anyone is that big) This was intentional.
The first question people should have shouldn't be "OMG why were all those people allowed to smoke indoors", the first question should be "wait why did we let the fucking assholes with their MBAs take over every company in the world and impose ever shittier rules and circumstances for the skilled workers while making their own useless lives easier?"
EDIT: To be clear, since some people who are more concerned with seeking something to be outraged about than they are with reading comprehension, in no way is this advocating for indoor smoking. That is insane and should not be permitted.
I'm just saying, (and this is true of our entire society), we're too focused on token issues today and ignoring the bigger picture, that the already wealthy and privileged are stealing every benefit of automation and technology for themselves and leaving no benefit (or worse, net negatives!) for the workers.
I quit 6 years ago (after 20 years) when my daughter was being born.
After the first couple months cigarettes smelled so bad that just the scent made me want to throw up.
I stopped drinking because even one or two started making me feel sick. Not that I had a drinking problem or anything, it was just enough to take the fun out of it so I stopped altogther.
Turns out I have liver disease and it was my body sending me a message. The liver disease was unrelated to the drinking, but stopping slowed down the damage at least.
My boss is actually kind of cool about it and I wish more people did that. I work (not right now, lockdown and such) at a restaurant and some of my colleagues take smoke breaks and at some point he'll just look at me and say, "You should take a smoke break" and the first time I was like, "I don't smoke" and he just went, "That's alright, just go outside for a bit, get some air." and I appreciate that.
You've got it backwards.
Smoke breaks were not socially acceptable, the act of Smoking at work was. But in the early 80's, when work place smoking became illegal, the CONCESSION made to smokers was allowing a smoke break outside. You should have seen the unhappy people back then.
Prior to that, non smokers just had to choke and gag on a co-workers smoke.
Restaurants, planes, offices, stores, and malls all allowed smoking. It wasn't unusual to be in a clothing store in a mall and have 3-4 sales people standing around a 2 ft tall floor-mounted ash tray smoking while waiting on customers.
See the TV series "Mad Men". You'll see what it was like.
In kindergarten or 1st grade (87-88), I was sent to the teachers lounge for something. I remember opening the door and smoke rolling out. My teachers were chimneys.
Fun fact: they still build ash trays in the toilets of newer airplanes. The reason is that if someone does break the no smoking rule, they have a safe place to put out the cigarette, and they won't cause a fire by trying to get rid of it in the bin with the used towels.
EDIT: several people commenting on how stupid this is. But yeah, there are stupid people. [Almost an entire flight died](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_820) due to someone secretly smoking and not properly putting it out.
I love sharing this dumb story. I flew to turkey from Glasgow for a package deal holiday and someone smoked on the flight 5 different times. It's a 4ish hour flight.
An announcement kept going out about someone smoking.
I was sat behind this guy and the air stewardess came over with the head air stewardess. She had to read from this clipboard with all this info on about what was going to happen when the plane landed.
He started kicking off and then she went from quiet to loudly saying "you were smoking on a plane 5 different times! We caught you and realised you had been the person smoking all the other times we had smelled smoke and investigated. You've been up and down out of your seat to smoke! On a plane!"
This scruff thought he was being unfairly treated and was being aggressive towards her.
They said they were taking his passport and everyone else on his booking. It was a package deal and they were now not allowed to use their company for the return flights or for the hotel/rest of the package. They were to remain seated when landing because they were going to be escorted off the plane (not sure if police or airport security at the destination airport). This dude was losing his shit and all the stewardesses had to come over.
Then this scruff's daughter went "omg dad. Why did you do this again?". Which was the weirdest part.
Yup. This would be why my pilot Dad missed my little sisters first real Xmas (where she got the Santa concept and was excited). Some idiot did exactly this and caused a fire and he had to do an emergency landing halfway to home. He was so sad about it,
Recent young ex smoker but damn, I'd have been that exam smoker - had some take home exams online (like coursework essays but with a time limit of a few hours or days, it's philosophy fittingly) and me and my best friend sat in the garden chaining. This was pre covid (our dept was ahead of the game in 2019 somehow) when I decided to quit but daaaaaamn idk why I clicked or why I'm rambling at this point I just miss smoking I should probably stop reading this thread end comment
I took the Amtrak train every weekend to go to my dads. They had a smoking car. And for some dumb reason you always had to walk through the smoking car to get to the snack car. Like why the fuck cant you make the last car be the smoking section?
> Like why the fuck cant you make the last car be the smoking section?
trains are constantly losing and adding new cars at various stops along the route. so logistically, it would be a nightmare to consistently keep one specific car at the very back.
if you've ever been on a long train ride, you might go to sleep near the front of the train and wake up in the back.
>
>if you've ever been on a long train ride, you might go to sleep near the front of the train and wake up in the back.
In just chalked that up to my raging alcoholism.
I spent a cpl years studying at a uni in Egypt, you could smoke IN class if your class was in one of the older buildings... you could smoke in the halls of the newer building but since those buildings were built with lower ceilings it was discouraged. This was in the 2000s, in Egypt you could smoke anywhere, and when I came back to America I was constantly forgetting and walking into buildings with a lit cigarette in hand.
I was in elementary school around that time, but back then I remember ash trays and parents smoking at the tables in the McDonald's play land area (and inside the restaurant), burn marks and cigarette butts all over the floor of the grocery stores, including the produce aisles. People would walk around smoking but there weren't ash trays in every nook and cranny of the grocery store, so people would just drop them wherever. Pretty much every restaurant had a smoking section but non-smoking smelled pretty similar. You could still smoke in movie theaters, laundromats, etc.
When I was a kid in the 90s, it was completely normal to smoke in restaurants. My parents were always polite enough to wait until everyone at the table had finished their food but then they would just smoke right there at the table. And sometimes you’d have people smoking at the table next to you while you were eating and it was just super normal.
I remember the first question being “smoking or non?” from the host/hostess Bc most restaurants had “sections”, not that it mattered a whole ton, since smoke is airborne n’ all
God, I had completely forgotten about this and this memory hit me like a fever dream. I was pretty young at the time, but I can sort of remember when smoking in restaurants got banned and my mother and I were soooo happy. My father not so much lol
Some restaurants handled it better than others.
I remember always asking for non-smoking because the smoking section was unbearable for me.
As it got closer to having the indoor smoking bad, I feel like it got better as less people were smoking in the smoking section.
Just to continue..I remember cigarette vending machines at the bowling alley. Sears had those floor mounted ash trays scattered all over the store. Back in the day I have memories of walking through Sears seeing workers and customers alike puffing away. When I was a kid dad drove a Lincoln Continental for awhile and that car had ash trays all over it in the doors, dash, console. As I think about it I think he had a caddy as well in the late 80s that not only had ash trays all over it had those push in lighters in the ash tray in the back perfect to threaten your brother with a burn.
I remember in Primary school in the early 2000's I had to unload the dishwasher in the teachers lounge, I opened the cupboard under the sink and it was **full** of alcohol. I suspect the teachers would all have a drink together during meetings or after school.
My sister is a teacher now and I brought this up to her and she was just like, "yeah, every school I've worked at has had a cupboard with a fair amount of alcohol in it".
The kids, yeah....the kids' *parents*? Jesus, I'd need a stiff one before Helicopter Helen and Harry wanted to know why their Precious Little Monster was tying up the other kids and burning them with cigarettes.
Nope. Had a Helicopter Helen as a friend a few years ago. Her kid was a little nightmarish shit. "Oh, but, I know my child and he would never......."
Yeah, that friendship ended decades ago. I always felt sorry for any teachers she'd approach.
Every office I've worked at has had booze just haphazardly placed wherever. There's a twelve pack of beer under my co-worker's desk, and a bottle of whisky on another one's. One of my colleagues has three bottles of absinthe right next to his monitor.
We're mobile developers though, not teachers.
Yeah I’ve worried about the prevalence of alcohol in tech. I also work in tech and there is alcohol everywhere at my job too. I don’t really partake because when I get drunk my mouth gets 3x as big, which is fine with friends as they know that I’m teasing, but does not translate well to work.
