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A Japanese Company Is Giving Nonsmokers Longer Vacations (fastcompany.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Marketing firm Piala introduced the new policy in September after nonsmokers complained that they were working more than their colleagues who smoked. The company's offices are reportedly on the 29th floor, meaning that popping out for a smoke break meant a solid 15 minutes away from work. Multiply that by several smoke breaks a day, and the hours start to add up, which began to tick off nonsmoking coworkers. A spokesman for the company told The Telegraph that one of those nonsmokers slipped a note in the company's suggestion box and the CEO agreed. Now nonsmokers are entitled to more vacation time, which the company hopes will encourage smokers to quit their filthy habit.
I would take a real long vacation at that forest where everyone commits sudoku
Are non-smokers going to have to pay for smokers' healthcare too or will the smokers pay a premium to cover the extra burden they place on the healthcare system?
If this idea offends you then I suggest you think about what socialized medicine means.
I would prefer that we all simply pay for our own healthcare, but since that's not the system we have then I must start thinking about how to make what we have more fair.
Seems cheaper to create an enclosed room on the 29th floor where smokers can get their fix in 5 minutes instead of 15 minutes.
Not so much...
We'll make great pets
Smokers will outlive their non smoking counterparts. In a country where people will work themselves to death.
I, for one, am sick of this propaganda.
If you want to illegalize it, fine. But I'm tired of the constant ads for "TRUTH" (now going all the way to claim that smoking is racist) all the while I'm counter propagandized (by some of the same companies) about how pot smoking is good for you and should be legalized.
And I say this as a non-smoker!
Are we going to give similar breaks to single employees without children and how great that is?
Are we going to count those who take 5 coffee breaks a day?!
How about those gym nuts that disappear for an hour a day (not including lunch) to go for a run and promise they'll make the time up later?!
Spare me your sanctimonious bs.
in Japanese company you hit the bar after your 10 hour day at the office.
Last time I checked, smoke breaks are unpaid... so are they suggesting only offering non-smokers more unpaid vacation time?
If so, that hardly seems like something newsworthy.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Well, good for the Japanese, bully for them.
But honestly, when I step out for a smoke I step out with one or two of my co-workers, we actively discuss what we're working on and solve some problems, and then go back at it.
Going out for a smoke doesn't necessarily mean you aren't working. Sometimes, you are actually working the whole time. I can't tell you how many times I've helped a co-worker sort out how to do something (or he helped me) while having a smoke.
Just because I'm not typing doesn't mean I'm not working.
It simply may not be true that you're doing less work -- in fact, I regularly see co-workers spend more time on Facebook or texting or what have you than I spend smoking every day. The difference being is I'm more likely to still be working while I'm smoking.
Where I'm actively thinking doesn't change that I am actually doing it.
Somehow I doubt the math works out anyway.
For simplicity lets assume there are 200 working days in a year. If you take a single break every day for 15 minutes, you have spent 50h on those breaks, which would make it over a week of work time. Multiple breaks will increase this even further. Somehow I doubt the company will offer that much vacation time to non smokers.
Equal rights for all, and that includes vacations.
If you're allowed to just declare a smoke break, then fuck you, I'm declaring a fap break.
I'll be in the stationary cupboard.
The Japanese don't "hit the bar". The British "hit the bar". The Japanese "challenge their co-workers to a competitive drinking session".
I'm sure that all of those non-smokers are always diligently working while in the office.
If you believe American cinema that would be hit the karaoke bar.
In Soviet Russia, bar hit you!
[c'mon, you asked for it.]
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
There's a smoker where I work that takes at least one smoke break per hour. I see him outside my office by the loading docks puffing away, chatting with other cancer-lovers. Pisses everyone off because it's basically stealing.
I thought that was the Koreans?
Ezekiel 23:20
I tried this once at a place I worked. The CEO blithely suggested I was welcome to take up smoking and have as much free break time as desired, too. (And incidentally in case you were wondering; No, they're not in business anymore.)
Where's that troll who works Seattle Hundreds and never takes a vacation?
I took up blowing bubbles from a child's soap bubble pipe whenever the smokers took a break.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In my anecdotal experience it's the biggest slackers who notice and complain about stuff like that.
Also it's been widely known for quite a while now that taking frequent breaks increases productivity because we work better in "sprints" that are rewarded in the short term with a break. If I recall correctly it was coincidentally 15 minutes per hour of work.
Smoking is a gross habit and the 15 minute breaks are better spent doing something else but from an employer standpoint the 15 minute break people are getting more done than the people bitching about them.
Actually it's a lot of Asian cultures. I've heard about it in Korea, but I've experienced it in Japan and mainland China.
Annual vacation hours, that is
in Japanese company you hit the bar after your 10 hour day at the office.
Depends on the company. Traditional Japanese companies with conservative management often do this, but it's becoming increasingly less common.
The solution: don't go work for these companies. As if there isn't enough to choose from.
Source: I live in Japan. I start work at 9:30 and leave at 18:30.
My site
I live in Canada i start at 8 leave at 16
The Japanese don't "hit the bar". The British "hit the bar". The Japanese "challenge their co-workers to a competitive drinking session".
Americans "hit the bar", the British "go to the pub"...
The reason is simply that they get up and walk during the workday, something the rest don't and thereby get better blodcirkulation.
Okay they walk to the coffie mashine but that is all. And they usually stay there for an long time. Smokers usually go back to work after finishing.
GP probably has a mandatory one hour lunch break and you don't.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I am a smoker - and I went through almost 12 months without anyone at that workplace even commenting.
I was the first into the office in the morning, and the last out - for years.
'Smokers' *already* know that they have to be 'seen' do do more to make up for the 2/3/4 5-min breaks a day.
Even skipping lunch 'hours' to make them 'lunch-at-the-desk-while-working'
The earlier post about the use of company time and resources on 'personal' use such as FB, I believe is a significantly worse issue, having seen what younger staff can do to a small-medium company internet connection using their office desktops and personal mobile devices.
I'm in the US. I start at 9 and leave at 5. Ha, I leave before I start, suckers!
Or maybe you start out being exceptionally attractive, but they don't let you leave until you're rather homely.
Good... Let the hate flow! Hate will make the conform.
It's fairly straightforward in the UK. Just don't allow smokers to take smoking breaks.
Put it in the contract of employment if you have to.
If they want to smoke at lunch time, or during any legally permitted minimum break, then go for it. But try and leave the building outside of that, and you're sacked.
I can't even count the number of times I go for a smoke, and people are standing around talking. And I'll see them standing there talking, and talking, and talking.
This goes on for much longer than my smoke break.
At one company there used to be a guy who literally made it around the office, all day long. You could time him.
but i betcha fiver they wouldnt do it for gay transsexual onelegged blind albino african americans , cos that would be RA CIST bleh
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
Not everybody has high medical costs in their last years. Try again.
Your special snowflake feelings are getting in the way again. Show some evidence to back up your special feelings for a change.