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This assumes people are working just because they aren't on a smoke break. If you work on a production line in a factory, it's fairly easy to see the output lev
by mmcconnell1618 9y ago
This assumes people are working just because they aren't on a smoke break. If you work on a production line in a factory, it's fairly easy to see the output level of your work. If you work in an office, there is not a simple measure. The non-smoking worker could just as easily spend the same time chatting it up around the water cooler.
Physical presence does not equal working time. I wish more managers understood that motivated workers will work and non-motivated workers will always find the path of least resistance. Remote or in-office doesn't matter that much.
- wccrawford 9y agoNo, I think it says that people feel they're working harder than smokers. So far as I can tell, there was no attempt to say they actually do work harder. The other half of this is that it incentivizes smokers to quit. This is about motivating non-smokers who are feeling de-motivated. And about helping people drop an unhealthy habit.
- musage 9y ago> Company based on 29th floor of Tokyo office block Similarly, I help people dropping the unhealthy habit of Tokyo high rise office blocks by not working there. Why mess about with symptoms when you can have the root cause?
- jdavis703 9y agoAs opposed to them working in spread out office parks, contributing to a sedentary, car-oriented lifestyle and air pollution?
- musage 9y agoI don't need to detail all your premises I didn't even buy in to to have made my choice. I'm just stating it. It doesn't require your permission or understanding, it already is.
- bluGill 9y agoWater cooler conversations is in fact the major advantage of having everybody coming to a physical office instead of working from home. The best ideas in a company start from someone around a water cooling mentioning a problem to someone else who comes up with a good answer. I know of a simple 2 week engineering project that almost didn't even get proposed because marketing thought it would be a multi-year project and the problem had to solved in a few months or the entire market would be gone. A chance waster cooler conversation with an engineer got the prototype done that afternoon and a small but valuable market was captured. The smokers I know are not just taking a break and doing nothing. They are talking a break with other smokers and having conversations. Sometimes they are about family, but sometimes they are about work subjects and they solve real work problems.
- RHSeeger 9y ago> The smokers I know are not just taking a break and doing nothing. They are talking a break with other smokers and having conversations. Sometimes they are about family, but sometimes they are about work subjects and they solve real work problems. True. The people taking smoke breaks aren't doing anything differently than those at the water cooler (other than, you know, smoking).
- dingaling 9y agoAnother great trick for encouraging spontaneous conversation is to have a couple of cheap plastic-mould "visitors' chairs" at each desk. At my first office we had this arrangement and it was a boon for continuing ad hoc meetings which started in corridors or at the printer. "Grab a chair, let's have a look at the database..." Unfortunately we moved to a more "modern" office with higher-density desking and no spare space.
- stronglikedan 9y agoNot to mention the amount of problems that are solved over a cigarette. I don't know if it was placebo, or a mental jolt from the nicotine, but I've come up with many a solution on a cigarette break. I don't smoke any more (thankfully), but when I did it at work, I was usually thinking of a work problem, and thus working.
- jacobush 9y agoOr taking a break from the work problem, thus giving the brain some slack so it could solve stuff. Thus working. :)
- _jal 9y agoThis. It happens that a couple close co-workers also smoke, and we are working while outside. This part has nothing to do with cigarettes, but I do think talking over work in different contexts is useful. I can't prove anything, but am convinced that more creativity in problem solving comes out when meetings aren't always in a conference room.
- majewsky 9y agoYeah, this has nothing to do with the smoking. Just the fact that you allow your mind to wander. The same effect can be had from taking a shower.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]