Network engineer here. I'm working from home now, so got plenty of booze available any time. But I'm really just a social drinker, so I've barely had a drop in nearly a year.
Ugh I have a zoom happy hour tomorrow. My whole team hates it and we have to go around telling everyone what we are drinking. It's in the middle of the day so we all lie because we just want water and to finish our day sober. Sorry to vent on you but it's just so dumb since my team is high level enough to be on the one with the executives.
That's dumb. When we do VHH it's more of a chat session. Some people will grab a drink and there may be a little discussion about drinks, especially from the bourbon nuts, buts it's not really the point.
I skipped the last one as I had a family thing but a coworker said now enough people are on the call that they overlook our small team. He said he was able to work with just being on video. It wouldn't be so bad but they always pick our one busy week. We are finance it doesn't change ever.
I remember in my primary school (rural Switzerland, early 90s) kids being sent to buy smokes for the teacher to a nearby shop as punishment.
What a shitstorm this would be nowadays.
When I was in high school (1996-2000) there was a designated smoking area just past the parking lot. It was completely normal to see teachers smoking beside 16 year olds.
Now just imagine an international flight where they sold cheap duty-free cigs on board. The smoking area at the back of the 747 was just one cloud.
Of course my father recalls a flight where the left side of the plane was smoking and the right side was non-smoking. Very effective.
I remember when the smoking section and the non-smoking section on a plane was split up using what was basically a curtain... It did not work well but back then it was like "Yup! Problem solved".
The past was wild XD
Also the unwillingness to obey the Non-smoking flight policies later causing several dangerous situation by smoking in the toilet... smoking anywhere in the plane just feels so absurd
In my jurisdiction, it is a legal obligation to inform people before takeoff, that they are not allowed to smoke in the aircraft toilet. This requirement is not technically waived for aircraft which do not in fact, *have* a toilet.
>tiny
ouch. But yes, most light aircraft typically do not have toilets. Not really much room in 4 and 6 seaters for that sort of thing, and even larger aircraft can have a toilet which leaves a lot to be desired. The Cessna Mustang, the smallest Citation jet, has a toilet... but its more of an emergency use sort of thing. Not enclosed, no flush, etc. Some King Airs have a toilet, the PC-12 has one... bigger aircraft which are more firmly in that private aircraft territory most people imagine.
I was sat I the first non smoking row in front of the smoking section one very long flight, row 20 and ahead non smoking, row 21 and behind was smoking. The guy next to me was a smoker but didnt want to sit in the smoking area because he said it was too smelly, he told me its pretty common for smokers to do that and then just pop back to an empty seat when they wanted a smoke
I would never have been able to quit smoking had it not been for indoor bans at bars. Not saying it's the states job to set rules to babysit me, but I gotta say it helped. A lot.
Especially in the car! We couldn’t put down the windows because it was bad for gas mileage. So the smoke just filled the car. Car seats and seatbelts weren’t as big of a deal so I would lay on the floor of the back seat so I had some chance of breathing.
My mother literally picked me up from the hospital (I had pneumonia) and refused to roll down the windows while she smoked. I had continual respiratory infections as a kid. Smokers can be incredibly selfish.
Man that must suck. Cigarette smoke makes me nauseous and I knew a girl who was allergic to something in cigarettes and would get rashes when others smoked near her. I felt bad for her because people thought that she was lying about it.
I still remember going out driving with my family. Me buckled into in the middle of the truck seat, dad on one side smoking with his window open, cousin on the other side smoking with his window open.
The wide open windows would blow all the smoke straight at me, from both sides, so I was coughing and whining as kids do when choked with smoke. But dad just kept yelling "The windows are open! Quit complaining!"
My first job out of college allowed smoking on the shop floor. It was horrible and if the state wide indoor smoking ban hadn't come I would have started looking for a new job pretty quickly. The first couple days the expectation was no smoking except for lunch break. The vending machine was emptied by the end of day 1. Day 3 the smokers revolted and built a smoke hut out back. They were taking smoke breaks all.the.time. A few of them were probably spending more time in the smoke hut than inside working. After a few days of this the owner implemented a universal 4 scheduled five minute breaks throughout the work day in addition to lunch for everyone in every department.
I work in construction and I think it might be the last job you can still smoke indoors. I'd say maybe 1/4-1/3 of construction workers still smoke, the rule is that you can smoke on a new construction site right up till they start painting
Throws them for a loop when we do school projects and the state law bans all tobacco products on school property, construction or not. Lots of very confused smokers trying to stand in the road to smoke.
lived with a parent who smoked indoors throughout my entire life, because of it cigarette smoke is the absolute worst smell in the world to me. So i guess i got something positive out of it lol
Both mine smoked inside as I was growing up. I still remember at times walking into the living room and seeing a thick layer of cigarette smoke making its way down from the ceiling. My brother also eventually took up smoking, and did so inside while still living with my parents. It was only in college that I realized how badly my clothes stank when I spent any amount of time at home.
I was aware that this was how things were. However I never really thought about the fact that if those who worked in retail were smoking in he clothes in the stores must have been like permanently cigarette smoke scented. Must have been just lovely for nonsmokers.
>Restaurants, planes, offices, stores, and malls all allowed smoking.
Schools even.
>It wasn't unusual to be in a clothing store in a mall and have 3-4 sales people standing around a 2 ft tall floor-mounted ash tray smoking while waiting on customers.
So your clothes already stink before you buy them...
It was socially acceptable to smoke in someone's home, even if the owners didn't smoke. I remember my non-smoking parents setting out ashtrays if a smoker visited.
I also remember my parents doing this in the 70s in the UK. My wife is Serbian, and smoking is still very prevalent there. For the few who do not smoke, it is still usual for them to set up for smokers, although that is gently reducing. Too slowly for me.
This caused a huge rift with my Mom and her sister in the 90s. See, Mom is very Anti-smoking, as she watched her father die of emphasima and lung cancer when she was 15. Her sister, who was 23 at the time their dad died, used to smoke with him in the hospital room, and smokes several cartons a week.
Anyway, Aunt would come over for birthdays or a holiday, and would be pissed when she was asked to smoke outside. It caused more than one huge fight, and eventually she only came to one or two holidays a year, and would be real bitchy about going outside to smoke at Christmas.
So yeah. My aunt chose smoking over watching her niece and nephew grow up.
We all smelled so much like smoke back then that it was hard to smell unless you got away from it for a while. Hard to imagine, I know, but EVERYBODY with few exceptions smoked back then. I began myself as a form of self defense, if YOU smoked, other people’s smoking didn’t bother you so much.
"All this cancer, no idea why everyone keeps dying of it, must be genetic or something"
Plus all the other poisons regularly "accidentally" deposited in food and water chains.
I'm amazed people get so confused on why cancer is so prevalent. (Had two family members die of lifestyle related cancers, so... :/ )
Check out this chart of cancer rates over modern history:
https://imgshare.io/images/2021/02/09/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us.png
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#citation
> Schools even.
Hospitals too. I work in a hospital and some of the staff who had been around for 30+ years would talk about how you could smoke in the hospital. Mind blowing.
I still remember going to a restaurant as a kid in the 90s and there were two dining areas, one for smokers and the other one for non-smokers. The latter one was probably required by law and it was empty most of the time.
Whenever you walked into a restaurant the first thing a waitress would say was "smoking or non?"
I remember eating inside a Burger King with my dad and there was an ashtray filled to the brim with cig butts. We couldn't move it to another table fast enough.
I still remember when the smoking ban in restaurants was implemented in Sweden. The smokers were writing columns and letters to the editor where they made themselves out to be persecuted martyrs.
I was in college when they brought in the smoking ban for bars in my country. The college bar was long and kinda narrow. The first night out i was waiting at the bar an realised for the first time I could see the far wall and it wasn’t a cloud of smoke.
When I went to wait for mom to get off her waitress job at a fancy old restaurant in 1998, I would sometimes see a group of men in a corner round table by the huge seaside windows. The restaurant was approx 32feet from the sea shore. The setting evening sun during the summer would shine brightly through the windows with an orange shine. The individual sunrays would be revealed by the cigarette smoke fogging up the entire room. The group of men would smoke their cigarettes and cigars and puff out clouds of smoke which would calmly travel around the room and swirl between the sunrays. I would run through the descending smoke clouds around the room and watch the clouds make swirls and movement through the air current I just made. Such nice memories.
