Extra smoking breaks

[Shiningstarr]

In our work, we can't smoke unless on our break. It means leaving our work area, going outside to somewhere off site and smoking.

Work is really tough at the moment. For many reasons. Don't want to give too much info as it will be outing. But let's just say if the person I'm working with goes out for a fag (outside of their break time), then I have to cover them and do their work.

We've got a few new starters and they seem to go out together for fags 3-4 times over the shift, each time they are gone 15 mins.

I don't want to be that person, but how is this fair? That's an extra hour away from the work area.

Don't know whether to bring it up with the manager or not. For info the manager is a non smoker, like myself.

Definitely bring it up. Don’t mention names yet.

It's not fair and you need to bring it up with your manager. If your manager is any good they will be able to address it without name dropping.

I'm an ex-smoker and don't blame you at all for wanting to raise this, maybe just be careful about how you do it.

I don't think I'd take the route of complaining about time away from work. That assumes that nobody else takes breaks, and I'm sure they do. It's less obvious if you're not physically leaving the site.

The communal fag breaks are probably what I would raise first. If two or more people are missing from the shift at any given time, that presumably means more slack for others to pick up, which really isn't fair.

Agree they're taking he piss with the 15 minutes per cigarette. I used to be away from my desk for the same amount of time as it took for other colleagues to make a cup of tea.

We had this problem in my previous work place, it wasn't me that pointed it out as their absence during the cig break didn't impact me whatsoever but a different colleague complained and it didn't go down well. The smokers then said they didn't take coffee or tea breaks gossiping at each others desk wasting more time than them. They just went had a cig and came back etc. I guess your work place is a different set up and I guess going in a group is a problem as they have a long chat there as well and going 3-4 times a work day outside their break time as opposed to mid morning and late afternoon cig like in my previous workplace.

It's not fair , I wonder why your manager hasn't picked up on it.

The new starters probably don't realise, if nobody has explicitly told them. Might have come from a more relaxed workplace where they could go out as and when they pleased. At my place it wouldn't be an issue to pop out whenever for a cig as long as you got your work done. Plenty of us non-smokers have the same time away from 'work' going to make a cuppa.

I'd personally advise keeping your nose out if you don't have standing to address it directly. Management will become aware at some point and then it's down to them what they do about it. You'll look quite petty if they think you're going to tell on them and that you're sat there adding up the amount of time they're aware from the desk and thinking it's not fair.

At my old place of work we'd get a 20 min break and an hour for lunch. People can choose to split it how they like so cig breaks come from that rather than extra time away from desks. A

It should just be smoke on your breaks
We get 2 x 15 min breaks and a 30 min lunch
No breaks apart from that, no going out to smoke/wander etc