Gregory K. Ruiz-Ade wrote:
On Aug 15, 2007, at 4:09 PM, Alan wrote:
Why not just take your own breaks, rather than screwing up his?
Most of us are good about taking breaks without effectively robbing the
company of time.
A smoker, taking a "smoke break" 6 times a day, for 5-10 minutes each
time, is getting nearly an hour of paid break time, when most other
employees only get 20-30 minutes (excluding lunch, if your employer pays
for your lunch break).
It's equity. Either everyone gets all that time, or no one does.
Then I call you an idiot. And not for the reason you think.
In the case that was originally cited, this was a technician in assembly
in *production*. Time on line *matters*.
In the case of more creative work (engineering, sysadmin, etc.), time is
not a good measure of productivity. Using it as such makes you a idiot.
It also feeds the whole "productivity is sitting in the chair" rather
than "productivity is getting stuff done" problem that plagues American
business.
Some of the most useful time I spent at a previous employer was
regularly taking a "smoke break" with the sysadmin team. I actually got
to talk to them when they were relaxed and not knee deep in work. They
got to talk to me when I wasn't pressing them to get crap done. I got
to understand what was causing them grief. They got to find out that I
understood what they did and what the consequences to my requests were.
It made things a *lot* smoother between our groups.
Besides, the whole "smoke break equity" thing is more than a little
hypocritical. Part of the reason Starbucks is so successful is that it
is a socially acceptable, white collar smoke break.
And Starbucks runs inevitably take longer than the equivalent smoke
breaks scattered throughout the day.
-a
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