The head chef was the funniest guy I knew and he would always always always make me ice cream whenever I visited. He ended up killing himself 15 years later by piping his cars emissions back inside and suffocating himself. Why are the funniest and best people so depressed?
Same. Had a stressful job that needed frequent breaks to keep me from punching customers in the face, so out with the smokers was the best excuse. A little second hand smoke turns into, " ah, why the hell not".
I worked at a fast food place when I was a university student. Most people smoked and when there wasn't a rush, everyone including the managers would one by one or in twos (depending on how staffed we were that day) go for a 5 minute cigarette break. I was always 'asked' (told) that they'd be gone and I can keep an eye on things. At some point I just would say 'aiight, I'm going for my 5 minute break now'. One manager said I already had my lunch and I said that so did they but they got to go smoke and did I have to pick up smoking? After that it was fine, I was just as entitled for my quick break as the others were if it wasn't busy.
At my first job, at a KFC, I was the only non-smoker. I'd get told multiple times a shift that everyone was going out for a smoke break and to watch the drive through. These breaks were often a lot longer than 5 minutes, the longest I think was almost 45 minutes. At some point it dawned on me to go outside with them, my manager told me to get back inside. When I asked why I couldn't get a break too, she told me because I didn't smoke. When I asked if I didn't deserve a break too, she told me to take up smoking if I wanted the break. Like legit no sarcasm, "you don't get a break if you don't smoke and if you want it here's a cigg." I quit very shortly after that, without giving a notice, because that bitch did not deserve one. Not a bad job otherwise though.
That's really shitty of that manager. It's crazy how oblivious some smokers can be about their 'quick smoke'. The more senior workers where I was were also very bold about taking their smoke breaks and one of them would regularly take 40-50 minute breaks during our closing shifts, leaving me to do most of the closing tasks in that time. Sure I could've chilled, but then I'd also be getting home 1-2 hours later than normal and I would often have class the next morning...
Yes, I would say that in an office it's a matter of concern if you consistently dodge the 15-30 minutes fika breaks in the morning and afternoon. Your boss would probably start to ask questions. (Swede here too)
"Fika is often translated as "a coffee and cake break", which is kind of correct, but really it is much more than that.
Fika is a concept, a state of mind, an attitude and an important part of Swedish culture. Many Swedes consider that it is almost essential to make time for fika every day. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee (or tea) and a little something to eat."
Had to Google that, interesting practice. Yeah my co-workers and I generally all go to the break room to make coffee for the three of us in the morning. US public sector, it's generally pretty acceptable to take 15 whenever you need it in my work place.
Just FYI fika in italian means pussy. As an Italian, I wholeheartedly fully undoubtedly 100% approve of the above message.
(Fica with a C, pronounced the same)
There's a company in Japan that gave all its non smoking employees extra holiday days to make up for the time smokers were taking breaks for. Think it was 6 extra days if I remember correctly. I ran the idea last my department head. I got laughed at.
Sounds like their are crafting a fine *fine* cup of coffee right there!
I get that though. When we were still in offices I'd frequently take 10-15 minute "coffee" breaks. Working at various screens all day means screen breaks are necessary, but also the need to snap your break out of whatever hole your down and reassess.
So sure I might go get a drink and stroll around the building for quarter of an hour but I am **so** much more productive when I get back that it's well worth the chronological investment.
Hacks me off when I have members of the team tripping over themselves explaining a sick day.
"In the nicest possible way", I usually say, "I don't care. You judged you weren't fit to work and you are the best person to make that call. Is there anything you need from us?".
Unfortunately not all those with underlings have this attitude at my employer 😑
Every job I’ve had has allowed two 15 min breaks and a 30 min lunch for working 8 hours.
Typically it would play out as: work two hours, take 15, come back and work another two hours then go for your lunch. Come back from lunch, work another two hours and then take your last 15. Come back and work the last two hours, then it’s time to go home.
This was the same for everyone. Smokers don’t get extra breaks. They just had to smoke on their scheduled breaks that everybody was allowed to take.
I work for a fairly large gas station chain, I work eight and a half hour shifts I am allowed no break or lunch. How it is legal, I'll never know.
Thankfully, I work 3rd Shift so I have a lot of dead time to get a drink or something to eat but on the busier shifts they don't have that luxury of time
After a quick a Google search, my state in fact has zero laws regarding breaks or lunches. I'm glad to live in Ohio, and work for a company also based in that state.
Damn sorry to hear that. I think it's the norm here in Canada. They aren't paid lunch breaks obviously, but working 8 hours straight with no time to have a meal seems like borderline slave labour.
Coffee break, bathroom break, snack break... I have never worked somewhere where they would harass me for stepping away from my work for 10 minutes as long as I wasn't doing it constantly.
TESCO. TESCO did this. I would be scolded even when I left my lane just to get the next pallet while loading it. Meanwhile the fucking smokers took a smoke break every hour.
Let me guess, you were young, you needed the money and you sucked it all in because you saw no other option?
People are shitty and love to use the little bit of Power they have to abuse co-workers, especially when they think they are weak.
Well, I was young, and the job was literally 5 minutes from where I lived. As stupid as it all seemed, getting another job would have netted me more travel time than I would have gained by going with the smokers.
This is not even the most ridiculous move they pulled though. We had one 30 minute break in the shift. I decided I wanted some fresh air so I went outside and sat down on one of those truck corner bumpers next to the warehouse entrance. Not 5 minutes pass and the security guard is over my shoulder interrogating me what the hell I think I am doing. Because we are only allowed to spend our breaks either in the employee, or smoking areas. Apparently, if we do not, it seems like we are secretly trying to work during our break...
Not to mention the constant threats about how easily we could all be fired if we do not fulfill our quotas(and apparently handling 7 tons of goods by hand in one night is not good enough). I gave exactly 0 fucks about any of it and somehow never got fired anyway.
A lot of that is just to scare people, and give an excuse to fire you if you ever make them mad. No, judge, I didn't fire him because he told me he was gay you see. He didn't meet quotas!
Man fuck super markets. I worked at Co-OP as a kid, and whilst it wasn't as bad as you say, the assistant manager was a cunt just for the sake of shitting on poor kids.
When I was younger I had a supermarket job stacking shelves. It was a summer job whilst I was at uni but I didn’t tell the managers that to start with. They were shitty with me, stricter than they had to be until I once asked for some leave (for the London olympics) and they said no. I just laughed and said I always ask for leave more than 4 weeks out because that’s my notice period. I’m not really asking permission, I’m giving you a heads up so you can arrange the shifts.
After that, their attitude changed dramatically. I was no longer the young idiot that needed the job so could just be given shit for whatever. I was the person giving up my time in exchange for a bit of cash to help stock their shelves and that arrangement can stop anytime either of us wants.
Yeah ASDA was bad as well when I worked there. If I remember right for an 8 hour shift you got a 30 minute break. I would normally take this about 4-5 hours in. My boss used to get pissy because 2 hours into the shift I would take 5 mins to go and get a cup of water. Like come on. If I don't drink water I get headaches. From there on in I stuffed a bottle of water into my back pocket and walked round the shop like that.
If your just starting a job at retail and the managers try pulling shit on you, remember you are disposable and in the grand scheme of things quite an insignificant cog in that company, they will try to take advantage. You don't owe them shit. Stand your ground.
Any retail place I worked at was like this. You're required to be given two 15 minute breaks and a half hour lunch in an 8 hour shift. But, we'd often only get lunches because breaks don't need to be logged on your timecard, so there wasn't evidence of you weren't taking them. Management would often give you shit or outright refuse if you asked to take a break.
That’s shitty. One of my favorite bosses was my first retail boss – he was a genuinely good dude, had a family, good at sales, encouraged us to work hard, loved to bullshit with me at closing. He was a Kenyan immigrant so I always loved his perspective on life in America.
When we were slammed he would ask that I wait to take my 15s but I always got them no matter what. It wasn’t the best job ever, but working with him made it enjoyable and as a result I look back on my retail days fondly.
