Re that report that says that smoking breaks cause £ billions in losses.
Even if smoking breaks reduced productivity, it would – strictly speaking – be an externality created by smoking bans, not smoking per se.
That lad Snowdon’s pretty good, y’know?
Well, yeah, but we could say the same thing about insisting that workers go and shit in a toilet somewhere instead of letting them do it at their desks. I think it’s a given that there are some behaviours viewed as antisocial or inappropriate in the workplace; the rest is quibbling about what those behaviours are.
You would also need to offset any possible gains brought about by allowing smokers to smoke at their desks against losses caused by non-smokers finding it difficult to work in a smoky atmosphere. Stale cigarette smoke is a migraine trigger for lots of people, and migraines will fuck your productivity right up.
After I quit smoking, I still went outside with the smokers because you got to hear so much stuff across the company.
The Guardian pretends to care about businesses losing money.
Squander Two
“You would also need to offset any possible gains brought about by allowing smokers to smoke at their desks against losses caused by non-smokers finding it difficult to work in a smoky atmosphere.”
Indeed. You would.
Hey!
Results are in, people!
There was a study running up until a couple years back. Ran for…couple hundred years. Millions of participants.
Conclusion.
Losses too small to be worthwhile.
The comments on the guardian article are interesting. Most thought the research was a crock of shit.
@”Well, yeah, but we could say the same thing about insisting that workers go and shit in a toilet somewhere instead of letting them do it at their desks. I think it’s a given that there are some behaviours viewed as antisocial or inappropriate in the workplace; the rest is quibbling about what those behaviours are.
You would also need to offset any possible gains brought about by allowing smokers to smoke at their desks against losses caused by non-smokers finding it difficult to work in a smoky atmosphere. Stale cigarette smoke is a migraine trigger for lots of people, and migraines will fuck your productivity right up.
”
Very true. Also any asthmatics who can’t work.
I used to work for a small magazine. Everyone smoked but even had the workplace ban not come in, actually smoking in the tiny office would have made it intolerable (anyone remember smoking carriages on trains?), so we all went outside into the small courtyard area.
All of us.
On nice days we took out laptops out there, too, and did some work. Whilst smoking.
They never ever give up, and have no idea about how fucking ridiculous they make themselves.
Antisocial behaviour in the office should be banned. That includes smoking, shitting, farting, picking your nose, pissing, eating nosily at the desk, sexual activity.
Did you see what I did there?
The government netted £9.7bn in revenue from tobacco duty in 2012-13 (HMRC). Plus £2.6bn in VAT (TMA estimate). If people didn’t smoke that revenue would have to come from somewhere else.
That is before you factor in smokers dying young and saving the NHS a ton of money.
@ Sad but mad lad –
hat you said plus chewing gum.
SadButMadLad,
> Did you see what I did there?
Yes, you criminalised Parliament. Good call.
More seriously, I think it’s a mistake to indulge any of these sorts of productivity studies with a technical response, as doing so just gives credibility to their premise. If someone comes up with a study showing that a smoking ban somehow increases GDP, the correct response is “Who gives a fuck? It’s a matter of freedom, which is worth spending money on.” If instead you prove that their study is flawed, you implicitly concede the ground that they’d have a point if it weren’t.
For instance, we could cut the crime rate with a strictly enforced curfew. So what?