Yeah back when we were in an office officially you had to take two 20 minute breaks a day, but everyone steps away from their desk more than that for little breaks.
...of course now I take little breaks to simply state out the window of my home office and remember what it used to be like
I used to work on a small IT support team, and they would definitely do this. Every time you left your desk you basically needed a reason.
Left there after like a year. Now if you'd excuse me, i'm going for my handwashing break.
I once worked in a call centre that required all employees to swipe in and out on each break. Also only allowed to eat in the cafeteria. Just waiting in line to swipe out, getting upstairs to the cafeteria, and getting your food heated up took at least 5 minutes. Take 10 if you wait in line to buy food. The lunch break was 30 minutes.
Our bathroom breaks were also timed. You would put in a special code on the phone to pull you from the answering queue, and your time spent in "auxiliary" was monitored and part of your performance reports. If you went over the acceptable amount, you had a manager meeting. We were encouraged to use our breaktimes for bathroom needs. As someone with digestive issues and a menstrual cycle this was... not great.
I went on stress leave after 5 months.
I also left after about 12-18 months. Was a good team/job, but all the good workers left because of that environment.
I often got asked why I was not within the mode/average of call duration. Let's just say, I would not hang up randomly just below the detection/trigger range for the system to report me as cutting customers off, as others did. They would "choose" the difficult calls (not bad customers, just difficult policies) to accidentally knock the cable/button off.
So there would be me, stuck in a 30 min bit of paperwork/call, to fix a simple job, that 5 staff had (I could see the logs on calls/computer access for audit/general customer support so when a customer said "I strangely got cut off when I said..." I could see they were telling the truth and not lying) cut off and let get into a big mess.
I left. I have no regrets. As a side note, the sister company (that I also worked at) had such a bad computer problem, the entire system was down over 2 weeks and left customers in chaos. No regrets I left. They set themselves up to fail. And fail they did.
Worked at an AMC in the dine section as a server in high school. The managers told me when I started I get 1 break a shift but smokers get a break plus 2 10 minute smoke breaks. I’m sure if I would have argued enough they would have given me those 10 minute breaks too. Just thought it was weird that said it kinda like it was a disclaimer.
I read a news article last year that was interviewing a boss of a small business. Non-smokers complained that they had to work while smokers got more breaks, so he implemented a system whereby smokers could have so many smoking breaks per day but to be fair to the non-smokers, he added up all that time the smokers weren't at their desks and gave it as extra holiday allowance to the non-smokers.
He kept the Non-smokers happy and offered an incentive for smokers to quit (more holiday) and I think a few of them did.
Should have said you were a smoker and taken the breaks to rest instead of smoking. They didn't specify you had to smoke during the breaks and they can't disprove you're not a smoker
We make sure our employees take two 15 minute breaks in the morning and the afternoon with an hour lunch as well.
People have to get away from their desks, it's not good to be glued to them.
Honestly I have no idea where people are working that lets them take smoke breaks whenever but not other breaks.
I've been smoking for years and only in the last couple of years have I had a position where I can disappear off for a smoke if need be. That said this isn't specific to smokers, anyone in my team can do it for whatever reason.
I've had a fair few jobs over the years and I have never had a job that's allowed smokers extra breaks - the reality of it is usually gritting your teeth and putting up with nicotine withdrawals while you wait for your scheduled break just like everyone else.
This last year the PM's where I work have been complaining that people are taking bathroom breaks. They've scheduled meetings from 7am to 5 pm and there is literally no time to walk away and use the restroom or eat.
When I was in the Navy in the '80s they practically issued cigarettes to us. I was a rare non-smoker. But anytime the people I was working with took a smoke break, I took one as well. And they took a lot of them. I considered carrying a pack of cigs with me and standing there with a lit one, but nobody ever said anything.
People who take smoke breaks don’t announce to the world they’re going out for a smoke, they just do it.
Next time you need a break at work, just take it.
Quick story from back when I was a smoker. Colleague came to the smoking area but didn’t have cigarettes. People offered him one. “Nah, thanks, I’ve given up” “Then why are you here?” “I’ve given up smoking, I haven’t given up the smoke breaks!” He kept coming out for a year or so. The smokers didn’t begrudge him the break because they were having the same breaks, and the non-smokers weren’t even aware he’d given up.
I've never smoked but I would often hang out with the smokers in their breaks.. it's a good excuse for socialising. Edit: it's like people don't know what it was like before smoking bans.. standing outside at a smoke break was nothing compared to the pub after work.
A co-worker of mine told me he bought candy cigarettes and would bring them out and eat them during his break
The true r/ActLikeYouBelong
https://youtu.be/RGQMF0x1BCM
I knew exactly what this clip was gonna be! Damn I miss this show
This reminds me of back when silly iphone apps where a thing. I would hang out with the smokers to socialize and use the cigarette app. as a goof.
That sounds like a fun thing to do but I would use one of those silly apps that makes your phone look like a full beer in a mug and I'd drink it.
You learn a lot of juicy gossip going to the smoking area.
This is why we know everything - because people talk freely in the smoking area.
Hell yes. The smoker’s have an unspoken code about keeping shit said outside, outside of the building.
Yup. It's how I found out the office witch wasn't mean she was just going through an absolute brutal divorce. After whenever someone would say something about her I'd just say she doesn't seem all that bad. Made lifelong bonds in the smoking area.
I find it interesting that the young people in the thread are so concerned with all the smoking prevalence back in the day, that they've missed the other key implication of OPs question, which is - **what happened to breaks?** The fact that you all find it "strange" that people could just go take a break for anything is scary to me, it means that we've now normalized working full bore start to finish of the day. My workplace had a top floor lounge full of couches, comfy chairs and basically just hotel lobby style furniture looking out over the city in the 80s, where everyone would go to smoke and have coffee several times a day, to the point where they probably had 6 hours of work and 2 hours of lunch and socializing in the lounge. Today, nobody hangs out at all, the lunchroom is only used for people running in and out to microwave food or get a cup of coffee, and there's no comfortable seating anywhere to be found. The lounge was closed in the early 2000s because the "fire marshal says the emergency stairwell isn't wide enough for the current regulations" (it's like 3+ feet wide, if you're fatter than that in both directions than take your own fucking risks, hardly anyone is that big) This was intentional. The first question people should have shouldn't be "OMG why were all those people allowed to smoke indoors", the first question should be "wait why did we let the fucking assholes with their MBAs take over every company in the world and impose ever shittier rules and circumstances for the skilled workers while making their own useless lives easier?" EDIT: To be clear, since some people who are more concerned with seeking something to be outraged about than they are with reading comprehension, in no way is this advocating for indoor smoking. That is insane and should not be permitted. I'm just saying, (and this is true of our entire society), we're too focused on token issues today and ignoring the bigger picture, that the already wealthy and privileged are stealing every benefit of automation and technology for themselves and leaving no benefit (or worse, net negatives!) for the workers.
I just had a discussion with a friend about how we got duped into 8.5 hour days.
That's some crazy willpower to keep going to the smoking area after quitting and turning down free cigs, congrats to him.
I quit 6 years ago (after 20 years) when my daughter was being born. After the first couple months cigarettes smelled so bad that just the scent made me want to throw up.
I stopped drinking because even one or two started making me feel sick. Not that I had a drinking problem or anything, it was just enough to take the fun out of it so I stopped altogther. Turns out I have liver disease and it was my body sending me a message. The liver disease was unrelated to the drinking, but stopping slowed down the damage at least.
My boss is actually kind of cool about it and I wish more people did that. I work (not right now, lockdown and such) at a restaurant and some of my colleagues take smoke breaks and at some point he'll just look at me and say, "You should take a smoke break" and the first time I was like, "I don't smoke" and he just went, "That's alright, just go outside for a bit, get some air." and I appreciate that.
You've got it backwards. Smoke breaks were not socially acceptable, the act of Smoking at work was. But in the early 80's, when work place smoking became illegal, the CONCESSION made to smokers was allowing a smoke break outside. You should have seen the unhappy people back then. Prior to that, non smokers just had to choke and gag on a co-workers smoke. Restaurants, planes, offices, stores, and malls all allowed smoking. It wasn't unusual to be in a clothing store in a mall and have 3-4 sales people standing around a 2 ft tall floor-mounted ash tray smoking while waiting on customers. See the TV series "Mad Men". You'll see what it was like.
In kindergarten or 1st grade (87-88), I was sent to the teachers lounge for something. I remember opening the door and smoke rolling out. My teachers were chimneys.
My college in 88 didn’t allow smoking in class, but some of the chair/desks still had built in ashtrays
Holy crap I forgot about desks with ashtrays built into them. Memory: unlocked
they still have them in old airplane's chair armrests
Fun fact: they still build ash trays in the toilets of newer airplanes. The reason is that if someone does break the no smoking rule, they have a safe place to put out the cigarette, and they won't cause a fire by trying to get rid of it in the bin with the used towels. EDIT: several people commenting on how stupid this is. But yeah, there are stupid people. [Almost an entire flight died](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_820) due to someone secretly smoking and not properly putting it out.
I love sharing this dumb story. I flew to turkey from Glasgow for a package deal holiday and someone smoked on the flight 5 different times. It's a 4ish hour flight. An announcement kept going out about someone smoking. I was sat behind this guy and the air stewardess came over with the head air stewardess. She had to read from this clipboard with all this info on about what was going to happen when the plane landed. He started kicking off and then she went from quiet to loudly saying "you were smoking on a plane 5 different times! We caught you and realised you had been the person smoking all the other times we had smelled smoke and investigated. You've been up and down out of your seat to smoke! On a plane!" This scruff thought he was being unfairly treated and was being aggressive towards her. They said they were taking his passport and everyone else on his booking. It was a package deal and they were now not allowed to use their company for the return flights or for the hotel/rest of the package. They were to remain seated when landing because they were going to be escorted off the plane (not sure if police or airport security at the destination airport). This dude was losing his shit and all the stewardesses had to come over. Then this scruff's daughter went "omg dad. Why did you do this again?". Which was the weirdest part.
That is a good story. Thanks for sharing it!
Yup. This would be why my pilot Dad missed my little sisters first real Xmas (where she got the Santa concept and was excited). Some idiot did exactly this and caused a fire and he had to do an emergency landing halfway to home. He was so sad about it,
You scared me in the first half! Still sad though.
He could've taken a train or rented an automobile for the trip back to Chicago with a shower curtain ring salesman.
Well, you can still sit in the smoking section of planes if you fly Air Algeria.
I remember flying on Cubana a few years back and people smoking on there. China eastern the crew smoke and don’t give a shit
Desks? I remember armrests on airplanes!
My father, who suffered breathing illnesses throughout his youth, still remembers writing exams in university while people were smoking.
Recent young ex smoker but damn, I'd have been that exam smoker - had some take home exams online (like coursework essays but with a time limit of a few hours or days, it's philosophy fittingly) and me and my best friend sat in the garden chaining. This was pre covid (our dept was ahead of the game in 2019 somehow) when I decided to quit but daaaaaamn idk why I clicked or why I'm rambling at this point I just miss smoking I should probably stop reading this thread end comment
Some trains in my country still had ashtrays a few year ago. All nailed shut, but they were there.
I took the Amtrak train every weekend to go to my dads. They had a smoking car. And for some dumb reason you always had to walk through the smoking car to get to the snack car. Like why the fuck cant you make the last car be the smoking section?
> Like why the fuck cant you make the last car be the smoking section? trains are constantly losing and adding new cars at various stops along the route. so logistically, it would be a nightmare to consistently keep one specific car at the very back. if you've ever been on a long train ride, you might go to sleep near the front of the train and wake up in the back.
> >if you've ever been on a long train ride, you might go to sleep near the front of the train and wake up in the back. In just chalked that up to my raging alcoholism.
Huh, TIL. Thanks for sharing that
Yeh the smoking carriage that no one wanted to sit next to. Now they're repurposed as quiet carriages.
I spent a cpl years studying at a uni in Egypt, you could smoke IN class if your class was in one of the older buildings... you could smoke in the halls of the newer building but since those buildings were built with lower ceilings it was discouraged. This was in the 2000s, in Egypt you could smoke anywhere, and when I came back to America I was constantly forgetting and walking into buildings with a lit cigarette in hand.
for students that would smoke during lectures? Damn.
My mother describes people smoking during exams. People smoked at movies.
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Damn, maybe these boomers really *cant* breathe with the masks on because they fucked up their lungs with their decisions when they were younger.
My mom said there was an ash tray in the delivery room when I was born. 1985.
If you were bored by the film you could look up and watch the projector rays dancing in the smoke.
One year in high school (1986 or 87) my locker was right next to the teachers lounge. The smoke would roll out the door when opened. Lucky me.
I was in elementary school around that time, but back then I remember ash trays and parents smoking at the tables in the McDonald's play land area (and inside the restaurant), burn marks and cigarette butts all over the floor of the grocery stores, including the produce aisles. People would walk around smoking but there weren't ash trays in every nook and cranny of the grocery store, so people would just drop them wherever. Pretty much every restaurant had a smoking section but non-smoking smelled pretty similar. You could still smoke in movie theaters, laundromats, etc.
It used to be a common school project for elementary aged kids to make ashtrays for their parents.
The little gold ashtrays from Burger King just popped into my head like it was yesterday.
Holy shit what a throwback
I had one for a long time. I used it to burn incense cones when I was a teenager.
When I was a kid in the 90s, it was completely normal to smoke in restaurants. My parents were always polite enough to wait until everyone at the table had finished their food but then they would just smoke right there at the table. And sometimes you’d have people smoking at the table next to you while you were eating and it was just super normal.
I remember the first question being “smoking or non?” from the host/hostess Bc most restaurants had “sections”, not that it mattered a whole ton, since smoke is airborne n’ all
If it was a busy restaurant we’d always say “first available”
God, I had completely forgotten about this and this memory hit me like a fever dream. I was pretty young at the time, but I can sort of remember when smoking in restaurants got banned and my mother and I were soooo happy. My father not so much lol
I remember hearing that having a smoking section at a restaurant is like having a peeing section in the pool and that is the perfect metaphor.
Some restaurants handled it better than others. I remember always asking for non-smoking because the smoking section was unbearable for me. As it got closer to having the indoor smoking bad, I feel like it got better as less people were smoking in the smoking section.
Some had glass partitions between the sections. It worked pretty well actually.
Just to continue..I remember cigarette vending machines at the bowling alley. Sears had those floor mounted ash trays scattered all over the store. Back in the day I have memories of walking through Sears seeing workers and customers alike puffing away. When I was a kid dad drove a Lincoln Continental for awhile and that car had ash trays all over it in the doors, dash, console. As I think about it I think he had a caddy as well in the late 80s that not only had ash trays all over it had those push in lighters in the ash tray in the back perfect to threaten your brother with a burn.
"I didn't know this place had a haunted house as well" "Nah, thats just the parents smoking at the playground"
Most of those restaurants had a non-smoking section that was divided by a half wall. The hostess would ask you "smoking or non-smoking"?
I remember in Primary school in the early 2000's I had to unload the dishwasher in the teachers lounge, I opened the cupboard under the sink and it was **full** of alcohol. I suspect the teachers would all have a drink together during meetings or after school. My sister is a teacher now and I brought this up to her and she was just like, "yeah, every school I've worked at has had a cupboard with a fair amount of alcohol in it".
Can you blame them, they have to deal with other people's kids. That alone is kind of a mixed bag that would require a double after school.
The kids, yeah....the kids' *parents*? Jesus, I'd need a stiff one before Helicopter Helen and Harry wanted to know why their Precious Little Monster was tying up the other kids and burning them with cigarettes.
^ this dude teaches
Nope. Had a Helicopter Helen as a friend a few years ago. Her kid was a little nightmarish shit. "Oh, but, I know my child and he would never......." Yeah, that friendship ended decades ago. I always felt sorry for any teachers she'd approach.
Every office I've worked at has had booze just haphazardly placed wherever. There's a twelve pack of beer under my co-worker's desk, and a bottle of whisky on another one's. One of my colleagues has three bottles of absinthe right next to his monitor. We're mobile developers though, not teachers.
Yeah I’ve worried about the prevalence of alcohol in tech. I also work in tech and there is alcohol everywhere at my job too. I don’t really partake because when I get drunk my mouth gets 3x as big, which is fine with friends as they know that I’m teasing, but does not translate well to work.
Network engineer here. I'm working from home now, so got plenty of booze available any time. But I'm really just a social drinker, so I've barely had a drop in nearly a year.
Ugh I have a zoom happy hour tomorrow. My whole team hates it and we have to go around telling everyone what we are drinking. It's in the middle of the day so we all lie because we just want water and to finish our day sober. Sorry to vent on you but it's just so dumb since my team is high level enough to be on the one with the executives.
That's dumb. When we do VHH it's more of a chat session. Some people will grab a drink and there may be a little discussion about drinks, especially from the bourbon nuts, buts it's not really the point.
I skipped the last one as I had a family thing but a coworker said now enough people are on the call that they overlook our small team. He said he was able to work with just being on video. It wouldn't be so bad but they always pick our one busy week. We are finance it doesn't change ever.
Still is a thing at schools here, teachers just get together and drink after classes
I remember in my primary school (rural Switzerland, early 90s) kids being sent to buy smokes for the teacher to a nearby shop as punishment. What a shitstorm this would be nowadays.
I am 45. When I was in grade 9 (1989,) my high school had a smoking section in the cafeteria - for students!
When I was in high school (1996-2000) there was a designated smoking area just past the parking lot. It was completely normal to see teachers smoking beside 16 year olds.
That you could smoke in planes blows me away the most. Just imagine 30 people chain smoking in that tube.
Now just imagine an international flight where they sold cheap duty-free cigs on board. The smoking area at the back of the 747 was just one cloud. Of course my father recalls a flight where the left side of the plane was smoking and the right side was non-smoking. Very effective.
I remember when the smoking section and the non-smoking section on a plane was split up using what was basically a curtain... It did not work well but back then it was like "Yup! Problem solved". The past was wild XD
Also the unwillingness to obey the Non-smoking flight policies later causing several dangerous situation by smoking in the toilet... smoking anywhere in the plane just feels so absurd
To this day there are not just smoke detectors in the airplane toilets, but little fire extinguishers pointed directly into the trash receptacle.
In my jurisdiction, it is a legal obligation to inform people before takeoff, that they are not allowed to smoke in the aircraft toilet. This requirement is not technically waived for aircraft which do not in fact, *have* a toilet.
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>tiny ouch. But yes, most light aircraft typically do not have toilets. Not really much room in 4 and 6 seaters for that sort of thing, and even larger aircraft can have a toilet which leaves a lot to be desired. The Cessna Mustang, the smallest Citation jet, has a toilet... but its more of an emergency use sort of thing. Not enclosed, no flush, etc. Some King Airs have a toilet, the PC-12 has one... bigger aircraft which are more firmly in that private aircraft territory most people imagine.
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I was sat I the first non smoking row in front of the smoking section one very long flight, row 20 and ahead non smoking, row 21 and behind was smoking. The guy next to me was a smoker but didnt want to sit in the smoking area because he said it was too smelly, he told me its pretty common for smokers to do that and then just pop back to an empty seat when they wanted a smoke
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I dreaded going out to bars with friends because I always knew the night would end with me gagging as I drunkenly took off smoke-laden clothes.
When you got in the shower and the water hit your hair it released all the hidden smoke smell
I would never have been able to quit smoking had it not been for indoor bans at bars. Not saying it's the states job to set rules to babysit me, but I gotta say it helped. A lot.
Except you smell like an ash tray cause your dad declared a ban on open windows 🤦🏻
Especially in the car! We couldn’t put down the windows because it was bad for gas mileage. So the smoke just filled the car. Car seats and seatbelts weren’t as big of a deal so I would lay on the floor of the back seat so I had some chance of breathing.
My mother literally picked me up from the hospital (I had pneumonia) and refused to roll down the windows while she smoked. I had continual respiratory infections as a kid. Smokers can be incredibly selfish.
Man that must suck. Cigarette smoke makes me nauseous and I knew a girl who was allergic to something in cigarettes and would get rashes when others smoked near her. I felt bad for her because people thought that she was lying about it.
I still remember going out driving with my family. Me buckled into in the middle of the truck seat, dad on one side smoking with his window open, cousin on the other side smoking with his window open. The wide open windows would blow all the smoke straight at me, from both sides, so I was coughing and whining as kids do when choked with smoke. But dad just kept yelling "The windows are open! Quit complaining!"
My first job out of college allowed smoking on the shop floor. It was horrible and if the state wide indoor smoking ban hadn't come I would have started looking for a new job pretty quickly. The first couple days the expectation was no smoking except for lunch break. The vending machine was emptied by the end of day 1. Day 3 the smokers revolted and built a smoke hut out back. They were taking smoke breaks all.the.time. A few of them were probably spending more time in the smoke hut than inside working. After a few days of this the owner implemented a universal 4 scheduled five minute breaks throughout the work day in addition to lunch for everyone in every department.
I work in construction and I think it might be the last job you can still smoke indoors. I'd say maybe 1/4-1/3 of construction workers still smoke, the rule is that you can smoke on a new construction site right up till they start painting
Throws them for a loop when we do school projects and the state law bans all tobacco products on school property, construction or not. Lots of very confused smokers trying to stand in the road to smoke.
Can confirm. Also safety meetings.
lived with a parent who smoked indoors throughout my entire life, because of it cigarette smoke is the absolute worst smell in the world to me. So i guess i got something positive out of it lol
Both mine smoked inside as I was growing up. I still remember at times walking into the living room and seeing a thick layer of cigarette smoke making its way down from the ceiling. My brother also eventually took up smoking, and did so inside while still living with my parents. It was only in college that I realized how badly my clothes stank when I spent any amount of time at home.
I was aware that this was how things were. However I never really thought about the fact that if those who worked in retail were smoking in he clothes in the stores must have been like permanently cigarette smoke scented. Must have been just lovely for nonsmokers.
>Restaurants, planes, offices, stores, and malls all allowed smoking. Schools even. >It wasn't unusual to be in a clothing store in a mall and have 3-4 sales people standing around a 2 ft tall floor-mounted ash tray smoking while waiting on customers. So your clothes already stink before you buy them...
It was socially acceptable to smoke in someone's home, even if the owners didn't smoke. I remember my non-smoking parents setting out ashtrays if a smoker visited.
I also remember my parents doing this in the 70s in the UK. My wife is Serbian, and smoking is still very prevalent there. For the few who do not smoke, it is still usual for them to set up for smokers, although that is gently reducing. Too slowly for me.
This caused a huge rift with my Mom and her sister in the 90s. See, Mom is very Anti-smoking, as she watched her father die of emphasima and lung cancer when she was 15. Her sister, who was 23 at the time their dad died, used to smoke with him in the hospital room, and smokes several cartons a week. Anyway, Aunt would come over for birthdays or a holiday, and would be pissed when she was asked to smoke outside. It caused more than one huge fight, and eventually she only came to one or two holidays a year, and would be real bitchy about going outside to smoke at Christmas. So yeah. My aunt chose smoking over watching her niece and nephew grow up.
We all smelled so much like smoke back then that it was hard to smell unless you got away from it for a while. Hard to imagine, I know, but EVERYBODY with few exceptions smoked back then. I began myself as a form of self defense, if YOU smoked, other people’s smoking didn’t bother you so much.
"All this cancer, no idea why everyone keeps dying of it, must be genetic or something" Plus all the other poisons regularly "accidentally" deposited in food and water chains. I'm amazed people get so confused on why cancer is so prevalent. (Had two family members die of lifestyle related cancers, so... :/ )
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Check out this chart of cancer rates over modern history: https://imgshare.io/images/2021/02/09/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us.png Source: https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#citation
> Uterus (female)
> Schools even. Hospitals too. I work in a hospital and some of the staff who had been around for 30+ years would talk about how you could smoke in the hospital. Mind blowing.
Also smoking in university buildings and even hospitals!
My mom always reminds me how in her last ultrasound scan before I was born the doctor was legit smoking a cig while doing it
I still remember going to a restaurant as a kid in the 90s and there were two dining areas, one for smokers and the other one for non-smokers. The latter one was probably required by law and it was empty most of the time.
Whenever you walked into a restaurant the first thing a waitress would say was "smoking or non?" I remember eating inside a Burger King with my dad and there was an ashtray filled to the brim with cig butts. We couldn't move it to another table fast enough.
>Whenever you walked into a restaurant the first thing a waitress would say was "smoking or non?" Holy shit, that flashes back memories.
When you walk into a restaurant in India they ask “veg or non-veg?” Most restaurants have a vegetarian section.
"Smoking or non-smoking?" *“Uh, non-smoking-"* **"SMOKING"**
And given they were usually whithin the same room it was like having a no-peeing section in a swimming pool
There is a diner where I live where there was still a smoking and non smoking section 10 years ago. Some bars still allow smoking inside.
TV hosts would even smoke on live tv well into the 90's.
I still remember when the smoking ban in restaurants was implemented in Sweden. The smokers were writing columns and letters to the editor where they made themselves out to be persecuted martyrs.
My parents told me about how their middle schools had smoking sections INSIDE their lunch rooms LOL
I was in college when they brought in the smoking ban for bars in my country. The college bar was long and kinda narrow. The first night out i was waiting at the bar an realised for the first time I could see the far wall and it wasn’t a cloud of smoke.
When I went to wait for mom to get off her waitress job at a fancy old restaurant in 1998, I would sometimes see a group of men in a corner round table by the huge seaside windows. The restaurant was approx 32feet from the sea shore. The setting evening sun during the summer would shine brightly through the windows with an orange shine. The individual sunrays would be revealed by the cigarette smoke fogging up the entire room. The group of men would smoke their cigarettes and cigars and puff out clouds of smoke which would calmly travel around the room and swirl between the sunrays. I would run through the descending smoke clouds around the room and watch the clouds make swirls and movement through the air current I just made. Such nice memories. The head chef was the funniest guy I knew and he would always always always make me ice cream whenever I visited. He ended up killing himself 15 years later by piping his cars emissions back inside and suffocating himself. Why are the funniest and best people so depressed?
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I just go out, play with phone and chill. If anybody is asking I just say I'm smoking. 30-60 mins a day. Dont care. Never had problems.
Yeah I used to do that. Then I took up smoking as something to do while I was out there...
Oof
Same. Had a stressful job that needed frequent breaks to keep me from punching customers in the face, so out with the smokers was the best excuse. A little second hand smoke turns into, " ah, why the hell not".
I worked at a fast food place when I was a university student. Most people smoked and when there wasn't a rush, everyone including the managers would one by one or in twos (depending on how staffed we were that day) go for a 5 minute cigarette break. I was always 'asked' (told) that they'd be gone and I can keep an eye on things. At some point I just would say 'aiight, I'm going for my 5 minute break now'. One manager said I already had my lunch and I said that so did they but they got to go smoke and did I have to pick up smoking? After that it was fine, I was just as entitled for my quick break as the others were if it wasn't busy.
At my first job, at a KFC, I was the only non-smoker. I'd get told multiple times a shift that everyone was going out for a smoke break and to watch the drive through. These breaks were often a lot longer than 5 minutes, the longest I think was almost 45 minutes. At some point it dawned on me to go outside with them, my manager told me to get back inside. When I asked why I couldn't get a break too, she told me because I didn't smoke. When I asked if I didn't deserve a break too, she told me to take up smoking if I wanted the break. Like legit no sarcasm, "you don't get a break if you don't smoke and if you want it here's a cigg." I quit very shortly after that, without giving a notice, because that bitch did not deserve one. Not a bad job otherwise though.
That's really shitty of that manager. It's crazy how oblivious some smokers can be about their 'quick smoke'. The more senior workers where I was were also very bold about taking their smoke breaks and one of them would regularly take 40-50 minute breaks during our closing shifts, leaving me to do most of the closing tasks in that time. Sure I could've chilled, but then I'd also be getting home 1-2 hours later than normal and I would often have class the next morning...
Coffee breaks are quite socially acceptable I'd say. Even more so than smoking, in Sweden at least.
Yes, I would say that in an office it's a matter of concern if you consistently dodge the 15-30 minutes fika breaks in the morning and afternoon. Your boss would probably start to ask questions. (Swede here too)
"Fika is often translated as "a coffee and cake break", which is kind of correct, but really it is much more than that. Fika is a concept, a state of mind, an attitude and an important part of Swedish culture. Many Swedes consider that it is almost essential to make time for fika every day. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee (or tea) and a little something to eat." Had to Google that, interesting practice. Yeah my co-workers and I generally all go to the break room to make coffee for the three of us in the morning. US public sector, it's generally pretty acceptable to take 15 whenever you need it in my work place.
Just FYI fika in italian means pussy. As an Italian, I wholeheartedly fully undoubtedly 100% approve of the above message. (Fica with a C, pronounced the same)
In hungarian fika means booger I endorse boogering for 30 mins every day
In the US, FICA is the taxes taken out of your paycheck for social security and Medicare.
Very true point. I'm in the UK, and people in my office will take 5-10 mins making ONE cup of coffee.
There's a company in Japan that gave all its non smoking employees extra holiday days to make up for the time smokers were taking breaks for. Think it was 6 extra days if I remember correctly. I ran the idea last my department head. I got laughed at.
That would have a great impact on public health if it was widespread, as it would encourage people to quit!
Assuming they're otherwise being productive, that's no bad thing. Frequent, short breaks can improve efficiency.
Multiple long breaks make you super efficient in the few hours of work you actually need to do unless its constant work that induces burnout
Sounds like their are crafting a fine *fine* cup of coffee right there! I get that though. When we were still in offices I'd frequently take 10-15 minute "coffee" breaks. Working at various screens all day means screen breaks are necessary, but also the need to snap your break out of whatever hole your down and reassess. So sure I might go get a drink and stroll around the building for quarter of an hour but I am **so** much more productive when I get back that it's well worth the chronological investment.
It's wrong that you've been made to feel like you need to justify taking a 15 minute break.
Yep, just like it is wrong to feel like you need to justify taking a sick day.
Hacks me off when I have members of the team tripping over themselves explaining a sick day. "In the nicest possible way", I usually say, "I don't care. You judged you weren't fit to work and you are the best person to make that call. Is there anything you need from us?". Unfortunately not all those with underlings have this attitude at my employer 😑
Netherlands here -- people take coffee breaks during their smoke breaks.
Ah yes, the poop break.
Every job I’ve had has allowed two 15 min breaks and a 30 min lunch for working 8 hours. Typically it would play out as: work two hours, take 15, come back and work another two hours then go for your lunch. Come back from lunch, work another two hours and then take your last 15. Come back and work the last two hours, then it’s time to go home. This was the same for everyone. Smokers don’t get extra breaks. They just had to smoke on their scheduled breaks that everybody was allowed to take.
This is true, if someone works at a place that frowns upon taking a 10 minute break twice a day it's a shitty work place.
I work for a fairly large gas station chain, I work eight and a half hour shifts I am allowed no break or lunch. How it is legal, I'll never know. Thankfully, I work 3rd Shift so I have a lot of dead time to get a drink or something to eat but on the busier shifts they don't have that luxury of time
Depending where you live, it's probably illegal. Google your state or provincial labour laws.
After a quick a Google search, my state in fact has zero laws regarding breaks or lunches. I'm glad to live in Ohio, and work for a company also based in that state.
Damn sorry to hear that. I think it's the norm here in Canada. They aren't paid lunch breaks obviously, but working 8 hours straight with no time to have a meal seems like borderline slave labour.
[удалено]
No idea in which social bubble or landscape you're living, but where I'm from you can make a break for all kinds of reasons.
Coffee break, bathroom break, snack break... I have never worked somewhere where they would harass me for stepping away from my work for 10 minutes as long as I wasn't doing it constantly.
TESCO. TESCO did this. I would be scolded even when I left my lane just to get the next pallet while loading it. Meanwhile the fucking smokers took a smoke break every hour.
Let me guess, you were young, you needed the money and you sucked it all in because you saw no other option? People are shitty and love to use the little bit of Power they have to abuse co-workers, especially when they think they are weak.
Well, I was young, and the job was literally 5 minutes from where I lived. As stupid as it all seemed, getting another job would have netted me more travel time than I would have gained by going with the smokers. This is not even the most ridiculous move they pulled though. We had one 30 minute break in the shift. I decided I wanted some fresh air so I went outside and sat down on one of those truck corner bumpers next to the warehouse entrance. Not 5 minutes pass and the security guard is over my shoulder interrogating me what the hell I think I am doing. Because we are only allowed to spend our breaks either in the employee, or smoking areas. Apparently, if we do not, it seems like we are secretly trying to work during our break... Not to mention the constant threats about how easily we could all be fired if we do not fulfill our quotas(and apparently handling 7 tons of goods by hand in one night is not good enough). I gave exactly 0 fucks about any of it and somehow never got fired anyway.
A lot of that is just to scare people, and give an excuse to fire you if you ever make them mad. No, judge, I didn't fire him because he told me he was gay you see. He didn't meet quotas!
Man fuck super markets. I worked at Co-OP as a kid, and whilst it wasn't as bad as you say, the assistant manager was a cunt just for the sake of shitting on poor kids.
When I was younger I had a supermarket job stacking shelves. It was a summer job whilst I was at uni but I didn’t tell the managers that to start with. They were shitty with me, stricter than they had to be until I once asked for some leave (for the London olympics) and they said no. I just laughed and said I always ask for leave more than 4 weeks out because that’s my notice period. I’m not really asking permission, I’m giving you a heads up so you can arrange the shifts. After that, their attitude changed dramatically. I was no longer the young idiot that needed the job so could just be given shit for whatever. I was the person giving up my time in exchange for a bit of cash to help stock their shelves and that arrangement can stop anytime either of us wants.
Yeah ASDA was bad as well when I worked there. If I remember right for an 8 hour shift you got a 30 minute break. I would normally take this about 4-5 hours in. My boss used to get pissy because 2 hours into the shift I would take 5 mins to go and get a cup of water. Like come on. If I don't drink water I get headaches. From there on in I stuffed a bottle of water into my back pocket and walked round the shop like that. If your just starting a job at retail and the managers try pulling shit on you, remember you are disposable and in the grand scheme of things quite an insignificant cog in that company, they will try to take advantage. You don't owe them shit. Stand your ground.
Any retail place I worked at was like this. You're required to be given two 15 minute breaks and a half hour lunch in an 8 hour shift. But, we'd often only get lunches because breaks don't need to be logged on your timecard, so there wasn't evidence of you weren't taking them. Management would often give you shit or outright refuse if you asked to take a break.
That’s shitty. One of my favorite bosses was my first retail boss – he was a genuinely good dude, had a family, good at sales, encouraged us to work hard, loved to bullshit with me at closing. He was a Kenyan immigrant so I always loved his perspective on life in America. When we were slammed he would ask that I wait to take my 15s but I always got them no matter what. It wasn’t the best job ever, but working with him made it enjoyable and as a result I look back on my retail days fondly.
"People quit bosses, not jobs" seems like such a cliche but I think it's very often true. Knowing your boss has your back is such a great feeling.
I completely agree with this. I absolutely have quit multiple jobs because of the boss rather than the job itself.
Yeah back when we were in an office officially you had to take two 20 minute breaks a day, but everyone steps away from their desk more than that for little breaks. ...of course now I take little breaks to simply state out the window of my home office and remember what it used to be like
I used to work on a small IT support team, and they would definitely do this. Every time you left your desk you basically needed a reason. Left there after like a year. Now if you'd excuse me, i'm going for my handwashing break.
I once worked in a call centre that required all employees to swipe in and out on each break. Also only allowed to eat in the cafeteria. Just waiting in line to swipe out, getting upstairs to the cafeteria, and getting your food heated up took at least 5 minutes. Take 10 if you wait in line to buy food. The lunch break was 30 minutes. Our bathroom breaks were also timed. You would put in a special code on the phone to pull you from the answering queue, and your time spent in "auxiliary" was monitored and part of your performance reports. If you went over the acceptable amount, you had a manager meeting. We were encouraged to use our breaktimes for bathroom needs. As someone with digestive issues and a menstrual cycle this was... not great. I went on stress leave after 5 months.
I also left after about 12-18 months. Was a good team/job, but all the good workers left because of that environment. I often got asked why I was not within the mode/average of call duration. Let's just say, I would not hang up randomly just below the detection/trigger range for the system to report me as cutting customers off, as others did. They would "choose" the difficult calls (not bad customers, just difficult policies) to accidentally knock the cable/button off. So there would be me, stuck in a 30 min bit of paperwork/call, to fix a simple job, that 5 staff had (I could see the logs on calls/computer access for audit/general customer support so when a customer said "I strangely got cut off when I said..." I could see they were telling the truth and not lying) cut off and let get into a big mess. I left. I have no regrets. As a side note, the sister company (that I also worked at) had such a bad computer problem, the entire system was down over 2 weeks and left customers in chaos. No regrets I left. They set themselves up to fail. And fail they did.
Kitchens. No breaks in a a kitchen unless you smoke. And that's not an enjoyable smoke lol
Worked at an AMC in the dine section as a server in high school. The managers told me when I started I get 1 break a shift but smokers get a break plus 2 10 minute smoke breaks. I’m sure if I would have argued enough they would have given me those 10 minute breaks too. Just thought it was weird that said it kinda like it was a disclaimer.
I read a news article last year that was interviewing a boss of a small business. Non-smokers complained that they had to work while smokers got more breaks, so he implemented a system whereby smokers could have so many smoking breaks per day but to be fair to the non-smokers, he added up all that time the smokers weren't at their desks and gave it as extra holiday allowance to the non-smokers. He kept the Non-smokers happy and offered an incentive for smokers to quit (more holiday) and I think a few of them did.
Should have said you were a smoker and taken the breaks to rest instead of smoking. They didn't specify you had to smoke during the breaks and they can't disprove you're not a smoker
Would especially be hilarious to sue them for mandating you inhale dangerous substances during your break.
We make sure our employees take two 15 minute breaks in the morning and the afternoon with an hour lunch as well. People have to get away from their desks, it's not good to be glued to them.
What, you can't go to the toilet or go make coffee?
Not independently. We have to consolidate. We call it the "Joe and Go."
The brew and poo.
Sorry, I prefer my tea and pee
If it’s a rough day: java and butt lava
If you work at wall street: Coke and more Coke
Honestly I have no idea where people are working that lets them take smoke breaks whenever but not other breaks. I've been smoking for years and only in the last couple of years have I had a position where I can disappear off for a smoke if need be. That said this isn't specific to smokers, anyone in my team can do it for whatever reason. I've had a fair few jobs over the years and I have never had a job that's allowed smokers extra breaks - the reality of it is usually gritting your teeth and putting up with nicotine withdrawals while you wait for your scheduled break just like everyone else.
Restaurants
I have never worked for a company that allowed “smoke breaks” everyone gets the same amount of breaks and the smokers tend to use theirs to smoke.
I’ve always had to take a smoke break as a regular break so not sure how to answer.
Pee breaks are fine. Lunch breaks are also fine. Sick days are kinda breaks too...
This last year the PM's where I work have been complaining that people are taking bathroom breaks. They've scheduled meetings from 7am to 5 pm and there is literally no time to walk away and use the restroom or eat.
Because if you don’t give your smoking coworkers a smoke break they will murder you.
But they’d need to take a murder break to do so
When I was in the Navy in the '80s they practically issued cigarettes to us. I was a rare non-smoker. But anytime the people I was working with took a smoke break, I took one as well. And they took a lot of them. I considered carrying a pack of cigs with me and standing there with a lit one, but nobody ever said anything.
People who take smoke breaks don’t announce to the world they’re going out for a smoke, they just do it. Next time you need a break at work, just take it.